Muffin Cup Quiche

I’ve been doing some Easter crafting lately, using blown eggs and empty eggshells filled with candy.  So I needed to make something with the raw eggs.   Scrambled eggs are one easy answer but I wanted a little more pizazz.

Making small quiche in a muffin pan was what I decided to do.  Before I go on, I have to tell you that these really aren’t the best recipe for using up a bunch of eggs.  They have a higher crust-to-filling ratio then a standard full-size quiche would have so if you are looking to use up a bunch of eggs, make a standard quiche.  But these are a nice size, look and taste great and freeze well.

Oh, and the other thing I should mention: I’m not really giving you a recipe.  Just some suggestions.

Other ideas for using up eggs include a bread pudding-like baked French Toast, Dutch Baby (a puffy baked pancake) or a strata made with spinach and cheese.

Muffin Cup Quiche

Frozen Crust – defrosted according to package directions (or use homemade crust)

Nonstick Spray

Various Vegetables for filling– such as asparagus, mushrooms, broccolini, chard, onion

Cheese – cheddar, Swiss, Parmesan and feta are all good choices

Eggs

Salt and Pepper

Herbs or Spices if desired

Milk

Bacon (optional) cooked until crisp and drained

Set oven temperature to 375.

For these little quiche I used frozen dough from Trader Joe’s but you could use your favorite crust recipe. After it was thawed, I unrolled it and while it was still covered in plastic I gave it a quick roll with a rolling pin to smooth out some cracks and make it just a bit bigger.  Peel plastic off dough.

Spray the muffin tins with nonstick spray and use a glass or round cookie or biscuit cutter to cut circles out of the dough.

Press dough circles into muffin tin.

Prepare your filling: for one batch I used mushrooms and asparagus with cheddar and Parmesan cheeses.  The second batch was a combination of broccolini, red onion, Swiss cheese and bacon.  Yummy!

Trim the vegetables and slice or chop into pieces. Heat a pan and spray with nonstick spray.  Saute vegetables until tender.

Dice or shred or crumble or slice up some cheese.  Put a bit of cheese in each muffin cup.  Add a few pieces each of mushroom and asparagus (or whatever vegetables you are using) to each muffin cup.

Beat eggs together and season as desired. I just used salt and pepper.  I had a whole bunch of eggs from my craft projects so I measured 1.5 cups of beaten egg.  (This was too much and I could probably have done with 1 to 1.25 cups – it will depend on both the size of the eggs and the size of the muffin cups.)  Add milk – I used 3/4 of a cup of milk.  This was enough egg and milk for 24 muffin cup quiche.

Scoop egg and milk mixture into a glass measuring cup and pour into  muffin cups.  Fill cups about 2/3 full.  Sprinkle additional cheese on top or add small pieces of cooked bacon to each cup.

Bake about 18 to 22 minutes or until puffy and set.  It will depend on the size of your muffin pan.

Each crust was enough to make 12 circles of dough (I rerolled the scraps for the last few) and I refrigerated the second disc of dough and made the second batch a day later.  The quiche froze well in zippered freezer bags and I could reheat a few in the toaster oven.  I really love crust so I particularly like this size quiche.  A few quiche with a salad and dinner is ready.  It was great having these in the freezer and I made enough to share some with my parents.

Thanks for the visit.

Chocolate Cherry Mice

Not a creature was stirring except maybe a chocolate cherry mouse.  Or at least the person making Chocolate Cherry Mice.

It isn’t quite time to be nestled all snug in your bed waiting for Santa but it’s getting close.  I meant to do a new batch of these cute cherry-chocolate mousies and get some better photos but it didn’t happen.  So these photos are from the ones I made last year.

They’re still very sweet and even if none of you make chocolate cherry mice this Christmas, I’ll be happy to let these chocolate cuties out into blogland.  Maybe next year I’ll get it together to make a batch a little earlier and take some new pictures sooner.

Chocolate Cherry Mice

Ingredients:

Maraschino Cherries with stems for the tails

Chocolate Kisses

Melting Chocolate (I use Guittard Chocolate Apeels or you can get Meltaways or Candymelts at Michaels – match the chocolate of the kisses to the melting chocolate)

Sliced Almonds

Decorating Gel in Black and Pink  (you could also use silver dragees for eyes and noses or dots of melted chocolate.)

Parchment Paper

Directions:

Drain the cherries and pat them dry with paper towel.

Melt some of the melting chocolate. I use a bowl in the microwave, stirring and checking every 15 to 20 seconds until melted. You can use a double-boiler. A wooden chopstick is my stirrer of choice.

Dip cherries in melted chocolate.  Set dipped cherries down on parchment or waxed paper covered rimmed baking sheet with stems pointing up. Coat stems with chocolate. Let set enough to handle.

Now attach the flat bottom of the dipped cherry with melted chocolate to the flat bottom of a kiss. If at any point your melted chocolate gets to hard, microwave for 10 more seconds and stir.

For stability I like to dab some of the melted chocolate on the bottom of the “body” for a more flat base. Let set.

Find sliced almonds of similar size and break off the pointed end.

Use melted chocolate to glue the almonds onto the back of the head (the kiss). Let set.

If you like, coat the almond with more melted chocolate so your mice are all chocolate. Let set.

If at any point you see cherry juice seepage, just dot some melted chocolate over to seal.

Carefully dot on eyes and nose with decorating gel.

The gel doesn’t set up dry so be careful how you handle your mice.  You can opt to use silver dragees or other tiny candy for eyes and nose or dot on melted dark chocolate for milk chocolate mice and the reverse on dark chocolate mice.

They would look cute on a Yule log or added to a holiday cookie (or cheese) platter.

Now I have to scurry and get some other Christmas projects done.

Thank you for for stopping by.  I appreciate the visit.