Happy National Pie Day!

This morning on NPR I heard that it was National Pie Day.  I felt it only appropriate to celebrate by (no surprise) making a pie.  But what kind of pie?

I actually didn't have very many fruits in the house.  There were, however, lots of veggies in the fridge, quite a few of which were nearing the end of their prime and desperately need to be eaten.  I had also gotten a delivery from Amazon Fresh this morning and although I was certain I only ordered one carton of eggs, I got two.  You don't need to be a mathemetician to know that this all adds up to:  A QUICHE!

I haven't made a pie crust in at least 4 years, so I was a little intimidated.  I pulled out my handy Better Homes & Garden "New" Cookbook, a hand-me-down from my Grandma- complete with her handwritten notes on favorite recipes.  (I looked for a copyright date and couldn't find one; my guess is it's an early 1950s edition)  The pie crust recipe called for shortening, which I don't have.  I contemplated using butter and then realized I still had quite a lot of rendered bacon fat still in the fridge.  A little web searching and voila!  Bacon fat pie crust:

http://www.modernbeet.com/archives/244

Frozen bacon fat..mmmmm...





Cut in the fat

Wrap the dough & chill



Once chilled, roll out.



My nifty little trick for getting the dough into the dish is to fold it into fourths, then lay it into the pie pan and unfold.

Not going to win any pie beauty contests.  :)



 Here is the quiche recipe I based mine on: http://www.easy-french-food.com/basic-quiche-recipe.html

The filling ended up being a mish-mash of what most needed eating from the fridge: 1/2 an onion, grape tomatoes and some chard.  While the crust was baking, I sauteed the veggies.  Then I beat the eggs, added heavy cream and a bit of salt and pepper.  I decided against any herbs because I wanted the flavor of the crust and veggies to dominate.

Once the crust was baked and cooled, it was time to assemble.  For a quiche the layering process is always the same:  filling, then cheese (if you didn't mix it directly in with the eggs), then pour the egg mixture over everything.

Normally I would use a lot more cheese than this (we LOVE cheese in this house) but given the bacon fat crust and heavy cream in the egg mixture, I felt it was going to be plenty rich.  I didn't measure, but estimate that I shredded less than a cup of parmesan onto the veggies.

Tomatoes starting to get a little wrinkly.

Fillings waiting in line for the sautee pan.

Final verdict:  If anything, the crust might have been too flaky (is that even possible?).  But oh-so-tasty!  I served it with a very simple green salad.  I hyped it up as "eggy-pie" but Isa didn't eat any of it, although that might have been because the first bite she tried was still too warm and she's very, very picky of food being too hot.  She did eat an entire bowl of salad, so I didn't push my luck.

De-lightful!