National Pi Day Quiche

I don't know when or where it started, but yesterday (March 14) was National Pi Day.  HA!  Get it?  Because 3.14 is Pi?!  Ha.  Pi.

Anyway, maybe I fell in love with this "holiday" because I'm a geek.  Or, maybe because everyone was posting pie recipes in celebration.  Maybe it's a mix of both, because food geeks love pie.  (They say pie is the new cupcake, you know.)  Probably, though, none of it matters except for the fact that I used Pi Day as an excuse to make quiche for dinner.  You know, egg pie.  (That sounded vaguely dirty, but I'm trying to help explain myself.)  Additionally, my refrigerator is close to bare naked and I had a limited number of ingredients to work with.  Necessity breeds invention, though, and it was necessary that I have something tasty for dinner despite the profound lack of food in my house.

And so, National Pi Day Quiche was born.  A couple frankensteined quiche recipes were hastily stitched together to make something that I'm just as excited about today as I was yesterday.  (I brought leftovers for lunch!)  Bear in mind that this recipe was created to fit the ingredients that I had on hand, though it's simple enough to welcome changes and substitutions to please anyone.

NATIONAL PI DAY QUICHE

(Adapted primarily from this superb TastyKitchen.com recipe for Quiche Lorraine)

INGREDIENTS:

1 9-inch frozen pie crust (you don't need to defrost beforehand)

4 slices bacon

1/4 medium onion, chopped

1/2 cup fresh spinach

1 cup cheddar cheese, grated

3/4 cup heavy cream

1/4 cup sour cream

1/2 cup milk

4 eggs

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

Salt and pepper, to taste

1 - 2 tbsp. melted butter

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Cook the bacon in a medium sized frying pan.  When it's brown and just starting to get crispy, place it on a paper towel to help absorb some of the grease, and let it cool.  Drain all but a tablespoon of the bacon fat from the pan, and toss in the chopped onions.  Saute for about 10 minutes, until they are translucent to brown in color.  Rinse and dry the spinach and add it to the onions.  Saute for another 8 to 10 minutes, or until the spinach has wilted.  Remove from heat.

In a mixing bowl, whisk together the cream, sour cream, milk and eggs until smooth and creamy-like.  Toss in the nutmeg and season with salt and pepper.

Chop or crumble the bacon and toss back into the spinach and onions, then dump the mixture into the frozen pie crust.  Add the cup of cheese and gently mix it all together.  Carefully pour the egg and cream mixture into the pie shell, evenly over the cheese and bacony spinachy bits.  Yeah, I made those words up.  Be careful not to overfill your pie crust, and protect your oven by putting the whole thing on top of a cookie sheet to catch any wayward spillage.  Put it in the oven and bake for 20 minutes at 450 degrees.

After 20 minutes, turn your oven down to 350 degrees.  Brush the top of the quiche with the melted butter and bake for another 15 minutes at 350.  When done, let stand and cool for 15 to 20 minutes so that the quiche sets.  Grab your fork and enjoy!