Bacon, Mushroom, and Gruyere Quiche

I apologize, it's near impossible to make quiche look as delicious as it tastes...a true shame because this is the best quiche I have ever tasted.  Hopefully you'll give it a try despite the poor photo quality.  (Why is food always so tough to photograph???)  The wonderful appeal of quiche, at least from my perspective, is that you can serve it any time of day...breakfast, brunch, lunch, or dinner.  Regardless of the meal time,  it is sure to be a crowd pleaser! People will surely ask for the recipe, just as I did when a friend made it the other day...

Ingredients for Crust:
1 cup flour
1/2 cup cold butter, cut into small pieces (I used salted butter)
1/2 tsp salt

Ingredients for Filling:
3 large eggs
12 oz whipping cream
1/8 tsp nutmeg
Salt & Pepper (as desired)
8 slices of thick-cut bacon, cooked and crumbled into small pieces (recommend the fresh deli-sliced bacon over the prepackaged type)
1/2 cup mushrooms, chopped
1 cup Gruyere cheese, grated


Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.  Grease a round pie pan.

2. For the crust - sift the flour and salt into a medium bowl.  Rub in the butter until the mixture resembles course breadcrumbs, then knead it a bit until it can bind together into a ball of dough.  (If necessary, add small amounts of ice-cold water to get it to bind together.)  Wrap ball of dough in plastic wrap and place in fridge for 20 minutes.

3. You have 2 choices for your crust:

Thin Pie-like Crust Option - Roll the refrigerated dough out on a well-floured surface until it's about 1/8" thick, then place in pie pan.  Prick the dough with a fork then bake for 15 minutes in preheated oven.

Thicker and Flakier Crust Option - Press the refrigerated dough into the bottom of the pie pan.  Prick the dough with fork, and bake for 15 minutes in preheated oven.

4. Sprinkle the bacon pieces and chopped mushrooms over the crust.

5. Beat eggs, whipping cream, nutmeg, salt, and pepper until well combined.  Stir in grated gruyere cheese.  Pour egg mixture into the crust, over the bacon and mushrooms.  Bake in preheated oven for 35 minutes, or until golden brown and cooked through.  Serve warm.

We recommend serving the quiche with savory breakfast potatoes and some orange juice for a sweet kick.  Our go-to potato recipe is super easy: a small bag of red new potatoes chopped into bite-sized pieces, tossed in 2 Tbsp olive oil and 1 package of Lipton's Onion Soup Mix.  Bake at 375 for 45 minutes.

Please let me know how the quiche turns out for you.  (It took some "converting" on my part as the recipe was originally in metric measurements and had to be translated to standard US measurements...) Enjoy!  -Kristen