Did I mention that I'm on the "what's hanging around and how can I use it?" warpath?

After this past weekend's batch cook bonanza, it was needling me that I had a ton* (*6oz) of mushrooms still in the fridge. I needed them for the meatloaf, but my grocery store had only the 10oz packages in stock when I shopped, no bulk mushrooms left to pack on my own because of the severe weather we'd been having. Weather happens, but that's no reason for me to waste mushrooms!

I figured, it's okay, I'll eat them on toast or whatever. Mushrooms are the greatest! But then, once the dust had settled, I realized that I also had half a brick of cheddar left from that same meatloaf, and also a few slices of ham left from making my favorite pot pie. Cue all of the light bulbs: I could make a quiche to freeze for later down the road.

Planning!

Look, I always have eggs, flour, butter, salt, and hot sauce. Once I realized that I had the perfect combo of ingredients for the quiche fillings, I just had to get to (very minimal) work.

Here's the nutritional breakdown from Fitbit...

Groceries I had on hand... all of them!

• eggs
• cheddar
• ham
• cremini mushrooms
• olive oil
• butter
• flour
• salt
• hot sauce

Groceries I had to buy... none of them!

Total monies spent for the entire recipe: $0

Total monies spent for each of these 4 meals....

$0 per meal... it's all accounted for in the other recipes!

Cooking!

I didn't even bother taking pictures of the pastry process. Frankly, I understand that it's insulting your intelligence to have taken pictures of the process of making the filling. Quiche is a breeze. A tasty, tasty breeze.

Here's what I did: the pastry is a basic single crust paté brisée (8 tbsp butter cut into 1.25 cups AP flour with some salt, 1/3 cup water stirred in, all rested, then rolled out and chilled again); the filling is 4oz cheddar, 3oz cut up deli ham (I used scissors), 6oz cremini sliced and sauteed in 2 tbsp olive oil then cooled, 12 eggs, and about a tbsp of Secret Aardvark hot sauce. All beaten together, poured into the pastry shell, then baked at 375F for 45 minutes, and doublechecked for doneness with a skewer: done.

Quiche! It's going in the freezer with the rest of my "enjoy these later goodies," to be enjoyed, well, later!