Mini Bacon & Swiss Quiche Cups

This month for the Improv Cooking Challenge our hostess Kristen of Frugal Antics of a Harried Homemaker has challenged the participating bloggers to make any recipe of their choosing using the specified ingredients of bacon and eggs!  My mind went off in so many directions with these ingredients, of course first thinking about breakfast and then going to the sweet side thinking about my Piggy-Out Cookies which contain bacon and eggs or my over the top Kicked Up Piggy-Out Cookies which also contain eggs along with my Spicy Brown Sugar Bacon…YUM!!  In the end though I decided to go the breakfast / brunch / anytime hold-it-in-your-hand, easy-to-reheat, great-on-the-go route with my Mini Bacon & Swiss Quiche Cups.   I love that I can bake up a batch of these, they can be eaten right away or saved for later as they reheat beautifully in the microwave.  Eammon likes when I have extra as I’ll freeze them so he can, pull out, reheat and enjoy one or two anytime he desires.  I hope that you’ll give these easy to make Mini Bacon & Swiss Quiche Cups a try.

Mini Bacon & Swiss Quiche Cups

5 slices bacon
1 brick (8 oz) cream cheese, softened
2 TBS milk (I used fat-free)
2 large eggs
1/2 cup shredded Swiss cheese
2 medium green onions, chopped
1 can (12 oz) flaky refrigerated biscuits (10 biscuits)

Heat oven to 375F.  In a skillet cook the bacon until crisp and then drain on paper towels. Take two strips and cut each into 5 equal pieces.  Crumble the remaining three slices and set aside.  In a bowl the beat cream cheese until smooth. Add the milk and eggs, beating on low speed until smooth. Stir in the Swiss cheese and green onions. Set aside.

Spray 10 regular-sized muffin cups with cooking spray.  Separate the dough into 10 biscuits. Press biscuit to form a 5-inch round. Place one biscuit round in each muffin cup and firmly press into the bottom and up sides. Divide the crumbled bacon between the 10 dough lined muffin tins, placing it into the bottom of dough-lined muffin cups. Spoon the cheese mixture evenly into cups.  Bake 21 to 26 minutes or until filling is set and edges of biscuit cups are golden brown. Remove from the oven and into the top center of each Quiche Cup, stick a piece of the cut bacon for decoration.  Remove biscuit cups from pan and serve.

These do really well being reheated in the microwave so a great do-ahead breakfast meal-to-go.

Enjoy!

My previous Improv Cooking Challenge entries:

March 2013  Carrots & Peas:  Mom’s Beef Vegetable Soup 
February 2013  Hearts & Flours:  Three Ingredient Fudgy Nutella Brownie Bites
January 2013  Bananas & Nutmeg:  Baked Bananas 
December 2012  Chocolate & Marshmallows:  White Chocolate Marshmallow Cranberry Cashew Bark    
November 2012  Sweet Potatoes & honey: Sweet Potato Glass Noodles with Honey Garlic Lime Shrimp 
October 2012  Oatmeal & Raisins:  S’mores Granola Bars   
September 2012  Zucchini & Brown Sugar:  Zucchini with Onion & Brown Sugar 
August 2012  Tomatoes & Peppers:  French Fries Hash Browns 
July 2012  Corn & Butter:  Fritos Crusted Pollock 
June 2012  Cherries & Almonds:  Dried Cherry Almond Tart 
May 2012  Strawberries & Cream:  Strawberry Soup 
April 2012  Peanut butter & Jelly:  Peanut Butter & Jelly Bars 
March 2012  Potato & Cheese:  Loaded Potato & Buffalo Chicken Casserole 
February 2012  Ginger & Carrots:  Shrimp & Avocado Salad with Carrot Ginger Dressing 
January 2012 Lemon & Sour Cream:  Ponderosa Lemon & Sour Cream Tart 
December 2011 Eggnog & Cranberries:  Eggnog Popovers with Cranberry Butter 
November 2011 Pumpkin & Cream Cheese:  Praline Pumpkin Cheesecake
October 2011 Caramel & Apples:  Caramel Stuffed Apple Cider Cookies

Hearty Sausage, Mushroom & Cheddar Mini Quiche

Generally when I make quiche I do the traditional pie plate sized quiche with a pie crust and cut it into slices or if the mood strikes me I’ll make something special like my Potato Crusted Garden Quiche but I’m always trying to neatly freeze leftover slices and as I’m just not a pie crust person I always scrape the filling out of the crust and end up throwing it away.  I wanted to make things easier so I thought that I would make individual crustless mini quiches and they would be super simple to freeze and we’d be able to pull out just as many as we needed when we wanted to enjoy some for breakfast, lunch or dinner.  These mini quiches are delicious and worked out wonderfully for freezing and re-heating.  Once the quiches were fully cooked and cooled I vacuum sealed them in bags using my FoodSaver.  I was then easily able to pull out just the number of quiches I wanted and they were quick to reheat for a fast delicious meal.

Hearty Sausage, Mushroom & Cheddar Mini Quiche (From here)

• 1-16 oz pkg. Jimmy Dean Regular Flavor Pork Sausage Roll
• 1 cup fresh chopped mushrooms
• 1/2 cup chopped green bell pepper
• 10 eggs
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 4 ounces Cheddar cheese, shredded
• 1/2 cup sliced green onions

Preheat oven to 350°F. Cook sausage, mushrooms and bell pepper in large skillet over medium-high heat 8-10 minutes or until sausage is thoroughly cooked, stirring frequently; drain.  Beat eggs, milk and black pepper in large bowl with wire whisk until well blended. Stir in sausage mixture, cheese, and green onion. Line 2 cupcake pans with 16 foil baking cups sprayed with cooking spray or if not using baking cups spray muffin pan with cooking spray. Spoon mixture evenly into baking cups. Bake 18-22 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Let stand 5 minutes before serving.  If freezing, allow quiches to cool completely then seal in Ziplock bags removing as much of the air as possible or use a FoodSaver with the zipper bags.  To reheat, thaw and then heat in the microwave (f used, remove the foil liner before microwaving.)

Enjoy!

Potato Crusted Garden Quiche

This morning we went over to our friend's Trixie & Roger's home for brunch and I was asked to bring along a quiche so I decided to experiment a little and made up my recipe from what I had and as I went along. From our garden I had a number of yellow squash as well as a good bunch of long beans so I thought that if I roasted them, they would be delicious. I also thought that if I added a head of roasted garlic, it would give the quiche a great flavor too. I'm also not a big fan of pie crusts and as a rule I don't make them and I didn't have any frozen ones in the house so, to change it up a little I chose to make a potato crust and it was a hit with everyone. I love that quiche is so versatile, so easy to switch up the cheese, veggies and/or meats to suite any taste. This combination was a great success and I would definitely make it again.

Potato Crusted Garden Quiche

For the filling:
A good handful of long beans, cut into 2-inch pieces
A couple of yellow squash, quartered lengthwise and then cut into finger width pieces.
One medium onion, diced
One head of garlic, cut to expose the cloves
olive oil
2 cups shredded Jarlsberg
12 slices crispy bacon, cut in pieces I use the pre-cooked and just microwave it to crisp it up.
6 large eggs
2 cups light cream
3/4 teaspoon nutmeg 
Salt & Pepper to taste

For the Crust:
6 Tablespoons butter
1 medium onion, shredded
6 cups shredded potato, could also use frozen shredded hash brown potatoes, thawed and squeezed dry
Salt & Pepper to taste

Pre-heat oven to 400F. On a foil lined baking sheet toss beans with a little olive oil, salt and pepper and spread on one side of the baking pan. On the other side of the pan toss together the yellow squash & diced onion also drizzled with a little olive oil and some salt & pepper. On a separate piece of foil put garlic head drizzled with olive oil, season with salt & pepper and seal foil around the garlic. Roast the veggies and garlic for about 25 minutes. I kept the beans and squash separate in case I needed to pull the beans before the squash but in the end they all roasted the same amount of time. Once tender and a little golden, remove from oven, allow garlic to continue roasting another 20-25 minutes or while the crust bakes.

While the veggies are roasting, shred onion and peeled potatoes. Squeeze potatoes and onions dry. In a 9x13-inch baking pan melt 6 Tablespoons of butter in the oven and then swirl pan to grease bottom and sides. Add the dried onions & potatoes to the buttered pan along with some salt & pepper and toss to coat with the butter. Press potato mixture to cover the bottom and up the sides of the pan. Bake at 400F for 25 minutes or until golden. At this point you can pull from the oven and add the filling or you can allow the crust to cool and then chill until ready to make and bake the quiche.

Lower oven temp to 350F

To make the custard, squeeze the roasted garlic bulbs into a bowl and mash. Add one of the eggs to the garlic and whisk together. Add the remaining 5 eggs, cream, nutmeg and season with salt & pepper, whisk together.

Into the cooked potato crust layer first the roasted beans & yellow squash topped with the shredded cheese and then top with the bacon. Pour the custard mix in and then bake for 35 minutes until top is golden and quiche is set.

Let rest for at least 30 minutes or allow to cool to room temp before serving.

Enjoy!