Quiche with Zucchini and Oregano

On days when I don’t feel like cooking an elaborate meal and don’t feel like take-out food either, I resort to making a quiche. It’s the easiest thing to make and takes hardly any time; yet, it is nutritious and paired with a simple salad it makes for a delicious and balanced meal. Of course, the convenience of making a quick quiche is only an option if you are not making the pastry base at home. I keep frozen pre-make pie-crusts that one can find in the freezer section of any supermarket and use these for different kinds of quiches. If you’d like to make the pie-crust from scratch, be prepared to put in a lot more work because pastry shells are a bit tricky to make.
This quiche recipe is my most basic one. I like to use zucchini or yellow summer squash on top because they add a bit of crunch to the eggy quiche. Also traditional quiche recipes don’t often include garlic to the egg mixture but I like to grate a couple of cloves of garlic to it – it adds a bit more flavor and bite to the taste of the eggs. I know, I know…it is NOT the way the French make their quiche but then I have never been the kind to follow rules and just make-up my recipes to adapt to my own tastes. I also add a tiny bit of buttermilk to the eggs to give them a tiny hint of tartness. Traditionalists add milk or cream to their quiche and if you’d like to stick to that, please go ahead. My family loves this quiche recipe and each time I have served it to a friend, it’s been received very well, so I think I am sticking with my slightly adapted/altered quiche recipe 

Ingredients:

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1.    1.  Pre-made Pie crust
2.    4 eggs
3.    4 tablespoons of parmesan cheese
4.    1/3 cup of grated sharp cheddar cheese
5.    2-3 cloves of garlic
6.    ½ teaspoon of salt (the cheese has salt already)
7.    ½ teaspoon of freshly grated pepper
8.    1 teaspoon of dry oregano
9.    3 tablespoons of buttermilk

Directions:

1.    Heat the oven at 425 degree Fahrenheit

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2.    Place the empty pie crust in the oven for 3-4 minutes to cook it a tiny bit before you put the egg mixture to it. This helps to avoid the quiche crust from getting too soggy with the egg batter.
3.    Take the pie crust out of the oven and let it sit on a kitchen counter to cool it down before placing the egg batter into it (otherwise the eggs will get scrambled when placed in the hot crust).
4.    Peel and finely grate 2-3 cloves of garlic.

5.    In a medium sized mixing bowl, break 4 eggs and add the following ingredients: salt, pepper, oregano and grated garlic.

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6.    Add the buttermilk to the mixing bowl.
7.    Add the grated Parmesan cheese to the bowl.

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8.    Add the Parmesan cheese and the grated cheddar cheese to the mixing bowl to make the egg-batter.

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9.    Slice the zucchini in disks about ½ inches thick.

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10.    Pour the batter in the cooled down pie crust and gently place the zucchini slices in concentric circles to make any pattern you would like.

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11.    Place the uncooked quiche in the hot oven and let it cook for 35 minutes or so (adjust the timing a bit – every oven’s temperature varies and so the cooking time varies a little bit too). Bake it till the top of the quiche is lightly browned.

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12.    Serve the quiche will it is still warm or at room temperature.  A light salad on the side would be wonderful.

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comments

  1. Permalink Submitted by Rupali Khanna on Fri, 02/08/2013 - 10:58

    Hi Shabnam, this looks so easy and yummy. Can I serve this cold as well – just wondering if I can carry this for a picnic?

    • Permalink Submitted by Shabnam on Fri, 02/08/2013 - 23:06

      Yup!!! Rupali – it is super easy to make and can be served at any temp – so at a picnic would be great 🙂

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