Ham and Cheese Quiche

Yesterday I ate at a friend's house and had some delicious tacos from our favorite sketchy taco place. They use corn tortillas and no cheese, so the food is actually a lot healthier than any other "Mexican" restaurant around us. Of course, the fact that it's actual Mexican food, may help with the health level. Most Tex-Mex or imitation Mexican restaurants slather their food in cheese and use flour tortillas, so they're usually not the best choice for those of us counting calories.

Tonight, though, I'm making one of my husband's favorites: ham and cheese quiche. And here I was just bashing the cheese! Ah well, low fat Swiss helps keep me from too bad a meal. :)

This recipe is adapted from my mother's quiche, which uses heavy cream instead of milk. Granted, heavy cream does taste delicious, but it's not kind to my waist line.

Ingredients

1 frozen pie shell, unbaked, 9-inch

6 ounces shredded Swiss Cheese (on sale at Kroger this week, and I snagged the low-fat)

6 ounces diced ham (98% fat free)

4 medium eggs or 3 large ones (I usually get the large, but the medium was on sale. Are you noticing a trend with my ingredients? I almost only buy things when they're on sale!)

1 cup 2% milk

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375.

2. Spread the ham and cheese on the bottom of the pie shell. Be sure to mix them up. You don't want a layer of ham and then a layer of cheese.

3. Whip together the eggs, milk, and pepper. If you want, throw in a dash of something else. Cayenne pepper is really good. I used paprika this time, because I enjoy the slight complexity it gives to eggs.

4. Bake in the oven for 45-1hr or until the top starts browning like in the picture above.

5. Give it a minute or two to cool, and then slice into 6 even wedges. Serve with salad or other veggies if you don't claim salad is the food that food eats (*ahem* my husband).

There are so many ways you can play with this so simple recipe. My mother loves to add tomatoes or green peppers and onions. You can basically use any cheese you like or try doing bacon instead of ham. Just cook it first and put in the pie dish with the cheese, and pour the eggs on top. Yum!

Nutrition Facts:

This one's a bit high in saturated fat and cholesterol, so you better have eaten healthy the rest of the day!

(Disclaimer, based on caloriecount.about.com. May not be exactly accurate, but is a good general guideline.)

Per Serving (serves 6)

Calories: 324

Total Fat: 20.6g

Saturated Fat: 8.4g

Cholesterol: 140mg

Sodium: 616mg

Total Carbs: 16.1g

Dietary Fiber: 0.6g

Sugars: 4.5g

Protein: 18.0g

Vitamin A: 9%

Vitamin C: 2%

Calcium: 32%

Iron: 7%