Sunday Cooking: Mustard Quiche

After a few months of Sunday Cooking, I've stocked up a good amount of frozen soups, sauce, burgers, pulled BBQ pork, and other foodstuffs. This weekend, I just wasn't in the mood for an all-day cooking extravaganza, so I took stock of what I had already prepared, and added just a few key items to my grocery list.

Instead of making a weekly soup, I will be eating my choice of (canned or frozen): smoky black bean, tomato, split pea, chicken noodle, butternut squash or carrot-ginger.

For veggies, I was in the mood for salad, so I picked up some romaine hearts and a bag of baby sweet peppers. There are various cheeses, dried cranberries and other little dribs and drabs to sprinkle on top and plenty of frozen chicken thighs to heat up and put on top. There are also oranges, grapes, blackberries, and canteloupe (hope it doesn't give me e.coli, LOL.)

For main dishes, we have our choice of: spaghetti squash with chicken sausage, chicken sausage on buns, BBQ pulled pork on cauliflower pancakes, chicken florentine (for me) and burgers (for him) patties, and even some gorgonzola ravioli and frozen spinach if we want to indulge one night.

 I think it's time to enjoy the fruits of my labor.

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That said, I did make a quiche this week. (Two, to be precise; it was a double batch.) We had a couple slices of it last night during the Oscars, and my husband declared it my best quiche yet. I have to agree, it came out really great. The idea came from this pin that Anne had on Pinterest for a caulifower and caramelized onion tart. I was completely enamored of the idea once I looked at the recipe on Smitten Kitchen, especially the schmear of dijon mustard at the bottom of the pie shell. Cauliflower is the blandest vegetable on earth, and it takes a ton of seasoning to give it even a little oomph. I thought the mustard would be great at livening the dish up. But the recipe was much too rich, with marscapone cheese, whipping cream, and Gruyere -- no, I didn't want a tart, I wanted a quiche. So I riffed off the original and made my own recipe.

Mustard Quiche
(makes two quiches)

1 head cauliflower, cut into pieces
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
1 garlic bulb
olive oil
12 eggs (or egg substitute)
dried thyme
Penzey's Wall of Flavor seasoning
kosher salt
2 frozen pie shells
at least 2 TBSP Dijon mustard
2 ounces grated romano or parmesan cheese

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. In a baking pan, place cut up cauliflower pieces and toss with olive oil, Wall of Flavor, dried thyme and a pinch of kosher salt. Cut the top off the garlic bulb and nestle into the cauliflower, drizzling a little more olive oil on its top.


Can you spot the garlic?

3. Roast veggies for 1 hour until softened and with a nice color. Let cool for about 15 minutes.

4. While the veggies are roasting, heat a teaspoon of olive oil in saute pan and cut the onion into thin slices. I use a mandolin (which took a while to figure out how to use safely, but I got it now!) Makes them look so tasty and professional!



Cook them on low heat until they go from this...



to this...



5. Let onions cool.

6. When you are ready to assemble and bake the quiche, make sure oven is again preheated to 350.

7. Schmear dijon mustard on the bottom of the pie shell. Hubby was very suspicious of this step, but even he admitted this was the secret ingredient that made the whole dish.



8. Chop the cauliflower into tiny pieces. Squeeze the soft, sweet garlic out of the bulb and chop that up too.



9. Place the cauliflower and onions on the bottom of the pan. Since I was making a double batch, I split it between the two shells. I left some of the onions to the side for a few minutes.



10. Crack 6 eggs into bowl and mix with fork. Season with kosher salt and more Wall of Flavor. Add in half the garlic and mix that in too.  

11. Pour into one shell. Repeat step #10 and pour into second shell. (I find it impossible to split evenly if I made all the egg mix in one step.)

12. Sprinkle an ounce of grated romano cheese on top. Add remaining onions on top.



13. Bake for 35-40 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.



14. Let rest 10 minutes before slicing.





Funny how all the ingredients were white, but it ended up with a nice color in the end, isn't it?

I would love to do this as a frittata and lose the pie shell altogether, but I have to think about how else I would get the mustard in there. It had to be dijon; dry mustard would be too sharp, grainy mustard too grainy, yellow mustard too bright and one-note. I guess I could fold it straight into the egg mix...

Anyway, this one is a keeper. Quiche and nice salad for several lunches or dinners this week? Yum.

Not bad for a week where I didn't do a lot of cooking!