Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Spinach and Feta Quiche

One of the saddest things about pregnancy is that you are advised against eating soft (aka the best) cheeses unless they are cooked through.  This means that, as a result of my love for soft cheese, I have been making a lot of hot dishes with my beloved feta, goat cheese, etc.  Here is one example of this in action.  Don't be scared or think that you cannot make a quiche.  This is so easy, all it requires is a little time.  Even the crust is fool-proof.  On that note-I say this every time, but please do not do this recipe the injustice of serving it over a store-bought pie crust.  It will save you about a half hour if you do, but you will be sacrificing all of the flavor and instead you will be eating a delicious filling surrounded by cardboard.  Ok, that's all of the judgment and lecturing that you will get out of me tonight.  Thank you for listening. One other word of caution: Eat this with something healthy like carrot sticks, or a light salad.  This will help you to feel better about this delicious, butter-laden decadence that you are about to eat.



For the crust:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt   
 3-6 Tablespoons ice water
1/2 cup (1 stick) cold butter or Shortening

For the spinach and feta Filling:
2 Tbsps olive oil
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 medium yellow onion, diced
8-12 ounces fresh chopped spinach
8 ounces feta cheese 
1 cup milk
nutmeg to taste
salt and pepper to taste
2 egg yolks 
3 eggs



To make the Crust:
-Mix the flour and the salt together in a medium bowl.
-Cut the butter into the flour and salt mixture until it resembles coarse peas -Drizzle the ice water over the top of the dough starting with 3 tablespoons and adding more as needed
-mix the dough until it starts to come together. Form the dough into a disk and refrigerate for 30 minutes
To make the filling:
 -Preheat the oven to 375 degrees f.
Do this while the crust is refrigerating-It will take you about 30 minutes.
-Heat the olive oil over medium heat
-Sweat the onion and garlic in the olive oil until the onions are translucent
-Add the spinach to this mixture and continue cooking until the spinach is just cooked, not completely soggy and wilted. Remove from
the heat.
-Crumble the feta into the spinach mixture and mix together. Set aside to cool. -Pull your pie dough out of the refrigerator and roll out on a lightly floured board to the size you need for your pie plate 
-Place the rolled out dough in the pie plate, place the spinach mixture in the dough.
-Beat together the eggs, yolks and milk. Add a little bit of nutmeg, fresh ground pepper.  Pour this mixture over the spinach/feta mix in the pie shell and mix together with your hands carefully so as not to puncture the crust.
-Flute or fold the edges of your pie crust . You can either bake this now, or chill until you need it.
-Bake for about 45-60 minutes, or until  brown on top and the eggs have set up.

1 comment:

  1. So..............................................................................................................................good.

    ReplyDelete