Leek, Mushroom, and Tomato Quiche (with Parmesan Cracker Crust)

This week in our CSA box, we received a leek. I’ve never cooked with a leek. I don’t know why, I just never really knew what to do with it, so I never bought it at the market. And now that one was given to me, I figured I’d better find a recipe worthy of celebrating such an occasion.

I’ve only made quiche once before, and it turned out ridiculously good. Seriously, I order quiche quite a bit when we go out, and some spots are alright, others are…. meh. The filling seems too eggy, milky, jiggly and bland. This recipe is killer. It’s cheese-heavy, which makes is so much more flavorful and solid than some. So I went back to my original recipe in regards to the egg-and-cheese ratio. Everything else got substituted!

I’ve been on a serious homemade-cracker kick ever since I discovered this recipe, and I had the genius idea to use it as a pie crust for quiche. I had made a double batch of crackers earlier in the day, so made some extra dough to save for quiche crust later that night. I rolled it out, laid it in the shell and prepped it to par-bake for about 10 minutes or so, just to give it a head start of the egg.

Anyone new to par-baking, there are weights out there you can buy to keep the crust from bubbling up, but I find beans work just fine, and are a heck of a lot cheaper. I just reuse them and keep them in a jar.

I got out all of our veggies for the quiche - along with leeks this week, we received mushrooms and tomatoes in our CSA box, and those went perfectly with the mild onion flavor of the leek.

Josh got to work on the cheese. I’ve mentioned before he’s the official cheese shredder in the house. Side note - I hate shredding cheese. I’d rather do dishes. As a kid when it was my job to shred cheese for dinner, I balked and groaned every time. I still hate it. The other day I figured I’d just take care of it myself (I think Josh was busy doing something else), and about 5 strokes into it, the grater attacked my hand and I looked like I had pissed off Wolverine. (I enjoy being melodramatic.) Now, Josh is really, seriously, hands-down the official cheese shredder in the house. Which is good, because he doesn’t mind doing it and can snack on it to his heart’s content.

For this recipe, we used 1 cup of sharp cheddar, 2/3 cup of feta, and 1/2 cup of parmesan. Yum!

While Josh worked on the cheese and egg mixture, I started on the veggies. Sliced up the leek…

Then I sliced up about 6 mushrooms…

And quartered a handful of cherry tomatoes…

Then I sauteed up the leeks and mushrooms first.

Once they’re fragrant and softened, I added the tomatoes, just to heat them up and get them a bit saucy. ;)

Then we added all the veggies into the bowl of eggy custard mix. This consisted of 5 eggs, 1/2 cup of milk, sprinkle of salt, 1 tablespoon of flour, and all that lovely cheese.

It all got mixed up together and poured into our shell.

Now, since the crust had already been par-baked to keep the bottom from getting soggy, and since it was actually a dough for crackers and a bit more delicate, I covered the crust in foil so it wouldn’t brown too quickly.

Bake for about 30-40 minutes, or until a knife comes out clean. Let it stand a few minutes before slicing. It turned out amazing!!

Tags: Veggies

This entry was posted on April 01st, 2009 and is filed under Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.