Test Kitchen #10: Veggie, Cheese & Bacon Quiche

First off, let's hear it for #10! Ten recipes cooked, tweaked and tested! (Ok, so it's not the 200th episode of the Simpson's or the series finale of ER, but it's still pretty exciting to us.) Here's to ten more afternoons of experiments and many more to come beyond that!

This week's article is a little behind since I was instructed by my better half to wait on submitting my test kitchen because he had an article he wanted to contribute first. We spent Easter weekend in Gettysburg and Matt wants to write up something which I'm sure, in part, will be an ode to his favor beer, Yuengling. However, I've realized that if I wait for him, we might be celebrating 20 recipes done before I post number 10. Stay tuned for tales of pub food, road trips and battlefields.

This week I was exploring a food web site that Mom had sent me a while ago, Eat Better America.com. Among plenty of health-conscious recipes to choose from, they also feature "healthified" versions of old favorites. A "healthified" recipe includes a comparison to the traditional way of making a dish, so you can see how many calories and how much fat your cutting. For this test, I chose something simple: The "Healthified" Cheddar and Bacon Quiche.

Using plenty of existing items in the house, I was able to avoid a separate trip to the grocery store, which always makes me happy. As usual, we had to tweak the recipe to make it our own. We added some tomatoes and green peppers and swapped the real bacon for turkey bacon. The best swap was the use of Aunt Jemina Original Pancake Mix for the crust instead of the Bisquick that the recipe calls for. The quiche came out alright for our first try at it, but the crust was really good. Crispy, like a cracker with a hint of sweetness.

Veggie, Cheese & Bacon Quiche

Ingredients:
1 ½ cups Aunt Jemima Original Pancake Mix
2 tablespoons canola oil
5 tablespoons boiling water
4 slices turkey bacon, cooked and crumbled
½ cup shredded reduced-fat sharp Cheddar cheese
4 medium green onions, thinly sliced (¼ cup)
½ cup diced tomatoes
½ cup green peppers
2 whole eggs
2 egg whites
1 ¼ cups milk
½ teaspoon ground mustard
¼ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon red pepper sauce


1. Heat oven to 400°F. Spray 9-inch glass pie plate with cooking spray. In a food processor, blend Pancake mix and oil until combined. Add boiling water in through top of processor; blend until soft dough forms. (More water can be added if necessary).

2. Flour a work surface and roll the dough out into a round shape with a rolling pin. Lay into pie plate, bringing the dough evenly up the sides. Trim off any access dough with a knife.

3. Sprinkle half the turkey bacon, cheese and onions over the bottom of the crust.

4. In medium bowl, beat eggs, egg whites, milk, mustard, salt and pepper sauce with wire whisk until blended. Add the remaining bacon, cheese, onions to egg mixture along with tomatoes and green peppers. Stir a few times. Pour into crust.

5. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until center is set. Let stand 10 minutes before cutting.

The Verdict:
The important thing is to learn something with every experiment. This time I learned that while eggs loaded with veggies might be a healthy idea, it also adds too much water to the mixture and makes the final product a little mushy.

Tomatoes always have a ton of liquid in them and I probably shouldn’t have added so many. Next time, I would add less and maybe even give them a turn into the salad spinner to pull out the excess water. Dad also suggested making the swap for red peppers, so you could keep the nice color combination, but have less water. Sun dried tomatoes could also be another interesting otpion.

The quiche did taste good, but the eggs could have been firmer. It was better that evening when we warmed it up in the toaster oven for Matt’s dinner. The second heating dried it out a little and it wasn’t so mushy. I think I also would have gone with the real bacon after all, for more added flavor. And maybe dial up the hot sauce, too.

Here’s to the next ten!