When my aunt and I get together, cooking is one of my favorite things to do. Not only is it a fun way to hang out and get to know one another better, but it’s a great way to pick up some cooking tips, tricks, and learn a new recipe while I’m at it!

One that’s stuck with me over the years (that’s WAY easier than you’d think) is her mushroom and spinach quiche. For a timesaver, my aunt uses frozen spinach, but I’ve found that combining fresh spinach with the garlic and mushrooms adds more flavor in the long run. Another tweak I made to her recipe is switching out shredded cheese (swiss, monterey jack, or whatever your go-to is) with feta. Check out the following recipe, and wow your friends and family with this homemade creation!

What you’ll need:

1 frozen pie crust

6 oz. spinach

1 tablespoon parsley

8 oz. mushrooms

4 oz. feta cheese

2 cloves garlic

4 eggs

3/4 cup milk

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

salt and pepper, to taste

Let’s start by preheating the oven to 400 degrees and setting your frozen pie crust on the counter to soften up. Then, while that’s going on, get a move on with the prep – you’re going to want to mince up the garlic, wash and slice up the mushrooms (if you didn’t buy them pre-sliced), chop up the parsley, and cut up or crumble the feta.

Next up, saute the garlic, mushrooms, and spinach in a saucepan. I add the spinach a handful at a time because if you put everything in at once, you’d either need a ginormous pan or you’re in danger of losing some ingredients to the stove or floor. Both the spinach and mushrooms shrink down as they cook, so just keep adding the raw spinach in when space frees up. You can also add the cheese in this step, so everything gets all gooey, or you can add it later to give you chunks to bite into when the quiche is all said and done.

While the spinach mixture is a-cookin’, crack open those eggs into a small bowl, whisking them in with the milk, parsley, and nutmeg.

Sometimes when I cook, I switch out or even cut out ingredients, based on what I have on hand or how lazy I am to pick up a missing ingredient. If you’re like me, you might consider skipping out on the nutmeg, thinking such a small amount won’t really be missed, but please don’t! The nutmeg actually steps up your quiche to become restaurant-worthy, and is probably the key ingredient to making this quiche soo good!

By this time, your pie crust should be malleable. Here’s your chance to fix the crust if you’re OCD and want your quiche to look perfect, because it’s probably gotten a little messed up after being stacked and moved around in the market or your freezer.

Put the spinach medley into the pie crust, spreading it around evenly. Then, start slowly pouring in the egg mixture, making sure it doesn’t spill over the crust. You might have a bit of the eggs leftover, but that’s okay, because they make for a yummy side of scrambled eggs!

If you didn’t add in the cheese while you were cooking the spinach, add in the chunks or crumbles here. The above picture shows the time I tried chunks (the tofu looking pieces) in order to make the feta flavor more pronounced compared to when using crumbles.

And now, onto the final step – place the quiche into the oven until lightly browned, about 45 minutes. If you’re unsure if it’s done, an easy way to check is to stick a toothpick into the center. If it comes out clean (without any bits of quiche on it), then you’re good to go! Let your masterpiece cool down for 20-30 minutes before breaking into it. Here are a couple of pictures of the finished product – the left hand side has the chunks, while the right hand has crumbles.

Until next time, enjoy!