Vegetable & Cream Cheese Quiche with Almond Crust

Quiche. I always associate it with spring - maybe it's because of the eggs (Easter Egg hunts) or the vegetables (Bye winter! Hello fresh veggies!) or because they're such an "Easter Brunch" friendly food (can be served room temperature). Either way, this quiche, made with an almond flour crust, is something I'll be serving all year long.

I've long been a fan of Elana's Pantry; her almond flour and coconut flour recipes are delicious and her cookbooks are gorgeous. I love her philosophy about food and the fact that she uses her grain-free diet as a way to treat her Multiple Sclerosis symptoms. (This is especially fascinating to me because my mother has MS and I'm always looking for alternative ways to help her cope.)

If I were trying to convince anyone to try a grain-free diet (cough, cough mom), this is one dish I'd present. Elana's chocolate chip cookies are another. 

Vegetable and Cream Cheese Quiche with Elana's Pantry Almond Crust

You'll need to make one recipe of Elana's savory pie crust recipe (there's a version of it here on another favorite of mine, Spunky Coconut's blog - or a version of it here on Elana's site) but you'll have to get her book to get the recipe I used. Here's what I typically do for my quiche fillings, you need:

4 eggs, whisked

2 small heads broccoli, roughly chopped

1 small onion, chopped

1 cup mushrooms, roughly chopped

4 tablespoons cream cheese

scallions and parmesan cheese for garnish

salt, pepper, & garlic powder, to taste

Preheat your oven to 350F. In a large bowl add all of the vegetables and dollops of the cream cheese (don't try to fully blend them in with the veggies/eggs), then add the eggs, salt, pepper and garlic powder. Add the mixture to your prebaked crust, top with some shaved parmesan and bake for about 35 minutes (it will be ready when the middle of the quiche has a wiggle to it). Let stand for at least 30 minutes before serving, garnish with scallions and more parmesan.

Sweet Potato Pudding

I had such a difficult time trying to figure out what to call this: Sweet potato souffle? Sweet potato custard? Crustless sweet potato pie? Delicious sweet potato side-dish/breakfast/brunch/Thanksgiving day food? It could be all of them!

If you're a member of my family, or are the man I'm about to marry, you know I can be incredibly indecisive. In fact, I'm so indecisive that I didn't decide where I was going to go to college until about a week before I had to leave (I put two deposits in). So please, be proud of me here, I named it and I'm sticking with it: sweet potato pudding.

I'm kind of in love (darnit, there I go again with the indecsiveness...) I mean I am in love with it. I've already eaten half of my batch. It's pretty simple to put together and the main ingredient, the sweet potato, is another rarely allergenic food! I learned this from my sister because she is starting to introduce my niece to food that is not breast milk and is making an effort to use foods that are the least allergenic and avocado and sweet potato top that list.

I was inspired to create this dish when I was thumbing through my trusty copy of The Gluten-Free Vegetarian Kitchen -- a truly awesome cookbook.

Sweet Potato Pudding (gluten-free, dairy-free)

serves 4 for dessert, or side-dish, or breakfast...

2 lbs sweet potato (or about two cups mashed), cooked and peeled (a simple way to cook a sweet potato is in the microwave: about 6 or 7 minutes should do)
1 cup almond milk (or soy, rice, hemp...)
3 eggs, whisked
2 teaspoons coconut oil (or any other light tasting oil)
1/3 cup agave
2 tablespoons mollasses
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 325 F. Grease a baking dish (sorry no measurements -- mine was round and ceramic) with a bit of coconut oil. Whisk together the almond milk, eggs, coconut oil, agave, mollasses, cinnamon, nuteg and salt. Add the sweet potato and either: transfer to a food processor to evenly mix eveything together, or use an immersion blender to incorporate all the ingredients -- I did the latter. Pour into dish and bake for just under an hour, or until a knife comes out clean in the middle.

Serve warm, or chill in the fridge and serve cold.

Henry really has a thing for sweet potatoes; I usualy end up baking the skins that I don't use and give them to him as treats.

(Spanish) Tortilla

Back in college, er high school, er I forget when it actually was. But back in the day my parents, sister and I spent a family vacation in Spain, or "Espain" as they say it there. I remember it being pretty cool and liking the architecture in Barcelona and the history in Madrid. And I remember my sister flipping the bird to a group of men who were making cat calls at us and my Dad yelling "corupcio!" to a cab driver whom he thought was scamming us. And I also remember the tapas. Ooooooh the tapas. The Spanish meal which is not quite lunch and not quite dinner, but just quite perfect. Small, little plates of food meant to be shared. Looking back, a lot of the dishes were probably gluten-free -- including this little gem which I whipped up for a pre-Mother's Day meal for the fam.

(Spanish) Tortilla (gluten-free, dairy-free, vegetarian)

2 lbs potatoes, thinly sliced
1 large onion, chopped
6 tablespoons olive oil
8 eggs
Salt and Pepper, to taste

Add 3 tablespoons of the olive oil to a large non-stick skillet on medium-low heat. Then, add the onion and potatoes and saute slowly for about twenty minutes until the potatoes are slightly tender. Meanwhile, mix the eggs until throughly combined, add salt and pepper and then add to the pan. Cook the egg/potato mixture until the eggs are set -- about ten minutes. While the eggs are cooking, pre-heat your oven to broil and set place the skillet in the broiler for another ten minutes, or until lightly brown.

Let cool slightly before serving, or chill and serve cold.

Zucchini Fritter-tatas

I was going to make zucchini fritters today, but I was running out of time before work so I quickly changed plans and made what I call: a zucchini fritter--tata; the ingredients in this recipe are normally those used in fritters (hence the flour) but the outcome, which was one large pie was more fritata-like. And the taste? A pleasant combination of the two -- and with a lot less fat than normal fried fritters.



Zucchini Fritter-tatas (gluten-free, dairy-free, vegetarian)



4 zucchini grated
1/2 cup rice flour (any kind should do)
4 eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil

Preheat oven to 375

Place the grated zucchini on a bed of paper towels and let stand for twenty minutes to rid the zucchini of some of its water. In a bowl combine the flour, paprika, salt and pepper. Next, add the eggs and finally add the zucchini. Stir to combine. Meanwhile, add the oil to a medium-sized skillet on medium-high heat. Pour the zucchini mixture into the pan and cook for ten minutes undisturbed. Then, place the pan in the oven and finish cooking for about fifteen more minutes, or until the top has lightly browned.

Serve room temperate or cold.