Best part of Thanksgiving, or heck, any holiday meal? Leftovers. Yes, but by the fourth day you are starting to wonder if the food is even safe to eat. And then you start to convince yourself it isn’t simply because you love turkey, but if you have to eat it one more day you might go into a permanent turkey-coma.
Maybe that’s why we only do it three times a year. It’s like egg nog, pumpkin spice, mint – they’re only available for a limited period of time so you never get sick of them, you gorge yourself the day they become available, and BAM! Just before you get entirely sick of it, the season is over and you go back to wishing it was on again. Nature clearly figured it out a long time ago, hence seasonal produce, though thanks to the marvels of modern technology and 18-wheeler trucks most fruits and veggies can be found year-round. I feel bad for people living in warmer climates now. Most of our “seasonal produce” is because we have actual seasons here in Canada.
Back to the issue at hand though – the leftovers. I hate to waste. But about two years ago, two days into the leftovers, I was already sick of them. We had already eaten all the turkey after giving most of it away in a fit of cleverly disguised generosity, but there was still ham in the fridge. None of us felt like eating ham on its own anymore, so my mom put in a request for me to come up with something that would use the ham but wouldn’t be just ham. My first thought was a quiche, which went over surprisingly well given that my mom doesn’t actually like eggs. Only problem was that neither of us had ever made a quiche. I figured it can’t be that hard, so I took to the internet in search of some clue on how to make a quiche.
You would think having no experience making quiche I would just follow a recipe. No Siree, Bob.
The problem was that the internet kept telling me to use cream, or strangely enough, mayo. If you’ve read about my penne alla vodka, you know I don’t really like cream in anything, and quite frankly I hate mayo too, it just doesn’t seem natural to me. So I ended up with a vague idea of how long and at what temperature to cook it, and a range of eggs to use, which was apparently good enough for me at the time. Turns out I should try making new recipes without any clue what I’m doing more often, because this quiche was amazing. I overcame the cream issue by swapping it for cream cheese and a little bit of milk. The ham was chopped up and thrown in, so that got rid of the ham dilemma. I also mixed in veggies to make this even healthier, but this quiche is the reason I’m ok with leftovers again.
What I love about this recipe is how versatile it is – I usually use broccoli, ham, tomatoes, and feta, but you could do this with a tex-mex flair and add 1-2 tbsp of taco or cajun seasoning mix, you can add 1-2 tsp of dried herbs (rosemary, oregano, and basil works well), if you want to make it meatless you can, if you want to make it veggie-less you can. Whatever you really want to do works in the fillings department.
What you need to make your own delicious quiche:
- 4 large/extra large eggs
- ½ tub light cream cheese (Chive & Onion or Herb & Garlic work best, but you can use whatever flavour you want)
- 2 tbsp (skim) milk
- 1 deep dish pie crust
- 2 cups fillings (For example:)
- ¼ to ½ cup cheese (I usually use Feta, but this works equally well with grated cheeses)
Now what?
- Preheat oven to 375F.
- Whisk eggs and milk together. Add cream cheese, it is going to be lumpy, it’s not going to look all smooth, that’s fine! Just break up the cream cheese so it will be reasonably incorporated.
- Add fillings and cheese and mix in. At this point it will look something like this:
- Pour mixture into the pie crust and put on a cookie sheet (makes it easier to get it in/out)
- Bake for 35-45 minutes or until eggs appear set. Let cool for 5 minutes and enjoy!
Try it out and let me know below what new combinations you’ve tried out!
climbing the crazy tree 