This savory-sweet quiche-like egg & cheese pie is our version of Daniel Myer's Ember Day Tart. It's tasty enough that people will easily want 2-3 slices if it's the main dish.  It's not as salty as, say a quiche florentine, but it's definately not desert.  Daniel Myer's full fat version is very deluxe.  Our lower-fat version still isn't exactly health food but at least it doesn't ooze melted butter/cheese oil...

5 eggs
1 1/4 cups coarsely chopped onion
1/2 lb mozarella, grated
3 tbsp butter, melted (we use salted butter, unsalted might lead to a bland pie)
1/2 cup raisins
1/4 cup grated carrot
(optional) 1/4 package of frozen chopped spinach, nuked 5 minutes and drained well
1 Tbsp sugar
0.15 oz fresh sage, dry weight (about 15 leaves)
1 cup loosely packed curley leaf parsley
1/2 tsp anise seed (DMyer's version calls for "hyssop")
9" deep pie crust
1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 450. Brush pie crust with some lightly beaten egg white  (from the 5 you're going to use), bake crust (at 450) for 12 minutes or until lightly golden.  As the crust is prebaking, chop onions, melt butter, nuke spinach. After the crust comes out, turn oven down to 350. Parboil onions and fresh herbs and drain (60 seconds?).  Finely chop herbs.  Beat eggs.  Mix all ingredients, pour into pie shell, bake for one hour at 350.

Note: if the sage isn't super-pungent when you put it in the tart, you can add more.  We had never used sage before and the smell was kind of disturbing but it mellows out a lot in the pie and combined with the anise it comes out really nice.  You may want to add some anise to the fresh herbs (about 1/4 tsp) but most of it drains away with the water.  That's what I found the first time.  The next times we made it, I didn't parboil the anise.  The first time pie was the best but there were many other factors involved too.  It's a toss up.

Merrr found this through loreleisedai's LiveJournal, late summer 2003.

Enjoy,
sunspark & merrr

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