Quiche Revisited

Years ago when our four kids were still quite young (none in school), I got to know a few young moms with kids.  Our kids played while we chit chatted over coffee, a fairly regular morning routine.  We'd take turns making cookies or some type of snack to enjoy.  A lot of that chit chat revolved around food, sharing recipes and tips.  One of the moms shared her tomato and broccoli quiche recipe.  The first time I made it, I omitted the tomatoes making it a broccoli quiche.  This versatile dish quickly became and remains a family favourite.

I have made this quiche so many times, I don't need to refer to the recipe.  The original recipe has bacon in it but I have substituted ham.  I have also substituted spinach and Swiss chard for the broccoli.  I normally make the quiche using a home made pie crust.  It is an inexpensive, frugal dish that always goes over well.

Quiche freezes nicely!  We arrived home from our winter vacation on December 20, 2012 to immediately jump into holiday entertaining.  Some of that meant our kids and grandkids staying overnight for a couple of nights so we had quite the full house.  My husband, aiming to make things easy bought four ready to use frozen pie crusts.  Then he bought three dozen eggs thinking we would go through a lot with hot breakfasts.  So the first week of January, I had eggs and a lot of left-overs to use up.

Pictured are two of the four quiches I made to use up some of the eggs and pie crusts.  Two of the quiche were used for dinner that night and my husband's lunch the following day.  Two were wrapped for the freezer.  My freezer space is at a premium right now but it was nice to be able to put a couple of ready meals up for later use.

Normally when freezing quiche, I use home made crust but aluminium pie plates bought at the dollar store.  I usually make six at a time.  The dollar store has a wide variety of aluminium trays in various sizes perfect for freezing casseroles in.  The best price I have found for the deeper dish, rectangular casserole trays is Sam's Club at 30 for $6.98 or 23¢ but you have to buy 30 at a time which is fine for me but if you aren't doing a lot of bulk cooking, the dollar store may be a better option.