This month’s ingredient is leeks! To fully explore leeks, we decided to accept Nikki‘s suggestion that we make a leek quiche, and to make it more fun, we both made this recipe from our separate East and West coast kitchens. It wasn’t difficult to settle on this leek and mushroom quiche recipe from smitten kitchen. Seriously, how much do you love smitten kitchen? SO MUCH, right? Okay moving on. Take a look at the quiche experience from our different perspectives.
Corelyn’s Quiche:
I decided that my biggest priority for this quiche was to add bacon. Sometimes I forget that bacon exists and that it’s delicious. I also forget about the magic of bacon grease! So, my major additions to this recipe were 8 pieces of bacon, fried until crispy and chopped, and a healthy dose of bacon grease.
My kitchen gets the best light in the late afternoon. Please forgive the fact that all of my photos are moody and full of shadows…
After 15 – 20 minutes of stewing, my leeks looked like this!
Meanwhile, I sauteed some mushrooms in a little butter, port, and (you guessed it) bacon grease. GREAT DECISION. This smelled divine.
Elsewhere, I cracked some eggs. Please note that this picture was taken while craning my head to talk to my mom on the phone.
Then I mixed in the cream and my chopped bacon. The recipe does say you can use milk if you wish. I did not wish. I used heavy cream. I should also mention that I doubled the recipe to make 2 quiches. In case you’ve noticed that this is an awfully large bowl of egg, cream, and bacon mixture.
Mixing in the leeks and mushrooms…
So, full disclosure: the smitten kitchen recipe includes a recipe for your own pastry dough. I’m sure it’s delicious, and I’m sure Jennie’s version of this quiche was 100% from scratch, but we all know I don’t bake that much. I bought frozen pie crusts. Flaky, delicious, easy!
Cover in cheese right before it goes in the oven!
I used Gruyere, because my cooking partner was Mary and she LOVES Gruyere. The recipe called for Swiss, so it was really just an upgrade.
I made two quiches and they lasted less than 24 hours.It was absolutely delicious. If I would change anything, I might add more leeks and just saute them in some butter and bacon grease rather than boiling them and letting them stew for 20 minutes.
Jennie’s Quiche:
I decided to make my quiche crust, since I am after a baker by nature.
Start with your flour, salt, and sugar. Pulse a few times in your food processor, then add your cold, cut-up butter.
After you pulse, it should look like this. Now you’re going to add cold water.
Pulse a little, and you’ll get to this. Perfect dough. It shouldn’t be sticky.
Wrap it in plastic and stick it in the refrigerator for an hour. However, if you’re me, and you put it in the freezer, then you’ll have frozen dough and it’ll be a terrible thing because you’ll be in a rush to get out the door and have frozen dough. Don’t be me; put your dough in the fridge.
Meanwhile, while that’s in the refrigerator, cut up some leeks. Now, most of you know I rarely clean/rinse my produce, but with leeks, you gotta, or else they’re covered in sand and dirt.
Once your leeks are cut up, you can put them into steam with some butter, and some water, and some salt. Let them stew in there for about 25 minutes.
Because I couldn’t find it, and because I mostly like Baby Swiss better, I switched to this from Swiss.
I used crimini mushrooms, because I like them better, and because I could.
I also added rosemary, because it was at the farmer’s market when I picked up the leeks. I must say, I do love living in California because I can get things like rosemary fresh in Los Angeles in January.
You’re going to put your mushrooms in with…you guessed it, butter! We didn’t say this was healthy.
Now, as Corelyn mentioned, she used cream. I had cream but also was trying to be conscious of health, so I used 1/2 cup cream, and a cup of milk. It turned out just fine, so I think you can do it either way.
And I added my spices…salt, pepper, and rosemary!
Back to the dough. After it’s chilled, roll it out and then roll it onto your pin.
Now we’re getting somewhere. Smooth it out into the pie tin/tart pan, and cut of the excess. Vent the bottom, and then we’re going to add tin foil and pie weights.
I used beans…the cheapest I could find, and they worked just fine! I even saved them to use for the next go around.
After you par-bake it, it’ll look something like this. Add your egg mixture now, that you’ve incorporated your leeks and mushrooms into.
Delicious. Top with the cheese. And bake!
Here’s the completed quiche. If I were to change anything, I’d add more mushrooms than I used (I used about 8 small mushrooms) and make sure to refrigerate my dough.
As you can see, east to west coast, we definitely have differences in how we interpret and make recipes, based on what’s available to us. What would you do differently? Add a different vegetable, or maybe more cheese? Let us know what you think!
[addtoany] Yum