Chard & Cannellini Crustless Quiche and (No) Regrets

I really don’t have any regrets about my life’s choices. There have been mistakes, sure, but it’s comforting to think that this grasshopper learned some good lessons along the way. The only thing I sometimes wish I’d done differently is having the chance to live completely on my own. I’ve never really done that. (And if I had, I would have made dishes like this more often.)

When I went away several hundred miles to college (and what seems like several hundred years ago), I was assigned to live in dormitory with all single rooms. What was initially lonely turned out to be a terrific way to make new friends. We were all in the same boat. By sophomore year, my three new BFF’s and I were using the lowest lottery number among us to pick the best “quad” room we could – a huge renovated classroom that was our home for the school year. What a blast we had there!

The following year, one of us took a break from school, and then there were three. This time, our number was even better and we “won” a beautiful suite, two bedrooms, bath, beautiful view. Then mid-year, one of us got the marriage bug and abandoned us. Now we were two and Michele and I reveled in our luxurious little apartment.

LeMans Hall at St. Mary's Collge, Notre Dame Indiana

By senior year, though, Michele was ready to move off campus and rent a house with several other friends. Although I was welcome, I really didn’t want to go. I liked campus life. So I stayed behind and this time chose another single! Most of the rooms on the same floor were also singles, so we were enjoying the ebb and flow of wanting privacy and then company. We were mostly English majors, it so happened, so I had another sense of community.

It wasn’t until several years later when I was having an intimate chat with my mother that she shared with me how much she enjoyed living a few years on her own after she graduated college. It wasn’t because Mom was a party animal. Au contraire! The experience taught her real independence and responsibility. She worked all day as a teacher, was involved with school activities, might go skating, grade her papers and fall into bed. And she said she wished that I had been able to do the same at that tender age, instead of taking the long way like I have. I hadn’t really thought about it until she mentioned it. I had pretty much jumped from home to college to marriage to working to motherhood, to making that all work together.

But it’s just a minor regret. I can see myself as a young woman decorating a little studio apartment, cooking in a teeny tiny “kitchenette,” entertaining friends with great dinners on a card table graced with candles. (Actually, I had my eye on a great looking carriage house.) But if I had taken that turn, maybe I wouldn’t have ended up here and I wouldn’t trade this life for anything.

Back to cooking – I often fall back on egg dishes. Eggs, especially Dude’s eggs, are a great way to make a motley collection of stuff come together. This dish came together because I had a lot of Swiss chard growing in the garden. This “crustless” quiche is a great way to cut back on the carbs a bit. And the reason I call it a crustless quiche instead of a frittata is because everything just goes straight to the oven – no stove top cooking of the eggs to start. I wish I would have taken a picture of this as soon as it came out of the oven. It looked so pretty then, all puffy and golden brown, looked like a soufflé. Whatever it’s called, it was delicious, especially with the addition of the curry powder. I only regret not adding something red - like peppers or tomatoes for a little color kick

Chard & Cannellini Crustless Quiche
About 4 cups fresh Swiss chard leaves (a big bowful)
2 tablespoons butter, divided
½ cup chopped onions
1 cup cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
1 cup shredded Swiss cheese
4 large eggs
1 cup half-and-half
1 teaspoon curry powder

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Lightly film a 9 inch pie pan with vegetable spray.  Melt the butter in a high-sided frying pan and cook the Swiss chard leaves until wilted. Remove from pan to a cutting board and roughly chop. Wipe out the pan and add another tablespoon of butter and sauté the onion until transparent, not browned. Place the chard, onion, beans, and Swiss cheese evenly in the pie pan. Then whisk the eggs and half-and-half together. Add the curry powder and pour the custard over the veggies. Carefully place in oven and bake for 25 to 30 minutes.

A Non-Easter Easter Ham and Broccoli Quiche

It doesn’t look like Easter. It doesn’t feel like Easter. It’s gray, rainy, and 40 degrees, and I'm crabby about it.  I just got back from a Florida vacation where it was sunny and in the 80’s all the time and my daughter gave me a cold down there. So, yes, I’m more than a little crabby, not to mention un-ambitious, and in no mood to cook up a festive, spring meal.

When it gets to really be rug-cutting time, I know I’ll pull my socks up and get on with it, and this is what I’ll whip up for an Easter brunch – a ham and broccoli quiche. It’s traditional, it’s classic and it just might be the ticket to put me in a spring-like mood.

I love quiche. It’s a lot like a pizza to me. It can easily handle a lot of variations, lots of different combinations. And if you take the cheater’s way out (as I often do) and use refrigerated pie dough, it’s a snap to make. (Although I have gotten much better at making pastry, I’m proud to say.) And since you can serve it warm or at room temperature, it’s a perfect company dish.

Once I hosted a baby shower for a friend and the menu was quiche, fruit salad and cheesecake. My daughter (the same one who gave me the $^#&*# cold) helped me with the quiche assembly line. We made eight quiches, four different kinds: Ham and broccoli, bacon and onion, spinach and shrimp, asparagus and ham, all with a healthy helping of cheese. First we placed a layer of shredded cheese in the pastry–lined pans, then the meat and vegetable filling, then more cheese, then poured the custard up to the edge of the pie. (Baking eight pies at once was something I’d never done before and convinced me that catering was not for me.) Everything went off without a hitch and everyone wanted to sample every quiche. Only crumbs left in the pans.

I follow the basic formula for quiche I started using years ago from a cookbook I bought from a New Hampshire restaurant called Peter Christian’s that is now defunct. I liked it because it was just a formula rather than a follow-by-the-letter recipe. I also liked the addition of sherry to the custard. The only things that are constant are the eggs, half-and-half, cheese and onions. And even those are variable to a degree. You can enrich the quiche with cream or using a variety of cheeses.

So this as Easter-y as I’m getting this year. I really had the best intentions of making an Easter Pie. If the spirit moves me later this evening, maybe . . . just maybe . . . . .

In the meantime, I hope you're in a sunnier place -- or at least a sunnier mood -- and have a blessed Easter with family and friends.

Basic Recipe for a Quiche
Serves 8

Pastry for one-crust pie
4 eggs
1 ½ cups half and half
½ cup sherry
Dashes each of freshly ground black pepper and freshly grated nutmeg and dash of cayenne pepper
4 cups grated cheese, any variety
½ cup chopped scallions
1 cup cooked and cooled vegetable of choice
1 cup cooked and cooled meat of choice
(or use 2 cups of a veggie variety)

• Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.

• Place pastry in pie pan and flute edges any pretty way you like.

• Sprinkle 1 cup of cheese and the scallions in the bottom of the crust. Cover the cheese and onions evenly with the veggies and/or meat of your choice. Then sprinkle the rest of the cheese over the veggie-meat mixture.

• To make custard, combine the eggs, half-and-half, sherry and seasonings in a bowl with a whisk and blend well.

• Pour the custard over the cheese-veggie-meat mixture to within ¼ inch of the top of the crust.

• Bake at 425 for ten minutes, then reduce the heat to 325 degrees and bake another 45 to 50 minutes until the top is golden brown and is slightly puffed.

• Let cool at least 15 minutes before cutting. Serve either warm or at room temperature; refrigerate any leftovers if you have them.