My quick and easy baking trick

So as I mentioned in my last post I came up with a quick trick for saving the crust of my quiche from getting too burned.

I remember when I was younger watching my mom make a pumpkin pie for a church potluck.  I watched as she painstakingly took a long strip of aluminum foil and tacked it around the pie with toothpicks.  Of course, whenever I have tried this it always fell off.  As I watched the crust of my quiche getting too toasty I was debating on whether I should try it again when I got this idea.  It worked perfectly and only took me about a minute.  Really.

I pulled off a sheet of aluminum foil and put one of my dinner plates on it upside-down.  My plates are 11 inches in diameter and I'm sure that is a pretty standard size.  My pie plates are 9 inches.  You can go around it with an ink pen to make things easier but you don't have to.  The ink doesn't matter: it is the impression it makes. Then you hold the plate down while you pull the foil up and tear it off around the plate edge.

The first time I did this I didn't use a pen and it still worked fine but when I took these pictures I used the pen and it was faster and the foil tore more evenly.

Then you fold it in half and just guestimate and cut a half circle from the center like this.  I drew a dashed line with a sharpie just to show you were I cut.  You don't really need to draw a line.  If your pie is 9" figure about 2.5 inches in from the edge (if your plates are 11 inch).  Just eyeball it and cut. You can do it!

Then I just used my fingers to bend the edge down about half an inch from the edge.

It should sit right over your pie easy as you know what lol

My pie plates are all clear Pyrex.  I swear that foil isn't just sitting there on the counter.  This ring easily sits on so you can drop it on when you need to.  I'll use this one soon I'm sure since my husband is really liking the quiche.

Quiche Capisce?

A friend of mine posted on her blog about a quiche recipe she was trying.  This month she is trying something new every day so it is pretty interesting.  You should go check it out.  When I read about the quiche I realized I had never tried it either.  I think maybe I ate a tiny little baby party quiche one time but I'm not really sure now.  I have never even thought about making one before.  So I printed up the recipe and told my husband about it.  After I listed off the different ingredients and the changes I was thinking of he was all for trying it.  He does the grocery shopping since it is pretty taxing for me but he got the stuff for it within a few days.

I made the first one last night (meaning Sunday) and I kept messing up and having to cleverly fix a bunch of things.  I don't do a lot of cooking these days because I get so wiped out so fast.  My boys help a LOT with the cooking.  Son #2, who is 17, does the most.  I think he enjoys it like his dad.  Son #1, who is 20, likes to cook also but he is a little OCD and doesn't like to cook or handle certain things because of the consistency or whatever.  He still helps a lot when needed.  I'm very blessed with those two.

Anyway, Sunday when I decided I was going to make this thing they were not available and I had been feeling bad already.  I couldn't get it off my mind though and my husband was hoping I would make it.  So I decided that I could handle it if I planned things and used my on-feet time wisely.  I was so proud of myself when I finally pushed the dish in the oven and then I turned around and saw a measuring cup with milk in it still sitting on the counter.  Oh shoot!  I quickly but not too quickly pulled it back out, dumped the milk in it and used a fork to mix it in.  Then I put it back in the oven even more carefully because it was pretty full.  I set the timer for 19 minutes (which means I have a minute to get up and over to the stove).  The recipe said to reduce the temperature but when I went to do that is was already that temperature.  Ugh.  So I turned it up to where it should have been for 10 minutes and then cooked it for 10 minutes at the lower temperature.  It was obviously done and no way there was any liquid left in that thing.  The crust around the edge was a nice shade of burnt brown and not very tasty but the rest of it, including the quiche itself, was pretty darned good.  I was pretty happy with myself when my husband wanted more and then after a little bit came back and finished it off.  Of course neither one of my boys would even try it.  They wont eat eggs.

Today (Monday) my husband called from work and wanted to know what we needed to have it again. Well, well, well... I think someone likes quiche.  He grabbed some more sausage and two more of the roll out pie crusts from Safeway on the way home.

The original recipe is here if you are interested but I'm going to tell you how I made it BAD (meaning the opposite of healthy)  I was really hoping to get my picky family to like something new.  I can always healthy it up later but if they know it has skim milk and fat free cheese they wouldn't even try it.  It has sausage in it anyway.

Ingredients:

• 1 – 9 inch pie shell  (I used the refrigerated roll out ones from Safeway and they are pretty good)
• 3/4 pounds hot or sweet sausage (I used Jimmie Dean half maple pork and half HOT pork)
• Half white onion chopped
• 1 1/4 cup grated cheddar cheese (I mixed in a little mozzarella)
• 1/4 cup grated parmesan
• 3 large eggs
• 1/2 cup half and half
• 1/4 cup 2% milk
• Weber Roasted Garlic & Herb seasoning (from walmart)
• A little Garlic Salt in the egg mixture
• Lots of fresh ground black pepper

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 425.
2. Bake shell in for 7 min or until it just golden.
3. While shell is baking, cook sausage with the onion and Weber garlic seasoning.  Drain and mix sausage and cheese in a bowl.  Add pepper to taste.
4. Spread the mixture in the bottom of the pie shell.
5. Whisk together eggs, half and half and milk in bowl.  (Make sure nothing gets left sitting on the counter in a measuring up!)  Add a little garlic salt and pepper.  Pour egg mixture over sausage mixture and bake on baking sheet for 20 minutes.

**At this point I added mozzarella and bacon on top and added foil to the already-starting-to-burn crust

1. Reduce oven temperature to 350 and bake for an additional 10-15 minutes until center of quiche is no longer runny.  

AND WAH LA!  Quiche ala FATTENING

This one was at least as good as the first one.  The first one used apple wood smoked sausage and that was darned good too.  The toppings cleverly hid the top and Son #2 actually ate a slice not realizing he was eating eggs.  YAYAYAYAYAY!  <-- This is where I would have done a flip if it wouldn't have killed me.

I figured out a clever little trick while making this and next time I'll do it a little earlier.  I'll make another little demo post for that later since I've been sitting for way too long and not feeling so hot.  

Click here to see my quick picture tutorial.