Meat Crust Quiche

   Our good friends moved recently, and gave us their laying hens. Well, they didn't lay a single egg for 2 weeks (because it was still so very cold), and then-wham! They were laying a million eggs every day!!! O.k, a million is an egg-xaggeration (see what I did there?), but we suddenly had more eggs than we could possibly eat. So, as the old saying goes, if you have too many eggs, make a quiche. That is 100% not a real saying, but it could be. 
   Because we are largely gluten-free at our house, a "regular" crust was out, but I wasn't in the mood for a crustless quiche....with some inspiration from a favourite blog of mine, PaleOMG, a meat crust seemed genius, and I went for it!

Meat Crust Quiche

Ingredients

• 1 pound ground meat (italian sausage, pork, beef, or venison, or a mix with chicken or turkey)
• 1/2 yellow onion, diced
  
• 2 cups fresh spinach
• 4 eggs, whisked
• 2 garlic cloves, diced
• 1 jalepeno, diced-Optional (if you remove the stems and seeds it gets rid of a lot of the heat, but you still get a great flavour) 
  
• Salt and pepper, to taste

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
2. Press your raw ground meat into a pie plate, like you would if you were making a regular crust, pressing it up the sides, and making sure it is all fairly even in thickness.
3. Place pie plate into oven, and bake for 18-20 minutes. It doesn’t need to be completely cooked through, but really close.
4. While your crust is baking, place 2 tablespoons of olive oil, coconut oil, walnut oil, or bacon fat into a saucepan over medium heat. Then add the garlic, & the onions.  Once the onions begin to become translucent, sprinkle a bit of salt and pepper on top.
5. After about 5 minutes, put the spinach into the pan, and mix it all around for 3-5 minutes until the spinach starts to wilt. Once it's wilted, remove from heat, and wait for the meat crust to be finished.
6. When the crust is finished, remove it from the oven, and carefully drain some of the grease from the pan (I tip mine carefully over a glass cup). Then, scrape the garlic/onion/spinach mixture into it. Sprinkle the chopped jalepeno on top (if using). The pour the whisked eggs over that.
7. Place the eggie pie into the oven and bake for 23-25 minutes. Once the middle pushes back when you poke it, it's ready fer eatin'. 
8. Let cool oh so slightly, then cut and serve. 

  This quiche is hearty (obviously!), and it makes some of the best leftovers ever. 
  Well, alrighty. Gosh, I'm pooped. It's a super terrific, sun-shiny day though (SpongeBob said it first, not me), so I'm hoping a nice walk with my youngest after the olders get on the bus will wake me up....fingers crossed! 
   Happy Monday!