Nurturing my inner... honey i shrunk the quiche

I'm back!  Not that you knew I was gone, but I was on vacation.  Which means I do have posts on restaurants coming up soon.  But first, a little home cooking.

When I was a kid, I was fascinated with tiny things.  I never had a dollhouse, but I had a few dollhouse furniture pieces from my cousins.  One was a cupboard with all these little vegetable cans in it.  I loved that!  As an adult (I do realize that may be up for debate given this conversation), I remain in awe of anything that we know of as large normally, but has been shrunken down to minuscule.  Small just equals cute!

Speaking of downsizing, with the housing market as it is, small is the new cool thing.  I've heard of people selling their larger single family homes and moving into townhouses.  And it's not limited to just people.  This bird feeder community I pass on one of my runs used to have three houses last summer and now they are down to two!

You know things are tough when bird housing
has been reduced. No one is safe.

And check these out - someone had brought teeny lollipops into the office one day.  (Yes, I did take two!  I mean, come on!  Have you ever seen a more adorable pop?)

Next to a pen for your visual reference.

Playing off of that tiny theme I've set the stage for, I made a baby version of a favorite brunch food.

Mini Ham & Cheese and Asparagus/Mushroom & Cheese Quiches

1/3 cup of chopped ham
1/3 cup mushrooms (sauteed and chopped) and asparagus (steamed, use the more tender top 2/3rds of each stalk, cut into small pieces)
½ cup shredded cheddar cheese
2 tbsps heavy or light cream
2 heaping tbsps cream cheese (I use whipped)
4 large eggs
1 premade pie crust

2 mini muffin pans (12 cups in each, makes 24)

This is for two sets of quiches.  So the ingredients are halved.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Roll out the pie crust and use a biscuit cutter (mine was the fourth from the smallest) to cut circles.

Flour your surface so it doesn't stick.

I normally get about 20-22 at first pass and then have to patch together the dough to get the rest.  When it bakes together, you won't even notice the Frankenstein ones.

Make sure dough stays cool.

Mini muffin trays are so great.  You can use them for so many things.  I sprayed two of them with nonstick spray.

You could do this with regular muffin tins, but
darn it if small isn't more appealing.

Line each cup with one of the dough circles.  Make sure to pat out the air so the dough stays flat on the bottom.

You could probably pierce with a fork to make
sure they stay flat as well.

Now for the filling.  All quiche begin with eggs.  Take two bowls and in each put two eggs.  (This is for making two different kinds.)

The base.

I normally use heavy cream, but had light at home that day.  Turns out that light works just as well and has less fat.  So either will work.

Milk products add a lovely creaminess.

I beat the eggs and then add in the cream and cream cheese.  1 tbsp cream and 1 heaping tbsp cream cheese into each bowl.

Very few ingredients make a wonderful dish.

You can mix that with a hand mixer to get it super blended, I have done this in the past, but this day I just mixed it with a fork.  The cream cheese ends up in little bits which melt nicely in the quiche.  Then add in 1/4 cup of shredded cheddar cheese into each bowl as well.

In this case, don't be afraid of lumps!
They'll melt.

Now that you have two identical bowls of base quiche mixture, it's time to differentiate and flavor each.  1/3 cup of chopped ham into one.  And then 1/3 cup combined fine chopped sauteed mushrooms and steamed asparagus cut into small pieces in the other.  Other variations I like are sausage (brown and drain fat) with onion (saute) and broccoli cheddar.  But any meat, veggie and cheese combo will work.  Feta is great, spinach, sundried tomatoes, basil, goat cheese, chives.  Whatever flavor combinations you like.

Meat and vegetable. Something for everyone.

Spoon some mixture into each cup.  You can fill just to the rim.  Make sure the dough is covered all around.  (Tip: I try to fish out some of each solid ingredient to make sure things are evenly distributed into every cup, then I go back and add the liquid.)

One entire muffin tin for each type.

Ham and cheese is very traditional and never disappoints.  (Tip: If you forget to add the cheddar inside the mixture as I have one time, you can always put a little on top of each one at the end and they'll turn out just fine.)

Sauteed onion would be good to add to this
as well. But not today!

Into the oven for 11 - 13 minutes.  Or until the edges are just slightly brown and the center is solid.  When they bake, they do puff up.  But they won't spill out.  (At least this is my repeatable experience.)

The pastry crust makes it smell extra buttery.

This is why you can fill them up to the top, they expand upward when they bake, but that will be short lived.

You'll want to eat one hot right out of the
pan! But don't or you'll burn your mouth
something fierce.

Run a knife around the rim of each to make sure they are loosened, then pop them all out and cool on a rack.



Love the cheese. Let's you know you're
going to be getting into something good.


Note how they deflate when they cool, as promised.  You can see bits of mushroom and asparagus, so you know exactly what's in there.

Little works of art.

These two biters are easy to pick up and perfect for potluck brunches.  (They freeze well too!)  The small size makes them especially delicious.  That may just be mental and not fact, but I think you'll agree with me.  You won't compromise taste or satisfaction with the reduced size, but maybe you won't feel quite as guilty when you eat four of them!