Too Many Eggs

What do you do when you have too many eggs in the house? Make a quiche! I had run out and bought eggs one night for one of my baking projects and then forgot to cross them off the list. But then Mike surprised me by going food shopping one night while I was at the gym and he also bought eggs, which leaves a whole lot of eggs in the house. A quiche seemed like a logical thing to make to use up some of the eggs. However quiches can be very fattening so I searched for a low fat recipe and found this one which had some of my favorite ingredients.

I never made my own pie crust before but this one was so easy. I had no idea it was that easy to make a pie crust. I will say that this recipe was a bit time consuming to prep it, a solid hour like the recipe said. It takes some time to caramelize the onions and then cook the mushrooms and get everything all set up. I prepped it the night before and then baked it the next night and it seemed to turn out just fine. The end result was awesome, this quiche was delicious. I used a combination of shitake and portabello mushrooms in mine and it was so good. Mike enjoyed it too, although next time he said he'd prefer a simple broccoli-cheddar quiche, if it were up to me I'd stick to this one! But I'll give it a shot, this is a great base to a low-fat quiche recipe.

Caramelized Onion, Mushroom and Gruyere Quiche with Oat Crust
Source: Food Network, Ellie Krieger

Ingredients
For the crust:
Cooking spray
3/4 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons cold, unsalted butter, cut into small pieces - use a little more
3 tablespoons cold, lowfat buttermilk - use a little more

For the filling:
4 teaspoons olive oil
1 large onion, sliced thinly into half moons
8 ounces sliced mixed mushrooms, such as cremini, oyster, shiitake
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon dry mustard
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme leaves (or 1 teaspoon dry)
3 large eggs
3 egg whites
1 cup evaporated fat-free milk (not condensed milk)
2/3 cup grated Gruyere cheese (about 1-ounce)

Directions
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Spray a 9-inch pie dish with cooking spray. To prepare the crust, put the oats, flour and salt in the bowl of a food processor and pulse 3 times to combine. Add the butter and pulse about 12 times, until you get a pebbly course texture. Add the buttermilk and pulse 3 to 5 times more to combine. Form the mixture into a ball and place it between 2 large pieces of waxed paper. Roll out into a circle about 10 inches in diameter.

Remove the top sheet of waxed paper. Transfer the crust, still on the other piece of waxed paper to the pie dish, then remove the waxed paper from the top. Press the crust gently into the dish. Bake for 9 minutes, then let cool.

To prepare the filling, heat 2 teaspoons of oil in a large nonstick pan over a medium-low heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until golden brown and caramelized, about 20 minutes. Transfer the onions to a bowl. Add the remaining 2 teaspoons of oil to the pan and heat over a medium-high heat. Add the mushrooms and cook, stirring occasionally, until they have released their water and begin to brown, about 6 minutes. Add the onions back to the pan, stir in the salt, pepper, mustard and thyme.

In a medium bowl whisk together the eggs, egg whites and evaporated milk. Sprinkle the cheese into the pie crust. Top with the mushroom-onion mixture and pour the egg mixture on top. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees F. Bake for 35 minutes or until knife inserted in the middle comes out clean (mine took at least 45-50 minutes to cook). Let stand for 5 minutes before cutting into 6 wedges and serving. Serve with a salad and enjoy!