Happy Easter!

Please do not think the only thing I did this Easter weekend was construct a bunny from 2 baguettes, a boule, and a couple of raisins. I also napped, watched several movies, and shared an entire bottle of champagne with Shane (over the course of a day, not in one sitting). It was a very productive, albeit cold weekend. In the course of my weekend, I saw more snowmen than bunnies.

Even as we wolfed our Easter evening quiche, I gazed at snow-glistened rooftops of the flats behind our kitchen window. How hard was it for little Easter boys and girls to find their neon green and magenta colored eggs in the half-melted snow?

To brighten up our not-quite-spring weather, I formulated and experimented with quiche. A light quiche, if possible, and there are tricks to lighten quiches. I’ve seen recipes for both going crust-less quiches and quiches that use a simple mashed potato crust. But hey, what’s a traditional holiday without a little butter and cream -- Just a bit of both? Okay, a bit of cream and a lot of butter. Balance – it’s all about balance.

Forget potatoes, forget a non-existent crust and give me flaky, buttery, browned goodness. Quiche crust, I’m not afraid to do 300 crunches the next morning. (There are no witnesses, but I did do 300 crunches the next morning.) I am an all butter pie crust gal. Crisco scares me, and I still cannot bring myself to use lard (although if I were put into a smoke-filled interrogation room with the blinds drawn and the ceiling fan whirling and causing a shadow upon the table, I would tearfully admit to preferring lard over Crisco before wiping my eyes with my blood red, 1-inch long fingernails).

For those who are intimidated by a pie crust more than being interrogated in a film noir, Gourmet’s all butter pastry dough is a no-brainer. As all good things, it only takes a bit of time to create something memorable (or at the very least, edible).

Shane and I agreed a quiche with asparagus and goat cheese sounded divine, reminiscent of an omelet we had at a nearby diner. However, after searching the internet for a simple goat cheese and asparagus quiche, nothing I found quite passed the Emilie standard. Most recipes called for both heavy cream and whole milk. I keep 1% milk in the fridge for me, and 2% milk for Shane. I don’t have room in either my fridge or my pants for either whole milk or cream. Forget bikini season, I’m just trying to make my skinny jeans go from eye popping to only slightly crushing my spleen. I do, however, keep a small container of fully fattening sour cream. Sour cream has saved me from cluttering my fridge with both buttermilk and heavy cream. From pancakes to potato soup to (now) quiche… oh forget it. I may as well be wearing a ruffled apron and an unnaturally white smile.

I have my crust, I have my main ingredients, and now I have a milk plan. For every 3 parts milk (using 2% milk), use 1 part sour cream, combine in a jar, and vigorously shake. Voila! The milk comes out thicker than whole milk, but not as rich or fattening as pure cream.

Eggs – how many eggs does it take to make a quiche? Two, but I wouldn’t ask them to check out my breaker box. From my quiche-search, the number of eggs

to fill a 9 inch crust varied from 3 large to 6 large. What is a girl to do? With a willingness to completely screw up my recipe, I penciled a formula: for a 9-inch pie dish, use 2 whole eggs and 2 eggs yolk

s combined with 1 cup milk, or 1 cup of combined milk and sour cream. The rest of my quiche plan came together easily.

Here is the formula I concocted for a 9-inch pie plate:

1 9-inch pie crust

2 medium shallots, sliced
12 oz fresh asparagus, woody ends trimmed, and cut into 1-inch pieces on the diagonal
1 tablespoon butter

2 large eggs
2 egg yolks (from large eggs)
¼ cup sour cream
¾ cup 2% milk
3 scallions, white and some green, chopped
Salt and pepper

8 oz soft goat cheese, cut into 15 rounds
Fresh thyme


Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Roll out pie crust and fit into 9-inch pie plate. Set aside in refrigerator until ready to use.

In a large pan over medium heat, sauté shallots and asparagus in butter until asparagus are crisp tender, about 5-8 minutes. Do not overcook asparagus or they’ll become mushy in quiche.

While asparagus is sautéing, combine sour cream and milk in a jar, and shake vigorously until sour cream is incorporated into milk. Combine milk and sour cream mixture with whole eggs, egg yolks, and scallions and whisk until eggs are pale yellow and well incorporated. Season with salt and pepper.

Remove pie crust from refrigerator. Crumble and scatter half the goat cheese rounds on the bottom of the crust. Top goat cheese with asparagus and shallots, and pour egg mixture over asparagus. Dot the top of the mixture with remaining goat cheese rounds, distributing them evenly.

Bake on middle rack of the oven for 35 minutes. Quiche will not be completely set, and that’s okay; it’ll continue to cook after it’s removed from the oven. Let quiche cool for 10 minutes or up to several hours (I made mine 2 hours in advance). Serve at room temperature (of, if you must, “nuke” it Shane-style).

Conclusion: Creamy, smooth, and light, even for a dish wrapped in butter and flour. What would I do differently? For starters, I need to measure our pie plate. I have it ingrained in my brain that it’s a 9-inch pie plate, but my filling left a lot of exposed pie crust. For those who love crusts, this may not be an issue. Personally I desire more balance between filling and crust. For my next quiche, I plan on upping the egg quantity to 3 whole eggs and 3 yolks, while increasing the milk mixture to 1 ½ cups. Also, as a request from Shane, I will cut back the amount of goat cheese to about 7 ounces, crumbled and scattered more into the quiche rather than artfully arranged on the top layer. Cheese, butter, and sour cream may not help me fit into my skinny jeans, although I did compromise by forgoing a rich dessert. By eating my bread bunny’s raisin eyes, I compensated.