The 3-Egg Quiche

Today marks the beginning of Lent, and for the second year in a row I've tried to become vegan for 40 days, focusing only on the most basic, healthful foods to feed my mind, body, and spirit.

And though my intentions are totally noble, it's only 12:15 on the first day and I've failed. Breakfast came close—a smoothie of garden spinach, frozen blueberries and mango, almond milk, and a banana. And then only one tablespoon of milk in my coffee. (Can I get a medal?)

But you see, last Sunday evening, I made myself two quiches and—wouldn't you know—I'm still enjoying those leftovers. So lunch on Day 1 of my vegan diet includes a non-vegan pie crust, eggs, milk, and cheese.

Whoops.

In my defense... it's delicious and healthy. And while some quiche recipes call for a dozen eggs (that's what I'll make when the neighbors get chickens!), I managed to concoct two nine-inch quiches with only 5 eggs and one cup of milk.

This quiche is jam-packed with tons of vegetables and while it's not as eggy as most quiches are, it's still delectable (did I mention it's healthy?).

I cheated a bit and used store-bought organic whole wheat pie crusts, which made my life so easy and kept the kitchen cleaner. I used the time I saved with store-bought crusts to organize the pantry. Win-win.

Quiches are so highly adaptable that you can take this recipe or leave it. But here's what I did to use up some garden goodies before they went bad.

The 3-Egg Quiche with Broccoli and Kale
(Recipe makes enough filling for one standard 9" pie)


1 store-bought whole wheat crust (or best me and make your own!)
1 small head broccoli, chopped into florets and small pieces (use the stems, too, by chopping them small)
1 medium bunch kale, sliced into ribbons
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 onion, diced (about half a cup)
1 4-ounce can of diced Hatch green chiles (optional)
3 eggs
1/2 cup 1% milk
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1/3 cup shredded cheese, any variety
salt and pepper to taste


Prepare the veggies and set aside. Preheat the oven to 425 and blind-bake the crust for about 10 minutes—don't let it brown! While the crust is baking, heat a large, deep skillet with the olive oil. Saute the onions for a few minutes until they begin to turn translucent. Add the green chiles and a little salt and pepper. Toss in the broccoli, and continue cooking for about 3 minutes. Add the kale ribbons to the mix and cook all the vegetables together until they're nice and tender but still al dente. Taste to be sure the seasoning suits you; add a little more salt and pepper to taste.


When you remove the crust from the oven, turn the temperature down to 350. Pour the vegetables into the crust; they should fill up the crust, but not rise above the rim. Sprinkle the cheese on top of the veggies. Crack the eggs in a mixing bowl and whisk together with the milk and mustard.


Pour the egg mixture slowly over the vegetables, giving it enough time to seep down into every nook and cranny in the pie. The egg mixture should come just to the brim of the crust.


Bake at 350 for about 40 minutes, or until the eggs have set and the quiche doesn't jiggle when you shift it back and forth in the oven. (I checked mine at 35 minutes and it was doing great. Left it in the full 40 to get a little bit of golden brown on the tops of the cheesey bits.) Let the quiche rest for a few minutes before cutting it.


Serve warm with a side salad. This quiche is delicious reheated for lunch the next day—I've found that it reheats better in a toaster oven to keep the crust slightly crunchy!

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Working Lunch

During the work week, I bring my lunch four out of five days—a habit I'm really proud of, actually. Brushes off shoulders, buffs nails, leans back self-adoringly.... 

Since I commute by bus, I often am found in the kitchen at work artfully producing my lunch out of my adorable, highly compartmental, Laptop bento box. "What a tidy lunch you have!"It's light-weight, thin, BPA-free, made in the USA, dishwasher-safe, and (frankly) it just makes me happy.

Seriously, it's one of the best purchases I have ever made. I opted for the greatest configuration of mini boxes, which totaled about $45, so I can work with a good number of different portion sizes. Yes, that's a lot to spend on a lunch box, but I put it to great use and have saved about that much money every two weeks by bringing my own lunch to work. 

People have commented that it's a great way to keep portions in control too, which is totally true; but it's also fantastic for packing a variety of healthy options. I normally prefer a smattering of random things over a sandwich and chips. Meaning, my eating habits are not far from those of a toddler, except I actually love vegetables!

The salad above is one of my lunches from earlier this week that I enjoyed at my desk (don't worry, I clean my mouse and keyboard with alcohol wipes often enough that germs aren't too disgusting). It's a gorgeous winter salad, packed full of nutrients. Despite the horrific lighting, those are the actual colors. I picked the lettuce and broccoli from the garden that morning, and packed along only about a tablespoon of my favorite dressing (Cashew Tamari from Mother's) to top it off. It's a tasty (and accidentally vegan!) salad that you should try too!

I used to be of the mindset that I couldn't pack a salad for lunch and enjoy it. That was back in the day of boring, grocery-store salads and prior to my finding Cashew Tamari. Nowadays, I can't get enough of the sweet buttery garden lettuce and keep things interesting by packing a new ingredient each time.

The best advice I have for bringing a salad to lunch that you'll actually want to eat? Make it colorful and add at least one ingredient that's unexpected. The butternut squash was an afterthought, but one I'm glad to have made. Even eating it cold (I'd steamed it the night before), it brought a new level of sweetness to the salad and the texture was right on. 

Oh, and pack your "dry" ingredients separate from the wet ones, so that your lettuce doesn't wilt and nothing else gets soggy!

Easy-to-Pack Winter Lunch Salad

1 1/2 cups fresh lettuce 

1/2 cup fresh broccoli florets 

1/2 fresh grapefruit, sectioned, plus about 1 tablespoon of the juice

1/2 cup steamed butternut squash or 1/2 diced avocado

1/4 cup walnut pieces

1/8 cup dried cranberries

1-2 tablespoons of your favorite dressing, or about 1 tablespoon of extra-virgin olive oil

Pack the lettuce, broccoli, walnuts, and cranberries in one container together, and the grapefruit, butternut squash, and dressing separately (you don't want them wilting your salad before you're ready to eat it).

When it's lunch time, toss everything together (Toss, toss!*) and let your coworkers gaze in awe at the rainbow salad in front of you.

The best part? You've just accomplished a gourmet lunch salad at a fraction of restaurant cost!

* A Wicked reference, for my sister and mom! 

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good ole country BLT

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of spending an afternoon with my mom. When our schedules allow, it is wonderful to have time together to do a couple of the things we both love: cook and talk. It's always therapeutic to go home, and now that my mother's garden is flourishing with every variety of vegetable that can grow in black Texas dirt, the therapy is even stronger medicine.

My mother also has a wonderful knack for buying things at ridiculously low prices. I'd call it thrifting, but it seems so much classier when she does it that I almost want to assign it a more glamorous name. After I went on and on about how much I love my bread machine, she insisted upon getting one, in her own way. Not two days later, she called to tell me she'd found one at her favorite shopping venue, St. Vincent de Paul's Thrift Shoppe, and was curious to see if it worked. But for $3, really, not much would be lost. So part of my mission that day was to coach her on bread machine basics (on a dime). Since her bread machine was still in question, I brought a loaf of warm white bread to her house that day. She crisped up some bacon, sliced the last of the winter tomatoes, and had me go out to the garden to pick a spiky-leafed lettuce with a very peppery flavor (it wasn't arugula...). She whipped up some garlic aioli and warmed a pot of turnip soup (also from her garden), and oh... my...

Nothing--I repeat--NOTHING is better than a BLT straight from the garden, with extra-crispy bacon and crusty homemade bread and homemade garlicy mayo. Yum. I wish it weren't lunchtime as I write this, because I am beginning to drool.

To make the perfect BLT, here's what you need:
Thick slices of homemade buttermilk bread
Garlic aioli (try this recipe, but feel free to sub pasteurized egg whites for the eggs)
Fresh lettuce mix (a variety of crispy lettuces will bring more depth to your sandwich)
Thick slices of farm-fresh tomatoes
Several slices of crispy bacon
Salt and pepper to taste

Mmmm.

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Improv Lunch

So I mentioned that I received Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything book for Christmas. This book is a-m-a-z-i-n-g. I have had it for less than two weeks and have already gleaned a wealth of information from its pages. My favorite new recipe so far is a million times easier than pie: the Simple Yogurt Sauce. Of course, me being me, I couldn’t just use his recipe. I had to alter it in my own darn way.

His calls for a cup of yogurt and only one clove of garlic... In the interest of wanting to not waste any yogurt (just in case I didn't follow through on my goal to make the sauce), I purchased two individual 6-oz yogurt cups and surprisingly made two separate recipes right away.

For the first batch, I used 6 oz of plain yogurt (whole milk, cream top), mixed with one minced clove of garlic, the juice of half a lemon, salt and pepper to taste. I skillfully sliced half of an avocado (currently on sale at the grocer!) and smashed it in the best I could. What resulted was a creamy, tangy dip that pleased both me and my dear friend Ellen when coupled with chips and celery stalks. It even served as a nice spread for our sandwiches...on fresh homemade bread, might I add!

Batch two came into being last night when I craved ranch dressing to go along with the super-unhealthy pizza Ryan brought home (football watching food--Hook 'Em!). I had one more 6-oz container of yogurt, but this time I added two cloves of minced garlic, a whole mashed avocado, and plenty of garlic salt and pepper. Ryan played taste-tester, and we agreed it needed something but weren’t sure what. After trying a few bites with celery salt, chili powder, and extra garlic salt, we decided to leave it as it was.

This dip came in handy for lunch today. Did I mention my delicious-but-ugly loaf of cinnamon swirl bread? (I didn't photograph it, therefore I didn't blog about it I suppose...) Apparently I did not roll the dough thin enough when I dumped the raisins and cinn-sugar on top and rolled it up... Because what came out was a thick loaf of sweet bread with a fat L-shaped blob of cinnamon-sugar raisins in the middle.

The heel of the loaf was void of all sugar-coated fruit, and I packed it along with a couple of slices of Muenster, some turkey, a pear, blackberries, and celery for lunch. After a jaunt in the toaster, I topped the bread with the meat, cheese, and thin-sliced pear, and that was a deliciously sweet and savory compliment to the tangy yogurt dip and crisp celery stalks. The blackberries were my delectable dessert.

Don't tell anyone, but I pride myself on bringing lunches that evoke "oohs" and "ahhs" from my colleagues who are nuking canned soups or frozen dinners in the communal kitchen while I assemble my tasty towers. I waltz down the hall, lunch in hand, shoulders held high, and eat it at my desk while I read my favorite food blogs and dream up the next meal.

Ahh, food--it's all I can think about, really.

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