Preparing for Potlucks

Jesse–
We got to a lot of pot-lucks, and I have trouble coming up with a good entree dish to bring that needs to be made the day before.

Ideas?

Really, as far as day-before potluck prep goes, I think it works better with desserts than it does with entrees. Cookies, brownies, and fruit crisps are all easy-to-make desserts that travel easily and keep well overnight.

If you’re sold on the idea of making entrees though, I’d have to recommend quiche as a simple solution. There is an endless variety of what type of quiche you can make because every time you switch the fillings and/or the cheeses, you’ve got a new dish. Not only that, but quiches are ridiculously easy to make. So, with some help from my father-in-law, Rob Luscher, and my wife, Aurora, here’s how you can make a dish to impress for nearly any occason:

Quiche—more of a method than a recipe
To begin, make a batch of pie crust dough. Wrap it up and refrigerate it while you prepare the filling. Then, preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
For the egg mixture, beat four eggs with a cup of milk, a little bit of salt (but not much because the cheese adds a fair amount of salt), a little bit of pepper (I usually use cayenne, somewhere in the neighborhood of 1/4 teaspoon or so), thyme, basil, and a pinch of nutmeg, which Rob stresses is “essential” to the success of your quiche.

Grate about 2 1/2 cups of your favorite cheese. I’ll often vary the type of cheese I use based on what else I’m putting in the quiche. For instance, goat cheese goes well in an asparagus quiche; cream cheese in a pumpkin quiche; cheddar or monterey jack in a ham quiche, etc. Think of flavor combinations you like and go with them. Feel free to use a couple different kinds of cheese, a little variety tastes good.

As for your quiche filling, don’t use tomatoes as part of your vegetable mixture because they’re too watery and the quiche comes out with an undesireably wet consistency (think soggy crust and water drooling onto the plate). Otherwise, most vegetables and meats are fair game, but always saute your fillings briefly before adding them to the quiche. This “pre-cook” gives them a head start in their cooking time and ensures that they’ll be cooked all the way through at the same time the quiche is. Follow this handy guide for relative vegetable cooking times when trying to decide in what order to add your vegetables to the saute pan.

Onion and garlic go well with almost everything and usually make an appearance in all of my quiches. As for other fillings, don’t throw the kitchen sink at it. Four filling ingredients is about the most you can expect to comfortably fit inside the shell; three is probably a better goal. Quiches are a great way to transform leftover vegetables into something new—but if you’re using leftovers, don’t saute them becuse they’ve already been pre-cooked. Total, you’ll probably need no more than 2 to 3 cups of filling material, depending on what you’re using. The more often you make quiches, the better you’ll be able to judge how much filling you’ll need.

To assemble and bake the quiche:
Roll out the pie crust according to the directions. Set it in the pie plate and dock it in place by poking a few sets of holes in it with a fork. Pre-bake the crust for about five minutes. Add enough cheese to the crust to cover the bottom. Then, add the sauteed vegetables from your pan with a slotted spoon (to decrease liquid transfer), sprinkle with some more cheese, pour the egg mixture on top of all that, and follow with the rest of the cheese evenly distributed over the top.

Bake for about 35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the crust comes out cleanly. The top of the quiche should be puffed up and golden brown. Let cool for a while before slicing (if you’re planning on eating it soon after you cook it) because the eggs need to set a bit before the quiche will serve properly. Otherwise, store in the refrigerator overnight and take with you to the potluck the following evening. Reheat in a 350 degree oven for about ten to fifteen minutes if you desire, but the quiche serves quite well as a cold dish, too, so don’t feel like you have to heat it back up if you don’t want to.

Have a cooking question? Email me!

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