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Triple Threat Quiche

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Late one afternoon while trying to come up with a new quiche for the skate, I was drawing a blank. So I watched some Food Network shows, and there was an inspiration. They had a guy eating a calzone with two kinds of meat, two kinds of onions, mushrooms and tomato sauce with some Swiss cheese. The only thing missing from this combination calzone is the million dollar bacon and some chile peppers for some heat.  This turns that into a nice spicy quiche.

Ingredients

  • 2 lbs of quality smoked bacon
  • 1 cup of brown sugar
  • 1 teaspoon ground pepper
  • 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
  • 2 teaspoons red chile flakes
  • 1 lb of thin sliced beef (Philly steak meat)
  • 1 lb of thin sliced chicken (Philly style chicken meat or thin sliced rotisserie chicken breast)
  • 1/2 red onion, chopped
  • 2 tablespoons of olive oil
  • 1/2 white onion, chopped
  • 1 can of RO*TEL Original
  • 1 cup chopped mushrooms
  • 2 cups shredded cheese, blended Dubliner and Swiss

Preparation

This requires you to make the fabulous bacon crust with the added zing of millionaire style. Weave the bacon over the pie pans and when finished coat with the cayenne, ground pepper and brown sugar. Cook in the oven at 325 degrees for 45 minutes, draining the grease roughly every 15 minutes. When done allow to cool and then refrigerate till assembly. In a medium sauce pan over medium high heat, sauté the white onions in 1 teaspoon of olive oil until they caramelize, occasionally adding water. Then add in the mushrooms and RO*TEL and continue to sauté until nearly all of the liquids are gone. Remove from heat and set aside. In the same pan, add the beef and chicken meat together and thoroughly cook. I also like to add some of the drippings from making the bacon crust to help this along. When thoroughly cooked, remove from heat and let it rest for 5 minutes before chopping up into 1/2 inch chunks. Set that aside until ready for final assembly.

Assembly

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Over the bacon crust mix together the meat mixture and the RO*TEL, mushroom and caramelized onion mixture. Then mix in the chopped red onions making sure that everything is will mixed. Prepare the usual egg mix and pour over the mixture in the pans. Top this with the shredded cheeses. Then place in the oven for 40 minutes. Remove and either serve or pack it up for the trip to the rink.

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Million Dollar Bacon

This form of bacon has been called may things, but we call it Million Dollar Bacon, because it taste like a million.

I’ve seen this done a number of ways and this will be the first in a series of slightly different versions of this style of bacon.  This is the original that started these tasty bacon hacks.  You won’t be disappointed with the sweet and spicy combination of flavors of this bacon and it’s good by itself or in just about anything else, including quiche.

Makes 24 or so slices, depending on thickness of cut

Ingredients

  • 2 lbs of quality sliced Smoked Bacon
  • 1 cup of Brown Sugar
  • 1 tspn of Ground Pepper
  • 1 tspn of Cayenne Pepper
  • 2 tspn of Red Chile Flakes

Preparation

Preparing Million Dollar Bacon
Preparing Million Dollar Bacon

Preheat oven to 300 deg.  Prepare a baking pan by lining it with foil leaving a spout in one corner to pour off the accumulated grease.  Drop in a baking rack on top of the foil.  Lay out all the strips of bacon with a small overlap between slices.  Spread on the brown sugar over the bacon till it’s got a nice coating of brown sugar.  As you work this out it’s very likely that the brown sugar will liquify by absorbing some of the moisture from the bacon.  Sprinkle the ground pepper, cayenne pepper and red chile flakes evenly over the sugared bacon.

When ready, put the bacon in the oven and bake for about 15 – 20 minutes.  Remove from oven and drain the accumulated grease from the bottom of the pan.  At this point you can either simply return the bacon to the oven, or flip the slices over and return.  If you flip them, you should dust the top with a little extra brown sugar.  When you return them to the oven continue cooking for another 15 – 20 minutes or until the bacon is starting to crisp around the edges.  Remove and allow to cool a little bit so that it becomes fully crisp.

It’s now ready to either chop up into bit sized pieces for simply devour.

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Updated Bacon Crust

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This updated bacon crust method is the result of fine tuning the bacon crust that was initially presented in the Real Men DO Eat Quiche Cookbook.

When cooking the bacon crusts, you have to pay close attention to the level of bacon grease that builds up in the pie pans as your cooking.  If it gets too high, the bacon in the bottom of the pan doesn’t cook enough and you run the risk of a fire.  And there will still be too much bacon grease left in the pan when you add the quiche ingredients in and it will be a flavorful but greasy quiche.

Makes 2 bacon quiche crusts.

Ingredients

  • 2 lb. of your favorite standard cut bacon – enough for 28 slices (14 per crust)
  • 4 – 9 in. deep dish pie pans

Preparation

Just like in the original, you’ll make a bacon weave in 2 of the pie pans.  Where this differs, is that you’ll need to put the other 2 pie pans on top of the bacon weave to make a pan – bacon – pan sandwich.  Trim off the excess bacon with no more than 1/2 in. of excess left sticking out between the pans.  Return to the refrigerator for about 30 minutes to firm up the bacon crusts.

Cooking

Preheat your oven to 35o deg.  Prepare your baking sheet by lining the bottom with aluminum foil, making sure to leave enough excess to make a pouring spout on one corner.  Then place a baking grill inside the foil lined sheet.  Take the prepared pans out of the refrigerator and carefully flip them over and place on the baking grill.  This will allow the grease to run off of the pans and down into the baking sheet.  Place these in the oven and bake for 10 –  15 minutes.  Remove from oven and drain the grease from the foil spout while carefully holding the pans on the grill.  You should be using hot pads of something to protect your hands from the heat.  Place it back into the oven for another 10 – 15 minutes and repeat the draining and then set aside to cool.  Flip the pans back over and remove the top pan.  You can wash this pan up and use it again for another crust.  Then either add your filling to continue cooking your quiche or refrigerate the bacon crusts until your ready to fill with a quiche mix.  Cook the rest of the way as by the instructions for the quiche filling.

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Wicked Quiche

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I’m not sure why the guy’s called this one Wicked, none had a good explanation, but this combines some favorite semi healthy ingredients with a few less healthy ingredients to combine for a smokey, garlicky and hot pie.

This Wicked Quiche serves between 16 – 22 hungry hooligans.

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup Cheddar – shredded
  • 1/2 cup Brie – shredded
  • 1/2 lb. Sirloin Philly Meat – chopped
  • 1/2 lb. Chicken Philly Meat – chopped
  • 1 large Yellow Onion – chopped
  • 1/2 cup Oyster Mushrooms – sliced
  • 1 can RO*TEL original – drained about 1/2
  • 1/2 cup Fresh Spinach – loosely chopped
  • 1/2 Red Onion – chopped
  • 2 Garlic Cloves – roasted and chopped
  • 1 tblspn – Ancho Chipotle spice powder (Spice Island is good enough)
  • 2 tblspns – Olive Oil

Preparation

Chop up the all the ingredients except the garlic. I recommend leaving the spinach and red onion alone too, until just before you put all the ingredients together.

Preheat your oven to 400 deg. and make a small foil tray to roast the garlic in.  Put about 1/2 tablespoon of the olive oil in the foil tray and roll it around with the garlic to get a good coating on the cloves.  Put this in the oven for about 5-10 minutes and remove as soon as the cloves start to char.  Set aside and allow to cool.  If you’re making this up the day before final cooking you can turn the oven off.

In a large skillet or pot, over medium high heat put in the remaining olive oil and the chopped yellow onion and stir until they start to caramelize.  Add a little water to de-glaze the skillet and cook for another 5 – 10 minutes to get just a little more caramelization.   Add in the beef and allow to cook together for about 5 minutes.  Then add in the chicken and mushrooms and cook, while stirring occasionally, for another 5 to 10 minutes.  Then add in the RO*TEL and reduce the heat to a medium low.  Allow this to cook for another 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until the fluids from the RO*TEL is reduced by at least half.  Remove from the heat and allow to cool.

This is where I usually shred the cheeses and mix them together thoroughly. If the mixture is cool enough to not melt the cheese, mix it in with 1/2 of the cheese mixture in a large bowl.  If you’re assembling later, cover and refrigerate.

Also the garlic should be cooled enough to be chopped up now too, or you can wait until you chop up the spinach and red onion to finish this chopping.  If you are going to do the final assembly later, you should store the un-chopped red onion, spinach and garlic until you get ready to assemble.

Final Assembly and Cooking

Preheat the oven to 375 deg.  Chop up the red onion, spinach and garlic and mix into the filling mixture in the large bowl.  Put the prepared contents evenly into the two pie crusts.  Mix the standard base quiche mix and add in the 1 tablespoons of Ancho Chipotle puree.  Whip that up for about 2 to 4 minutes and pour into the pies.  Top with the remaining half of the cheese blend.  Pop them into the oven for 30 – 40 minutes, or until the cheese starts to turn brown.  Remove and either serve or pack in the bag for the rink.

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Ruben Quiche

This is another Costco shopping inspired dish.  We were walking through and found some nice looking pastrami meat, and took it home and made Ruben sandwiches from it.  It’s passable as far as pastrami goes, but it made the light go off, and this Ruben Quiche was born.  I suggest getting your pastrami from a local deli that you trust or from Whole Foods.  They tend to be a little more authentic.

Serves: 16-22

Ingredients

  • 1 lbs cooked and thinly sliced Beef Pastrami
  • 1 can (12 oz) Sauerkraut
  • 6 tbspn Bavarian Mustard (or a true Reuben would use Russian Dressing)
  • 2 cups shredded Swiss Cheese
  • 2 Pie Crusts of your choice

Preparation

This on is best prepared using the Pumpernickel Rye Pie Crust.  Start by either shredding or chopping the Pastrami into small chunks.  Then you’ll need to squeeze dry the Sauerkraut by either  squeezing down the lid into the can and draining the liquid off, or by using a tea towel and squeezing out the liquid until no more drops.  Both is actually the best method, and then let it set in a strainer for an hour.  In this case, the moisture in the Sauerkraut is your opponent.  It will make the quiche wet and loose.  Put the ingredients away till final preparation.

Final Assembly and Cooking

Preheat your oven to the usual 375 degrees.  Fill the pie crusts with the Pastrami and Sauerkraut mixture equally.  Prepare the Quiche Basic Mixture and add the Mustard while beating the eggs to a nice frothy mixture.  Pour into the pie crusts and top with the Cheese.  Place in the oven for 35 to 40 minutes, paying attention towards the end as the swiss will burn easily.  You want some golden brown on top, but not more than half.  Remove from the oven and pack it up for the rink, or serve if your hungry.