Paula Deen's Lean: Spinach and Bacon Quiche

I feel so fancy making a quiche. My friend Tina has talked about making them before and I have always been so impressed. It just sounds complicated and a bit too gourmet for me...so I thought.
After skimming over Paula's recipe for quiche and seeing how easy it was, passing it up was out of the question. I had to make it. Well, now the secret is out, 'cause making a quiche is an easy as pie. Actually, it may be easier than making pie!
Now that I have taken the plunge into this new and exciting way of using the incredible-edible egg...life as I know it will never be the same! My mind is just racing with all the flavorful combinations that can be used in The Quiche. To start us out, here is the very lean version of Paula Deen's Spinach and Bacon Quiche; the recipe that helped me to overcome this once intimidating dish.

SPINACH AND BACON QUICHE
Makes 8 Servings

INGREDIENTS:

1-1/2 cups Reduced-Fat Mozzarella, shredded
6 pieces Canadian bacon, chopped
2 cups chopped baby spinach, packed
Salt and Pepper to taste
1-1/2 cup Egg Beaters
1-1/2 cup light cream

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Combine egg beaters, cream and salt & pepper. Mix well. Lightly spray the pie dish with nonfat cooking spray. Layer the spinach, Canadian bacon and cheese in the bottom of the pie dish. Pour the egg mixture on top. Bake for 35-45 minutes. The egg mixture will be set when complete. Cut quiche into 8 wedges.

RESULTS:

Success! Everyone loved it! I made it in the evening so that we could heat it up for breakfast in the morning, but we ended up eating it for dinner instead. It just smelled and looked too good to resist. It started with "just a taste" and ended up with a full slice. Breakfast for dinner is fun every now and then.

Overall, this dish is a nutritional super-star! It is low in fat and cholesterol, low-carb diet friendly and loaded with healthy baby green spinach. It doesn't get much better than that. Did I mention that it is also delicious? Well, it is!

If you compare this recipe to Paula's, you will see that I left out the pie crust, subbed Canadian bacon for real bacon and switched to a low-fat cheese. The egg substitutes made a tremendous difference by dropping the fat content in the eggs from 30 grams to 0! Talk about some trimming! Just for fun, here is a fat gram comparison of the amounts for the entire quiche, before and after it received the lean treatment. The numbers are almost scary! See for yourself.

INGREDIENT             BEFORE                           AFTER
Egg                                 30g                                      0g
Bacon                             42g                                      6g
Crust                               56g                                     0g
Cheese                             28g                                    20g
Cream                            120g                                    60g
_________________________________________________
TOTAL FAT                276g                                      86g      SAVINGS = 190g or about 24 g/serving!


Seeing is believing! Little changes make a big difference in everything but the flavor. ENJOY!