Vegetarian Quiche

As we look ahead to spring picnics with those we love, I finally took the leap into my first attempt at making quiche. I'm happy to report the kids cheerfully ate it (that’s the ultimate test these days) and I have lots of ideas for making it even yummier next time. It’s the perfect make-ahead-of-time dish to share outdoors. The chickens are happily laying eggs and the chard this week is beautiful, so I figure it is the season. Here’s my flexible recipe for future experimentation:

INGREDIENTS

For the Crust—

4 cups almond meal

1 tsp salt

4 heaping tbs coconut oil (melted)

2 eggs

As a Topping—

½ box (6 to 8) mushrooms, chopped in 1/4s, drizzled with olive oil and salted, baked at 400 until lightly crisped (about 10 minutes)

For the Filling—

Around 6 cups of greens, finely chopped (last time this was ½ bag of spinach and 3 large chard leaves, but kale, amaranth, dandelion, verdolagas --that is purslane, in English-- or even turnip greens would work!)

2 large leeks or 6 green onions or 1 medium onion, finely chopped 

3 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped

1 tbs coconut or olive oil

8 eggs (to make 1 pie pan plus 4 cupcake-sized mini quiches)-- reduce to 6 eggs if you only want the pie. 

1 tsp salt (drop this a bit if you use an herb mix that already has salt)

2 tsp dried herbs or 2 tbs fresh herbs (This first time, I went with the dried --1 tsp Trader Joe’s 21 season salute and 1 tsp thyme--because I was cooking this on a late, rainy night and didn’t want to go harvest the fresh stuff. Next time, though, I’ll be sure to use fresh herbs, I’m thinking marjoram and rosemary. Fresh makes a big difference!)

2 heaping tbs nutritional yeast or ¼ to 1/2 cup cheese, whatever type floats your boat! My boat skips the cheese (C:)

pepper to taste

1 cup sun dried tomato

INSTRUCTIONS

For the Crust—

Mix salt and almond meal in a large bowl. Add in the coconut oil, then the eggs. It’s recommended that you let it chill for a while, but I skipped this step and it came out just fine! In a greased (just rub it down with coconut oil) pie pan, and/or cupcake tin lined with baking cups, press and pinch the dough in to form the crust. Set it aside while you prepare the filling.

For the Filling—
Saute the leeks or onions for a few minutes, then add the garlic and stir for another minute, then add the greens and stir for another minute or two until slightly wilted but still bright green. Let cool.

In a large bowl, mix the eggs, with the salt, pepper, herbs and nutritional yeast or cheese. Then mix in your sauteed greens, leeks/onions and garlic from the pan.

Stir in the sun-dried tomato.

Scoop the filling into the crust.

As a Topping—

If you’re adding mushrooms, place them on top.

Bake at 375 or 400 for 35-45 minutes (25 for the mini quiches!)

Eat right away or refrigerate to save for later. You can put it back in the oven for 10 minutes if you’d like to serve warm at a later time. Enjoy!

Green Potato Leek Soup with Mushrooms

INGREDIENTS

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 to 3 large leeks, thinly sliced

3 to 4 cloves of garlic, sliced

3 to 4 cups greens, thinly sliced and then chopped up into small short pieces (Here, you can consider using up all the limp celery you didn’t get to in the last weeks, leaves and all! Kale, collards, spinach, turnip or beet greens, chard all will work. Mix and match. This is your chance to clear out the old greens to make space for the new!

2 to 3 potatoes, sliced into 1-inch slices and then cut into half moons (No, I don’t peel my potatoes! But I do make sure they’re organic. If you don’t have access to organic potatoes, maybe it is worth the trouble of peeling them. Potatoes are amongst the heaviest-pesticide-carrying crop in the industrialized agriculture fields.)

salt and pepper to taste

2 to 3 bay leaves

1 to 2 tsp thyme

8 to 10 cups veggie broth (or chicken broth if that’s your jam) If I’m using bouillon cubes, I will use 2 cubes Edward & Sons Not-Chick’n and 2 cubes Garden Veggie.

10 to 12 mushrooms (or more!), sliced in fourths (This is about what you’d find in an 8oz box at the grocery store)

fresh parsley leaves and/or microgreens for garnish

INSTRUCTIONS

Place mushrooms in a single layer on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and bake in oven at 400 for about 10 minutes, or until beginning brown, sizzle and crisp a little bit.

Heat oil in pan and saute sliced leeks sprinkled with salt and pepper on medium-high heat for about 5 minutes. Add garlic (and celery, if you’re going with that!) and stir fry for a couple more minutes.

In a pot, add the veggie broth or water and bouillon cubes, bay leaves, thyme, potatoes, greens and your sauteed leek and garlic goodness. Bring to a boil, then cover with a lid and simmer until potatoes are cooked through. Turn off heat when ready.

Now, the quick and easy way to finish up is to get your potato masher (metal please! Don’t stick plastic into your boiling liquid!) and semi-mash your potatoes directly in the soup pot. This leaves you with a soupy/chunky mix that I love to serve topped with croutons and pan-fried veggie italian sausage. Although, doubling the mushrooms is healthier and often filling enough for me to skip the sausage.

Alternatively, and perhaps, more traditionally for a potato-leek soup, you can blend it smooth. An immersion blender works great and you can better control how smooth you want the soup to be. The last method I would suggest, if you love your soup smooth and creamy, is to let it cool a bit, then transfer into your blender. The big blender is faster than the immersion blender, gets it smoother, but takes more patience waiting for the soup to cool enough to transfer to the blender, and then, of course, there’s more clean up because you’re stuck washing the blender. Blend and return to your pot (reheat if necessary) and serve topped with your garnish and mushrooms. The upside of blending to me, is that the kids tend to eat more greens this way. Can’t pick them out if it’s all blended up!

Chard Carrot and Potato Dal

Chard is a powerful, nutrient dense green—standing out for its vitamin K content, lots of vitamins A C and E, iron and calcium. It’s known as anti-inflammatory to promote heart health and regulate blood sugar.

Thanks to Kelli Mcgrane for the recipe that informed this post. I have tweaked it a bit, doubling her original recipe, simplifying the steps a bit and changing the order so the greens don’t cook as long. Finally, this version has more liquid because any kind of dal makes me crave the first course served at Taste of the Himalayas, which is simply soupy and delicious. What better way to eat lots of chard?

Serves 6

Ingredients

4 tbs oil (try 1 tbs sesame and 1 tbs olive or coconut oil)

6 cloves garlic , peeled and chopped

3 inch piece of ginger, chopped or grated

2 tbs ground cumin

1 tbs paprika

1 tbs ground turmeric

1 tbs salt

1/2 tsp black pepper

1 large or 2 medium onions, finely chopped

4 to 6 carrots, sliced

1 bunch swiss chard, chopped

4 small or 2 large potatoes (try gold or red potatoes!), chopped into large cubes

1 cup red lentils

6 cups water

1 cube veggie bouillon

pea shoots or microgreens

Instructions:

Heat oil in a pan. Add spices and cook for 30 seconds.

Add onion and garlic and cook until onions are translucent.

Add carrots and cook until they start to crisp (maybe 6 minutes)

Add potatoes, water and veggie bouillon and bring to a boil. Then simmer for about 20 minutes until lentils and potatoes are cooked. Add chard and cook for a couple more minutes.

Serve hot and enjoy. Goes well with a side of rice and topped with microgreens or pea shoots!

Sauteed Greens with Nuts and Dried Fruit (Inspired by Catalan Cuisine)

Here’s a summary of the many health benefits of eating chard.

Given the state of the world this week (and for the near future), I will try to share extra simple and flexible recipes to avoid the temptation and possible frustration of an extra shopping trip for additional ingredients. I have come to love chard in many dishes, but here’s a new one (to me) that I’m excited to try out. Consider all ingredients swappable or optional and tweak the amount to your liking. Let us know how your experiment goes!

Ingredients:

5 cups of chard (and/or last week’s kale, spinach or other dark leafy green), chopped

1/4-1/2 onion, thinly sliced

and/or 2-4 cloves garlic, sliced

1-3 tbs olive oil

1/4 cup golden raisins, traditionally, but try any raisins (or other dried fruit, maybe apricots or cranberries)!

1/4 -1/2 cup toasted pine nuts (or other nuts or seeds, try sliced almonds, walnuts or even peanuts)

1/4 cup hard cider, sherry, or white wine

salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

Saute onion in oil over medium-high heat for 3 minutes then add garlic and saute for another minute.

Add greens, raisins and liquor, cover and turn heat to medium-low for 2 or 3 minutes

Stir. If not yet to desired tenderness, cover and cook a bit longer.

Add salt and pepper to taste

Rice with Bok Choy, Swiss Chard, Cauliflower and Carrots

Spring 2021 UPDATE —I’m stepping up the veggie load but the goals of this recipe remain the same— to keep it simple, quick (but not bland!) AND somehow exciting enough that both of my kids will eat their veggies. That said, I’m sharing two variations because…no single variation is seemingly successful with both of my currently very particular kids. The difference is simply that my 5-year-old (now 6-year-old) will eat the veggies if they’re chopped up beyond recognition and magically transformed into colorful “sprinkles” that make the rice “rainbow”. My two-year-old (now 3-year-old), on the other hand, loved big chunks of vegetables that she could grab individually and stuff into her mouth. Apparently, now she’s flipped and joined the “sprinkles” club. So here goes—Rice with Bok Choy and Carrots!

Ingredients:

1 tbs whole cumin seeds

1 tsp ground coriander

1 tbs toasted sesame oil

1 bunch of green onions, chopped (optional, if this isn’t a dealbreaker for the kids. Currently, it is for one of mine…)

3 cups rice

2 to 3 cubes bouillon (I use veggie bouillon.) Two cubes may be plenty, depending on how salty you like it.

1 bunch bok choy and/or swiss chard (thinly sliced, or chopped obsessively into “sprinkles”)

12 tiny carrots, or 6 regular-sized, sliced (or finely grated into “sprinkles”)

1/2 head of cauliflower more or less, grated into ‘rice’ or roughly chopped into ‘arbolitos’ (little trees)

microgreens (optional, for garnish!)

Instructions:

1. In a pot (preferably one with a thick bottom so rice doesn’t burn so easily) over medium heat, add sesame oil, cumin seeds, coriander and optional green onions and stir fry for a minute

2. Add rice and stir fry for another minute (I hear this helps get rid of some of the starch that brings blood sugar levels up…)

3. In a cup of hot water, dissolve the bouillon cubes and add to pot. Add 4 1/2 more cups water and the veggies (carrots, bok choy, swiss chard and cauliflower).

Cover with a tight-fitting lid over medium heat until it comes to a boil, then reduce heat to low and let simmer until all the liquid is absorbed.

Garnish with microgreens, if you like, and enjoy with your favorite protein (Try mung beans or peanuts!) for a complete meal.

Receta de Quelites de mi Nanaita (My Great-Aunt's Quelite Greens Recipe)

Quelites in Mexico

What exactly are “quelites” is a contentious issue amongst some because the plant most commonly known as “quelite” varies from region to region in Mexico. So, my grandmother’s quelites might not be your grandmother’s quelites.

On my quest to find clarity over the years, I came across this poster and this great article. Quelites are a pre-columbian dish indigenous to the americas. The name comes from the Nahuatl word Quilitl which translates roughly to
”tender and edible green”. Another key characteristic is that they are wild-harvested, a weed, not something you plant in your garden. At least that’s how it used to be. The one my father excitedly found growing as a weed in our yard, that his mother called quelite de monte, was green amaranth. The plant my Nanaita used the day I was introduced to this quelites recipe was spinach (not a traditional quelite, but available and delicious nonetheless). I felt nourished and was in love with the simple magic of her recipe. Since then, I make it with whatever I have around, including amaranth, spinach, chard, collards, chaya, beet greens, turnip greens, arugula, kale, and the list goes on. So here it is—-

Ingredients:

1 bunch of greens (try chard, kale, amaranth, chaya, spinach, collards, beet greens, turnip greens, arugula…)

olive oil

1 tsp coriander (ground)

1 tsp sea salt

black pepper (to taste)

2 cloves garlic (sliced)

1 handful of organic corn masa

1 cup water

lemon or lime

Instructions:

1. Thinly slice your greens

2. In a pan (I prefer to use cast iron), drizzle a little bit of olive oil (maybe a tablespoon) and saute the garlic, coriander, salt and pepper for a minute.

3. add water to the pan, then sprinkle the masa into the pan immediately (before water gets too hot) while stirring so the masa dissolves and doesn’t clump up too much.

4. Bring to a low boil, add greens and cover to simmer for just a couple of minutes (unless you’re using some of the tougher greens like collards or chaya, which you’d want to cook for a few minutes longer).

5. Remove from heat, add a little squeeze of lime (or the juice of a whole lemon or lime, like me, depending your preferences!) and serve.

Roasted and Stuffed Kabocha Squash

Ingredients:

1 Kabocha squash

1 bunch of chard or kale leaves

1 small onion (finely chopped)

8 mushrooms

4 cloves garlic

1 cup nuts and/or seeds (try walnuts and sunflower seeds)

rosemary, salt and pepper to taste

olive oil

microgreens

Instructions:

Cut the Kabocha squash in half and scrape out the seeds (This is the hardest part!)

Stuff the kabocha with the chard or kale and onion first and fill 1/2 way. Then add a mix of mushrooms, garlic, nuts, rosemary, salt and pepper and on top of the chard and onion.

Drizzle with olive oil and bake at 400 until squash is soft (40 minutes to 1 hour)

Garnish with a handful of microgreens

A note on kids and mushrooms—My 1-year-old loves mushrooms of all kinds, in all forms, and in large quantities (weird, right?); my 4-year-old does not. Mushrooms are such good medicine that I refuse to give up on them for him. Sometimes, I cut them in fourths and let him pick them out because I know the mushroom broth that’s cooked into the food is still giving him some of their goodness. Other times, my strategy is to chop them into unrecognizable deliciousness and forget to mention there’s mushrooms in the food. For my picky little boy, this has been working lately. Everyday is different, though!

Kabocha Squash

Savory Almond Veggie Balls

Ingredients: 

Almond Veggie Balls in tomato soup.

1 small zucchini (or ½ a large one), grated

3 chard leaves, finely chopped

1 large cooked carrot (or 2 small)

1 cup almond flour

1 cube veggie bouillon

1 egg

1 cup dry oatmeal

½ cup bread crumbs

1. Mix and mash all ingredients. 

2. Let sit for a few minutes until consistency of dough is firm. 

3. Form 1 ½ inch balls.

4. Drop them into boiling water or your favorite soup (ours is tomato!) and boil for 10 minutes. 

Makes about 18 veggie balls.

Enjoy!