Bible Study Food

Thursday mornings my best friends and I gather at my house for Bible study and "fellowship" which is a real churchy way of saying "hangon' out and catchin' up time."

My Grandmother, who we called "Grandmother" not Granny, or Nana (and not to be confused with one of my other grandmothers whom we called "Maw Maw.") taught me well. She always had people over. The "who" wasn't always the same -- sometimes someone from the church, sometimes from the neighborhood or from the family -- but what was constant was that there was food. She never let a person come over without feeding them. It's just the southern way! I've seen her offer Saltines and mayonnaise when that's all she had.

So, carrying on that long-lived family tradition, I always make a little something for my Thursday morning Bible Study. Sometimes it's muffins, sometimes it's bagels (yes, homemade) and sometimes it's Quiche. Tomorrow it's quiche. So, I thought it fitting to share the recipe.

Thursday Mornin' Quiche
This is a real flexible recipe. It makes two quiches. Sometimes I like to add spinach or broccoli to one of them, so folks have a choice. If you add broccoli or fresh spinach, sauté it in the bacon drippings first. If you add frozen spinach, thaw it and squeeze it as dry as you can.

Ingredients

• 2 pie shells (make your own if there's time, but a good frozen one will do)
• 8 slices of bacon (there's good uncured bacon available now, use it -- you don't need the nitrates and nitrites)
• 1 onion sliced thinly (or more if you like)
• 4-5 eggs, beaten
• 1 cup of half and half (or whole cream)
• 1 cup of milk (skim milk will ruin it. If you're that worried about the fat, you don't need the quiche in the first place!)
• 1 TBSP flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 - 2 1/2 c shredded cheddar cheese (shred your own, don't buy that awful pre-shredded stuff -- it's got anti-caking agent on it and it just doesn't melt properly. Look at it this way: the hand shredding of the cheese will help burn off a few of those extra calories you got by using whole milk!)
  

Blind bake the pie crusts at 450 -- just for 5 minutes or so.

Lower the oven temperature to 325.

Fry the bacon. I like to take the 8 slices of bacon still all stuck together and cut it up with kitchen scissors so that i don't have to mess with "crumbling" it later. Once you start frying it, the stuck-together pieces easily come apart. When you're done, remove the bacon and set it on a paper towel to drain.

Sauté the onion in some of the bacon drippings. Let it cool.

Beat together the 4 eggs and the cream and milk, flour and salt.

Add the bacon and sautéed onion while mixing the eggs -- don't "cook" the eggs with the hot stuff -- you have to keep it moving for a minute. Add the cheese and whatever else you want to.

Pour into the blind-baked pie shell and put it on a cookie sheet and into the oven for about an hour.

Keep an eye on it -- it might need to have the edges covered with foil if they start to darken. It also might get done faster. It's done when you insert a knife and it comes out pretty clean (in other words, there's not egg dripping off of it, but there might be a little oil!)

Don't overwork your biscuit or they'll come out tough as hardtack!