chard

In an effort to eat my veggies (as many as possible) I came up with this quiche recipe.  My usual quiche tends to be mostly egg with small bits of spinach (or broccoli) and bacon dispersed throughout.  My goal here was to create a vegetarian quiche that was nearly solid veggies, just held together with the egg mixture.  Kind of like the little spinach quiches that Paradise Bakery used to serve.

And it was a success!  Everyone loved it.  Katie had three big pieces.  Loved seeing her eat all that chard!

This recipe makes two quiches.  I used prepared frozen pie crusts because I feel like crap and didn’t have the energy to make homemade crust.  You could do crustless but I really was craving that crust.  In a perfect world, I’d make these with a coconut flour crust so they’d be grain-free.

My veggies and dairy were organic and my eggs local pastured, all-natural eggs.  Beautiful!

1 bunch swiss chard
1 leek
4 small broccoli crowns
8 eggs
1 cup half & half
1 cup shredded cheese (I used a mix of cheddars and colby-jack)
1 stick butter
3 tbs grapeseed or safflower oil
seasonings of your choice (I used about 1/2 tsp sea salt, 1 tsp fresh ground pepper and a few sprinkles of Chef’s Shake and a tsp of granulated onion)

Melt butter with oil in large skillet over medium heat while slicing chard stalks and center stems.  I like to cut before washing and then wash/spin in my OXO spinner.  Add stalks/stems to pan.

Prepare leek by slicing off root end, slicing the leek long-ways (keeping part of the top in tact) and then slice the leek into 1-8-1/4″ pieces.  Use all of the white part and go a few slices into the green leaves.  I cut before washing, again.  It’s a lot easier to get the leeks clean if you can swish them around in water already cut.  Then I spin in the OXO.  Then add to the pan and stir into the chard stems.

While the stems and leek cook, I chopped the broccoli crowns coarsely and then chopped them up in my Vitamix.  I was trying to eliminate big hunks of florets that would make the filling less smooth.   I missed a few but it didn’t matter in the end.  Add the chopped broccoli to the pan.

Finally, prepare the chard leaves.  Again I cut before washing.  I like to roll the leaves up and slice the rolls so I have long strips.  Then I rinsed them, spinned them out and finally added to the pan to wilt them down.  At this point I threw a lid on to speed things up.

While the leaves were wilting, I made the egg mixture.  I put the eggs, half and half, cheese and seasonings (salt, pepper, Chef’s Shake and granulated onion) into the Vitamix and mixed just until combined.  I left the jar on the machine so I could remix once more before adding the mix to the pie plates.

Next, I divided my cooked veggie mixture between the two prepared pie crusts.  Then I blended my egg mixture one more time (the cheese likes to settle) and divided that mixture between the two quiches.  The pies looked about 75% veggies and 25% custard.  Perfect.  I baked in a 375 degree oven for 30 minutes and they were perfectly done.  Tip:  I put them fairly low in the oven…prevents soggy crust and overbrowning on top!  I also put them on a baking sheet, just in case.  But they didn’t overflow.

We cut and ate right away, but it’s also yummy at room temp.  Serve with some wonderful grapes and a little salad.  Yum!

Another tip:  Quiche freezes REALLY well.  When I can work up the energy, I’m planning on making a dozen of these and freezing slices, so that we have a quick, healthy “grab-n-go” meal in the freezer.