SPINACH RICOTTA QUICHE

As many of my recipes, this particular one is also a result of a new friendship. In the early 90's we were still living in Budapest and I met a very nice woman from Sweden in a grocery store parking lot. I offered her my cart seeing she also had a little one in her arm and we started chatting. We became good friends and one day she invited me over for lunch and prepared a delicious quiche with ham and cheese. I have never had quiche before but immediately fell in love with this dish and from that moment on, I have been making it with many different fillings. Hope you enjoy preparing and tasting this lovely lunch or dinner entree.

Ingredients for Crust:

• 1 & 1/2 cup of flour
• 1/2 cup of butter, softened
• 1 egg yolk
• 1-2 tablespoons of cold water
• dash of salt

Ingredients for filling:

• 8 oz of frozen spinach
• 8 oz of ricotta cheese
• 1 cup of graded Swiss cheese
• 4 green onions, chopped
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup of sour cream
• 3 tablespoons of milk
• 1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400. In a large bowl mix together flour with butter using a pastry cutter or fork until it looks like small pea size pieces. Time to get your hands dirty...Add egg yolk and water and mix it well, forming a ball. If necessary, you can add extra water, one tablespoon at a time. You can wrap your pastry in plastic foil and refrigerate for about 20 minutes. I usually start working with dough right away.

On a floured surface using a rolling pin, roll dough out to a large circle shape, big enough to cover the bottom and sides of your round quiche dish. Carefully lift up pastry using the rolling pin and place it into baking dish. With your fingers, push pastry to sides of dish, forming a nice scallopy edge.

Place an aluminum foil on top of pastry, or you can use a baking sheet adding rice on top. This is important to keep your pastry from shrinking and puffing up. Bake it for 10 minutes, remove foil and bake for another 5 minutes. Remove from oven and let it cool while you prepare your filling.

In a large mixing bowl, add spinach, ricotta, sour cream, onions, eggs, milk and nutmeg. Season it with salt and pepper. Fold in graded Swiss cheese. Pour mixture into pie crust and decorate it with slices of red peppers. Bake it on 350 for about 45 minutes to an hour, depending on your oven. Keep your eye on the pie crust, if it starts getting darker, cover just the crust with aluminum foil. Serve it with fresh greens in a light dressing. Bon Appetite!