Quiche me Once, Quiche me twice

Friday at noon was the office "Holiday Party" and after a couple of hours with an open bar in the conference room, the executive director has the great sense to send us all home early.  So I was home at 4:00.  Having a little extra time, I decided to get creative in the kitchen and make a quiche.  Someone once said, "real men don't eat quiche," what kind of men make them?

Quiche is really a simple egg custard in a pie shell You can put almost any combination of ingredients into it.  This one was onions, mushrooms, sausage and cheddar cheese.

I start with a cheat, a pre-made pie crust.  I buy the rolled up one's in the dairy case. These are easy to work with, quick, and they store reasonably well in the refrigerator.  This is one place where the brand name will frequently be better than the store brand.  I started by taking the rolled crust out of the refrigerator to warm to room temperature, it needs at least 30 minutes.  

Ingredients:
One medium onion diced
8-10 mushrooms cleaned and sliced
6-8 ounces of extra sharp cheddar cheese grated
6-8 ounces of breakfast sausage (bulk)
6-7 eggs
1/4 to 1/2 cup of heavy cream
Salt and pepper to taste
Olive oil as needed
Single pie crust
Preheat the oven to 350-375 F

While the crust was warming I diced the onion, mushrooms and grated the cheese. I cut the sausage into slices about 1/4 of an inch thick. In a very heavy fry or saute pan cook the sausage over medium heat- turning as needed to prevent it from getting overly crusty.  Start with the sausage, the grease from it will be used to cook the onions and mushrooms. When the sausage is cooked, remove, turn the heat up slightly and cook the mushrooms. Turn the mushrooms to get a nice brown on both sides.  When done, remove and saute the onions until transparent, a little color is fine, but don't burn them.  You may need to add a little olive oil to the mushrooms and onions as the cook.  A heavy pan really helps, I use a cast iron fry pan. Season the onions and mushrooms with salt and pepper to taste.

Place the pasty in a pie plate, and place in the preheated oven for 5-7 minutes.  The goal here is to partially pre-cook the pastry to minimize ending up with a soggy bottom.

While the pastry is pre-baking, break eggs into a bowl, whisk in the cream, and whisk until smooth.

Remove pastry from the oven, start with a layer of grated cheese, then veggies, then sausage, then repeat with cheese, veggies and sausage.  You should get two of three layers in.  Pour the egg and cream mixture over the layered ingredient in the pie crust.

Bake one hour at 350-375.  When done a knife inserted in the middle will come out clean (no sign of uncooked egg.) Let cool at least 15 minutes, slice and enjoy.

Let leftovers cool (this will take a while, this is a very dense food.)  Refrigerate. I think it is even better the second day, you can serve it cold, or it reheats quickly in the microwave.