Dining on a Budget: Mini Quiche

"Do I have to wait until dinner?"

I have always loved quiche, and mini ones are often served at parties as appetizers. The only problem I have with it is that there are so many delicious options for quiche, yet, when you make one, you have to choose just one. I love Quiche Lorraine (bacon, cheese and onions), but I equally love Spinach and Goat Cheese Quiche. Unfortunately, the two do not go very well together. Other things I love in quiche: mushrooms, tomatoes, potatoes, leeks...pretty much anything you can think of.

Thus the idea for the one person quiche. Mini quiche sounds cuter, but in reality, it's about equal to a slice of quiche. I'm not going to lie...I came up with this because we had some pie crust lying around (but if you make your own, it's so much better!) and we got some mini pie crusts for Christmas, and I've been trying to find excuses to use them for something!

This is a good recipe to use up ingredients you've got lying around that you're not going to use in anything else, because it takes so little of each.

FYI: this recipe does yield enough for a regular sized quiche too, if you're not feelin' the "mini." Depending on how many you make, this could be a lot of egg. I made 8, a little bit smaller than my hand, and I have about enough egg leftover to make myself a nice breakfast tomorrow morning!

What you'll need:

- 4 eggs

- 2 cups milk (or cream)

- salt and pepper to taste.

That is seriously all a quiche is. I was really surprised too. For the additional things, just choose what you want and lay it at the bottom of the pie dish.

This time I made 3 variations:

Quiche Lorraine: (I ended up making 4 of them)

- 100g of bacon (about 1/4 pound of bacon)

- One medium onion

- Shredded mozzarella or emmenthal (swiss) cheese (about a handfull).

Spinach and Goat Cheese:

- About 6-8 leaves of spinach (or more if you want) for each quiche.

- One slice of goat cheese per quiche

Tomato and Goat Cheese:

- One slice of tomato per quiche

- One slice of goat cheese per quiche.

Lets get cooking!

- If you're making the quiche Lorraine, start by cooking up your bacon. (Over here, bacon isn't really the same thing. It's like little bacon bits instead of slices. So I cook up my bacon and onion at the same time. If you're feeling up to it, cut the bacon in bits raw and add it together). If you don't cook the bacon and onion at the same time, take out your bacon and cook the onion in the fat left behind.

-If you're not making Quiche Lorraine, start here!

-Pre-heat your oven to 425F (220C).

- Break the 4 eggs in a large bowl and add the 2 cups of milk. Add salt and pepper to taste and then whisk it all together until it's homogenous.

-If you're using a pre-made crust, lay your mini pie tins on top and cut around, making it so that when it's in the pan, there's a good amount of overhang:

- Fill the pie crust by putting your ingredients in the bottom of it. Mine were full pretty much to the top, but don't pack the ingredients in the crust.

(Quiche Lorraine)

(Top: Tomato and Goat Cheese

Bottom: Quiche Lorraine)

- Take the excess crust and fold it over to make a nice edge. This will also help a little with runoff as the crust gets a little puffy and expands in the oven.

- Put a piece of tin foil on a baking sheet (there will probably be run off) and put the mini tins on it. Add the egg mixture so that with the ingredients it comes almost to the top (see picture below). I used an ice cream scoop as a ladle.

- Pop those babies in the pre-heated oven and cook for about 30 mins. Cooking time will change based on the size of the quiche. If you're making a size that's smaller than these, start with 10-15 minute increments. The quiche will be done when you can stick a toothpick in an eggy part and have it come out clean.