Project Veggie: Day 27 – Roasted Sweet Pepper Quiche

Sometimes I plan dinner and then go buy the stuff to make it.  But sometimes I go to the store and find cool stuff and then have to figure out what to do with it.  A couple of days ago at the store these little beauties were calling out to me.  “Buy me!”  So I did.

Big bag o’ baby sweet peppers.

Now I had to find something to do with 2 pounds of sweet baby peppers.  No doubt many of them will find their way into Claire’s lunch.  And I’ll use a few here and there in other dinners just to add a little color and crunch.  But that still leaves a lot of peppers.  Luckily during the same shopping trip I came across my favorite pie crust on sale which sparked an idea.  Roasted pepper quiche.  Who cares if I haven’t made it before?  I’ve made quiche.  I’ve roasted peppers. The great thing about quiche is with an excellent basic recipe, you can pretty much mix and match whatever ingredients you like to put into it.

My stepmom, Sheila, gave me this basic quiche recipe when she and my dad owned a bed & breakfast in Taos, New Mexico.  Some of the best breakfasts I’ve ever eaten happened there.  What a cool place.  Up until then, I had tried a few different quiche recipes, but this one is absolutely foolproof and so delicious.

One note about pie crust.  Maybe you love to make pie crust.  If you do, go for it.  But for me, my passion lies in cooking, not baking so much, and pie crust is hard to get right. For some people it’s an art form.  I love those people.  I’m not one of them. Pillsbury makes a great fresh pie crust that you just unroll and plop in the pan and it tastes terrific and has a nice texture.  On most things I don’t care much about the brand names but this is not one of those things!  Go with the dough boy on this one.  The store brand is not as good in my opinion.

Roasted Sweet Pepper Quiche and Winter Fruit Salad

Roasted Pepper Quiche

1 pie crust
1 pound baby sweet peppers (or you could use bell peppers)
1/2 cup sliced mushrooms
1 shallot, chopped
1/4 cup chopped green onions
5 eggs
1 1/2 cups half & half
Salt & pepper
3/4 cup Gruyere or swiss cheese, shredded

Spread peppers out on a cookie sheet and put under the broiler for a few minutes on each side until they turn mostly black.  Put them in a paper or plastic bag to cool.  After that you can take the skins off easily if you want.  With bigger peppers I usually do skin them, but with the small ones, I left them on.  Chop up the peppers and set aside.

Preheat oven to 425˚.  Place pie crust in 9″ pie pan (I usually dust it with flour on the bottom so it doesn’t stick).  Press down in the pan and crimp edges with a fork.  Put roasted peppers, mushrooms, green onions and shallots in the pie crust.  (Note:  if you want a less juicy quiche, you can saute the mushrooms and onions first and drain off any liquid before adding them to the pie crust.  Personally, I don’t mind a little extra juiciness so I put them in raw more often than not.) Top with shredded cheese.  In a separate bowl whisk together eggs, half & half, and a pinch of salt & pepper.  Pour over veggies and cheese in pie crust.  Do not overfill.  Carefully set it in the preheated oven.  Bake at 425˚ for 15 minutes.  Then turn the temp down to 375˚ and bake an additional 30 minutes.  Take it out and let it sit for 10 minutes to set up.  Don’t skip this step.  Use the time to throw together a fruit salad or green salad to go with it.  Slice and eat.  It’s also good cold the next day if you have any leftovers.

Roasted Sweet Pepper Quiche, right out of the oven.

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