Quiche - ultimate Sunday Brunch decadence

[bluebelle]

Happy Sunday.....I love all 'brunch' type foods.  I hate going out for brunch.  It's not decadent if I can't eat in my sweats or jammies!  Quiche is in the oven, the house smells wonderful.  His has all the red pepper flakes he wanted and mine has extra spinach......We'll be FIRE'd in 2 years, so this luxury won't just be for Sundays then!

Question for the cooks: 
Our favourite quiches tend to be a variant of bacon, wilted spinach, caramelized onions, mushrooms, goat's cheese and black olives.   Do you think that a base of bacon, spinach, onions, mushrooms would freeze okay in the pastry shell?  If we did a batch of these, we could have a quick quiche more often.  But I'm not sure how it would freeze, I'm afraid the pastry shell would get soggy.  I guess we could try it and see, but I'd hate to waste the ingredients (and have a hungry bear no happy with his food)

[calimom]

That's a good question. There are frozen quiches available so wonder what the secret, if any, is? I'd say try one and see how it defrosts.

Love quiche and am a big fan of the frittata which would not seem freeze-friendly. But pretty quick to make and I like using up things like the last of the spinach, half a red bell pepper that I have around.

[Dictionary Time]

I've done it with ok results.  I worry my standards are lower than yours, though, and you may curse me after.  Cool it to refrigerator temps first, wrap well, warming it in an oven/toaster oven will yield better results.

Try to freeze one slice and see how that goes.

[marion10]

Or could make up the mixture, freeze that and thaw and add to the shell.

[ministashy]

Happy Sunday.....I love all 'brunch' type foods.  I hate going out for brunch.  It's not decadent if I can't eat in my sweats or jammies!  Quiche is in the oven, the house smells wonderful.  His has all the red pepper flakes he wanted and mine has extra spinach......We'll be FIRE'd in 2 years, so this luxury won't just be for Sundays then!

Question for the cooks: 
Our favourite quiches tend to be a variant of bacon, wilted spinach, caramelized onions, mushrooms, goat's cheese and black olives.   Do you think that a base of bacon, spinach, onions, mushrooms would freeze okay in the pastry shell?  If we did a batch of these, we could have a quick quiche more often.  But I'm not sure how it would freeze, I'm afraid the pastry shell would get soggy.  I guess we could try it and see, but I'd hate to waste the ingredients (and have a hungry bear no happy with his food)

Try substituting a flour tortilla for a pastry shell.  Works great, reheats well, and cuts down on the calories as well.  I make this all the time (every week almost), because it's a great way to have a hot breakfast at work every day.  Just spend 30 min making a quiche once a week, then cut it up in 6-8 pieces and take a piece in to work to microwave every morning.

[bluebelle]

Happy Sunday.....I love all 'brunch' type foods.  I hate going out for brunch.  It's not decadent if I can't eat in my sweats or jammies!  Quiche is in the oven, the house smells wonderful.  His has all the red pepper flakes he wanted and mine has extra spinach......We'll be FIRE'd in 2 years, so this luxury won't just be for Sundays then!

Question for the cooks: 
Our favourite quiches tend to be a variant of bacon, wilted spinach, caramelized onions, mushrooms, goat's cheese and black olives.   Do you think that a base of bacon, spinach, onions, mushrooms would freeze okay in the pastry shell?  If we did a batch of these, we could have a quick quiche more often.  But I'm not sure how it would freeze, I'm afraid the pastry shell would get soggy.  I guess we could try it and see, but I'd hate to waste the ingredients (and have a hungry bear no happy with his food)

Try substituting a flour tortilla for a pastry shell.  Works great, reheats well, and cuts down on the calories as well.  I make this all the time (every week almost), because it's a great way to have a hot breakfast at work every day.  Just spend 30 min making a quiche once a week, then cut it up in 6-8 pieces and take a piece in to work to microwave every morning.

never thought of that....I'll 'discuss' that option with the food connoisseur (DH)....I'm also going to work on selling him on a more frittata like version, I'd rather have potatoes than pastry anyway

[meghan88]

Happy Sunday.....I love all 'brunch' type foods.  I hate going out for brunch.  It's not decadent if I can't eat in my sweats or jammies!  Quiche is in the oven, the house smells wonderful.  His has all the red pepper flakes he wanted and mine has extra spinach......We'll be FIRE'd in 2 years, so this luxury won't just be for Sundays then!

Question for the cooks: 
Our favourite quiches tend to be a variant of bacon, wilted spinach, caramelized onions, mushrooms, goat's cheese and black olives.   Do you think that a base of bacon, spinach, onions, mushrooms would freeze okay in the pastry shell?  If we did a batch of these, we could have a quick quiche more often.  But I'm not sure how it would freeze, I'm afraid the pastry shell would get soggy.  I guess we could try it and see, but I'd hate to waste the ingredients (and have a hungry bear no happy with his food)

Try substituting a flour tortilla for a pastry shell.  Works great, reheats well, and cuts down on the calories as well.  I make this all the time (every week almost), because it's a great way to have a hot breakfast at work every day.  Just spend 30 min making a quiche once a week, then cut it up in 6-8 pieces and take a piece in to work to microwave every morning.

never thought of that....I'll 'discuss' that option with the food connoisseur (DH)....I'm also going to work on selling him on a more frittata like version, I'd rather have potatoes than pastry anyway

This reminds me ... long ago I had an Italian cookbook that had a recipe for pizza made with a mashed potato crust instead of dough.  It was simple and incredibly yummy, though it had to be eaten with knife and fork.

For the quiche, I second the option of freezing the shells and other ingredients separately.  Maybe defrost the other ingredients the night before, and leave the shells frozen until ready to use.

[nessness]

I tried freezing quiche once (pre-baked it, froze it, then thawed and heated in the oven) and wasn't happy with the results. The crust was fine but the texture of the filling was weird.

[CptCool]

I tried freezing quiche once (pre-baked it, froze it, then thawed and heated in the oven) and wasn't happy with the results. The crust was fine but the texture of the filling was weird.

I think that was due to pre-baking it. I'm guessing the eggs were waaaay overcooked and then they get the weird spongy texture

[bluebelle]

I tried an egg, cheese and potato caserole yesterday....turned out pretty good.  Got the seal of approval from DH "we can make this again"....it was basically a quiche with potato instead of pastry.  So life is good.

[Saskatchewstachian]

I love to cook and would do it as a full-time job if being an engineer wasn't so fun (not that this necessarily makes me any good) so I'll provide my two cents.

The key thing here is that you want to avoid excess moisture when freezing and reheating as that will absolutely wreck your pastry consistency. The bacon, caramelized onions, goat cheese and olives shouldn't be an issue but it's the spinach and mushrooms you have to worry about.

You say wilted spinach, do you mean wilted as in old and you use this recipe to use to up, or blanched as in dropped in boiling water then removed? If it blanched just ensure you dry it as well as possible after removing it from the water. If it's older spinach and wilting I would recommend blanching it.

As for the mushrooms, although they don't contain massive amounts of water they will will sweat when cooked. I would recommend sauteing them off as well. This will reduce the water in them and help ensure you keep the pastry light.

One last trick (please be careful with this one) is that you can toss the bacon, mushrooms and maybe even olives in a very fine coating of flour or cornstarch. When you cook the quiche this will absorb some of the liquid.
**Disclaimer - Too much of this can create an unpleasant texture so I would only try this if the above items don't work.

Happy cooking!