Good Morning Love

I am a morning person. One of those cheerful, happy for a new day, loves the sun shining in my face through the blinds people. It’s sort of weird, considering I am a journalist, and most journalists are night owls. And, I work nights, most days of the week. But, despite that, I’m up by 8 a.m. most days –and that’s a LATE start for me. Weird right?

Well, this morning, I woke up at 7:30 a.m. I stayed in bed for a while, watched a little bit of Good Morning America, then headed downstairs to the kitchen to make an iced latte, my morning ritual. As I reached over the fruit/vegetable bowl to get to the espresso machine, my eyes fell on the potatoes in the bowl. I sort of forgot they were even in there, to be honest. Then I thought…. Hash browns…. Hash brown crusted quiche…

And so, at 8 a.m. on a Wednesday morning, I started cooking. I’m not generally a big fan of breakfast foods, but this is one recipe that I’ll make an exception for. A simple quiche, with green onions (from my newly planted container garden!) crumbled turkey bacon, and cheese… and the best part, a crust made of crispy, golden, hash browns.

HASH BROWN CRUSTED QUICHE

• 3 potatoes, peeled and shredded (you can use frozen shredded potatoes to save time -about 3 cups- just defrost and get rid of any excess water with a clean, dry kitchen towel)
• 3 T melted margarine or butter
• 6 eggs
• 1/2 cup sliced green onions
• 4-5 strips of turkey bacon, cooked crisp and crumbled
• 1 c shredded cheese, I like to use Swiss
• salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Peel and shred the potatoes, making sure to absorb any moisture in them with a towel so that they brown and crisp in the oven. Mix potatoes with melted butter in a pie plate, and use your hands to form a crust with them. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until potatoes are crispy and golden. While crust is baking, mix eggs, green onions, bacon, cheese, salt and pepper together. Pour egg mixture into crust once it’s done, and put into the oven, with the temperature reduced to 350 degrees for 30 minutes, until it is light golden-brown and puffy.

Normally I make two pie plates of this, since it goes pretty fast, but this morning, since it was just for me, I made two mini quiches, using just one egg for each, and saved one for tomorrow. Yum!