One of my favorite parts of Amy Dacyczyn’s The Complete Tightwad Gazette is the universal recipes. These are generic recipes (i.e. “1 cup of ingredient #1; 1 cup of ingredient #2, etc) that allow you to pull together leftovers or scraps of food into delicious meals.

While popular in our household, I had somewhat gotten out of the habit of pulling together leftovers in this way. However, my recently-painful dining out bills inspired me to get back in the kitchen and make something with leftovers from a party – five ears of corn, some Stilton cheese, and a mustard sauce for kabobs.

I’m happy to say I succeeded, thanks to the universal crust-less quiche recipe. Here’s the original recipe:

Universal crust-less quiche

I cup plain yogurt (milk, cottage cheese, or other substitutions are possible here)
1/4 cup water
2-3 eggs, slightly beaten
1 cup flour
1/2 cup grated cheese
1/4 cooked, chopped meat
1/4 cup chopped, cooked vegetables
Seasoning to taste

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Mix all ingredients thoroughly. Pour into a greased 9″ pie plate Bake for 30-35 minutes or until set.

- The Complete Tightwad Gazette, Amy Dacyczyn, p. 763

A couple of my own notes:

  • The consistency of this quiche may not be what you’re expecting in a quiche, but don’t let that deter you. It’s good in its own right.
  • As suggested, there’s a wide variety of dairy options you can use for the first ingredient – milk is always perfectly acceptable, and sour cream also works well.
  • I find the quantities of meat and vegetables to be pretty small – you can definitely increase those if you happen to have more lying around.
  • I usually bake this in a casserole dish rather than a pie plate – most pie plates seem too small to me. Muffin tins also work to make mini-quiches!

This flexible recipe has been the basis for dozens of meals in our house. Heck, sometimes we even buy ingredients especially to make this quiche, rather than piecing it together from leftovers.

So here’s what I made last night:

Corn & Stilton Crustless Quiche

1 cup sour cream
Honey mustard
Finely chopped onions and peppers
1/4 cup water
3 eggs, slightly beaten
1 cup flour
1/2 cup crumbled Stilton (or any bleu cheese)
1/2 cup corn

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Mix all ingredients thoroughly. Pour into a greased 9″ casserole dish. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until set.

The top three ingredients were part of the mustard sauce for the kabobs. I figured, hey, it has sour cream as a base, why not? I’m pleased to say it worked well. The corn I sliced off the cob; since I didn’t have any meat to put in, and I figured the eggs provided enough protein, I just put in what I had of the corn, which was about a half cup. And, finally, Stilton is obviously not an inexpensive food item, but I happened to have it lying around, as I said, so in it went.

Try it yourself sometime – as with any universal recipe, substitution is half the fun :)

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