Mini Quiche Now with Pictures!

So I have thought about all sorts of things to call these little bites of yummy, but nothing too creative, in my head I call them random leftover quiche, but I don't think that sounds too amazing as an actual name. So I thought I would turn it into a french name to give it some panache. So I now present Les restes aléatoires quiche. (If I got that wrong please tell me)I call it that because I make it with the things that I usually have in my fridge that are about to go bad. I eat a ton of spinach and mushrooms so I buy a lot, by the end of the week I always have some left that isn't salad ready, but isn't ready to be thrown away. This is my most common recipe but you can make it with anything. Another popular version is to take a half a pound of cooked bacon and use a large onion and crumble together.

Les Restes Aléatoires Quiche

2-3c. fresh spinach (finely chopped)
1c. crimini mushrooms (finely chopped)
1 med onion (white, yellow, red, whatever) (finely chopped)
2 T olive oil
1.5 c shredded cheese
4 eggs
1/4 t black pepper
Scant 1/4 t nutmeg
Refrigerated Pie crust (not in the pans but rolled out)

1. Ahead of time (anywhere from 48 hours to 4 hours). Preheat the olive oil to medium heat in a large skillet. Add onions, while the onions are softening I chop the mushrooms. Add the mushrooms, while they are cooking chop the spinach. Cook over low heat until the whole mixture is well wilted. Turn off the heat. Place a VERY clean dish towel in a colander, put the entire veggie mixture into the towel, let the liquid drip out, gather up the sides of the towel and squeeze out as much liquid as possible. Place into the fridge to cool. (should be between 1-1.5c total

2. Preheat oven to 375. Take the pie crust out of the package and cut into 3in circles. ( I use a cookie cutter, but a biscuit cutter, or even the top of a glass would all work) Grease a mini muffin pan. Place one circle in each mini muffin pan carefully.

3. In a medium mixing bowl hand mix the veggie mixture, eggs, cheese, and spices. Then scoop a small amount of mix into each pie crust lined muffin cup. The mixture should come to about 1/16 inch below the top of the crust. Unless you have two pans you will probably have some mix left.

4. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes. They should be puffy and golden brown. Let cool for 3-5 min them remove to cooling rack.

5. You can now re-line the muffin cups with crust and fill and bake again.

Makes appx 3 dozen mini quiche.

Not my favorite month so far.

It's only halfway through January, and let me tell you, this is already not my favorite month in recent history. It's been hard, much harder than I thought it would be. Some of the difficulties have been minor or all in my head, others have been hard but not something I can share with the world and some have been expected but hard nonetheless.

I'll start with the two hardest. The first is that we had to make the decision to put our family pet to sleep. My husband and I have had Pepper since before we had children, and she was as much a part of our family as our children were. I joked with him that I was actually more married to the dog since he has been deployed twice since we got her, when he was gone she was my protector, cuddler, and the one whose shoulder I cried on. We knew that she wouldn't be around forever, she was over her minimum life expectancy and her hips had been steadily getting worse for years. So we decided to keep from having her being constant pain, or so drugged up that she couldn't function it was kindest to her to have her put to sleep. So first thing on the 8th of January DH took Pepper to the vet and came home without her.

The other hard thing has been that we found out that DH will be deploying again this fall. This one wasn't unexpected, in fact we can pretty much plan on it, but I never stop hoping that he will get to stay home.

The not so hard, but not so fun thing, I turned 30. I know that 30 isn't old anymore, but it felt like I was ending an era that I wasn't sure I wanted to be over. Actually my 30th birthday was the 8th, the same day that we put Pepper to sleep. It wasn't slated to be a stellar day but all in all turned out ok. My best friend drove up here for the weekend and we went shopping, then we went out to dinner and watched some football.

So that has been the start of the year 2011 for me. I am hoping that it can only go up from here. I do have some fun stuff planned for this blog in the next few weeks, and a few more recipes that are huge hits with my family, and of course I'll be experimenting with some too. I can't wait!