(I love alternate titles-- it’s very Vonnegut.)
Caramelized Onion, Zucchini, and Blue Cheese Quiche
Serves 4-6
Ingredients:
• 1 prepared homemade healthy piecrust
• 2 red onions, cut in strips “French-style”
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar or balsamic glaze
• 1 small zucchini, chopped in quarters
• 1-2 cups fresh spinach
• 2 tablespoons (30 grams) blue cheese, crumbled
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• ½ cup cream
• ½ teaspoon nutmeg
• salt and pepper to taste
Method:
Pre-heat oven to 350 F (180 C) then prepare homemade piecrust, crimping sides to desired design. Poke several holes into the base of the crust with a fork and wrap small strips of foil around the sides of the pan to prevent the edges burning. Pre-bake crust until lightly browned, about 15-20 minutes.
Meanwhile, caramelize the onions in the olive oil by sautéing them in a cast iron pot or other deep-walled pan over medium heat until translucent. Then, turn the heat low and continue cooking the onions until nicely browned, about 20-40 minutes for gas to electric stovetops, respectively. Add the brown sugar and the balsamic and cook for another 4-5 minutes.
Add these to the bottom of the pre-baked piecrust and cover with chopped zucchini, crumbled blue cheese, and spinach. You may wish to lightly sauté the spinach in the onion pan for 2-3 minutes if you prefer cooked spinach.
Combine the eggs, milk, cream, nutmeg, salt and pepper in a medium-size bowl and then pour this mixture over the veggies.
Cook quiche for 30-50 minutes, until a knife comes out clean and the top is browned (turn the grill setting on for the final 5-10 minutes to allow the top heating element to brown the surface of the quiche).
Quiche is the ultimate brunch dish--that’s a fact.
The famous eggy-pie can be made ahead and either frozen or set-aside until re-heating, so it’s incredibly convenient for those big-menu mornings when you’re trying to tackle pancakes, hash browns, fruit bowls, chia puddings, and mimosas all in the 15 minutes before guests arrive. I hope it goes without saying that quiche is an excellent dinner main, too.
I discovered the joys of quiche-for-dinner when I lived with my grandma for my four college years. My grandma, universally accepted as one of the greatest women alive, has long maintained that she “only cooks breakfast food,” so the Quiche Lorraine recipe from our treasured 1970-edition Betty Crocker Cookbook was an easy segue into evening-meal territory. We ditched the ham (because vegetarianism y’all), but often loaded that piecrust up with any and every vegetable we had on hand. Quiche is convenient and versatile. You can eat it all year by throwing in whatever ingredients you have fresh, so these opposite-season blogger friends love it!
This particular Caramelized Onion and Blue Cheese recipe is sponsored by originality despair. Christy was making her totally amazing non-tofu vegan quiches and I was like… ….. What do I do?! I can’t just take a page out of Betty Crocker and color myself clever. Girl has gotta go where no quiche has gone before!
So... I borrowed a page out of my boyfriend’s book instead. Yeah! He made up an incredible homemade pizza recipe using caramelized onions and/or bhuna pyaz (Indian fried onions), blue cheese, and zucchini and it’s drool-worthy. So I said, Imma put those things in a piecrust and pour eggs over them.
Voilà! Quiche Kaitlin.
I think the end result is damn good. If you find yourself in a tizzy over what to make your mother-in-law for the next brunch or dinner date, this dish is mighty impressive. The time-intensive caramelized onions prove you are willing to put the effort in, and the blue cheese and zucchini pairing is just uncommon enough to surprise her without breaking any culinary rules. Throw in the unbelievably easy homemade piecrust and you can’t go wrong!
Unless, like me, your partner’s mother is a lifelong vegetarian who lives in India and has never eaten eggs. Then maybe just go with soup.
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