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!

Spaghetti Squash and Kale Veggie Balls

Here’s a simplified and slightly modified version of this Savory Almond Flour Veggie Ball recipe that uses this week’s spaghetti squash and kale. The kids and I love spaghetti squash in our veggie balls, so I thought this variation is worth sharing. Here is a super simple version that is great for little ones.

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 spaghetti squash (cooked—You can slice it in half lengthwise and cook it face-down with a little olive oil on a cast iron pan, or place in the oven at about 400 degrees face up on a baking sheet with a little olive oil rubbed on the open face and cover with foil for faster cook time, around 30 minutes)

3 kale leaves, finely chopped

3/4 cup almond flour (You can get creative here and experiment with equal parts almond, quinoa flour and/or cassava flour)

1 cube veggie bouillon

1 tsp salt

1 tbs italian herb mix (or simply oregano and thyme)

1 tbs paprika

1 egg

about 1 cup dry oatmeal

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Mix and mash all ingredients except the dry oatmeal. 

2. Work in dry oatmeal 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 12-16 veggie balls.

Enjoy!

Cashew Green Bean Lettuce Wraps

Ingredients:

toasted sesame oil

1 small to medium sized onion, diced

2 to 4 cloves garlic, chopped

1 tbs ginger, grated or chopped

1 lb protein of choice (I use tofu or tempeh), diced

green beans, diced

carrots diced

cashews, chopped or slightly crushed

lettuce

microgreens (we’ve got broccoli this week!)

Hoisin Sauce (Try this flexible recipe if you want to make it at home)

Instructions:

Stir fry onion in a large pan with sesame oil until translucent. Add garlic, ginger and your choice of protein

Add green beans, carrots and cashews to the pan and drizzle generously with hoisin sauce.

Stir fry for a few minutes (up to you how well-cooked you like your veggies!)

Serve over lettuce leaf and top with microgreens or, better yet, put everything out (maybe with some rice or quinoa on the side) so people can make their own. This DIY “lettuce tacos” dish gets my little ones to put down the lettuce!

Strawberry Orange Popsicles

Beautiful simplicity (two ingredients—maybe three if you wanna get fancy) and a gentle exercise in planning and patience (gotta think ahead and wait for them to freeze) followed by an exercise in focus (gotta eat it before it melts). Homeschooling looks like this sometimes…activities that serve me just as much as my kids and are best completed outside in the sunshine. So, here it is—a flexible Strawberry Orange Popsicle recipe (adjust proportions to your liking):

1 cup strawberries (chopped)

2 cups orange juice

ideas for a third ingredient—mint, basil, or even microgreens (we’ve got purple kohlrabi this week!) if you’re feeling adventurous or are looking for ways to get your kids to eat more greens.

Instructions:

1. Blend all ingredients.

2. Pour into your popsicle mold. Here’s an article with ideas of how to make popsicles without a mold.

3. Wait a few hours.

4. Go outside, sit in the sun and enjoy.

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.

The Greenest Veggie Balls

This recipe was inspired (and slightly modified) from Alexandra Stafford’s recipe. I am always excited to find new veggie ball recipes that are easy and this one packs more greens into each tiny ball than the last veggie ball recipe I’ve shared, and any other that I’ve seen, really. This is my first try at this recipe and I used wilted spinach, arugula and kale. I’m super excited to try it out again with the greens that I tend to otherwise neglect, like beet greens, carrot greens, turnip greens…the list goes on! I think this will be a welcome alternative to my everything caldo (stew) that I default to on my uninspired dinner nights.

Ingredients:

1 large or 2 small bunches of greens (chopped should amount to 5 or 6 cups). Try the carrot tops and beet greens from this week’s Fresh Five bag!)

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 small onion

2 cloves garlic

salt to taste

1/2 cup cilantro, parsley or basil

1 tbs cumin seeds or 1/2 tbs ground cumin

1 cup breadcrumbs (or 1/2 cup almond flour and 1/2 oat flour if you want a gluten-free version)

1/2 crumbled feta or 1/4 cup nutritional yeast

1 or 2 eggs (probably just 1!)

Instructions:

1. Finely chop the greens

2. Saute oil, onion and salt for about 6 to 8 minutes or until lightly brown

3. Add finely chopped garlic, herbs (cilantro, parsley or basil) and cumin and saute for 30 seconds

4. Add greens to the pan and saute for a minute.

5. Let cool for a few minutes then add breadcrumbs and feta or nutritional yeast. Mix well and taste. Add more salt now if desired.

6. Crack an egg in the bowl and work it into the mixture with your hands. Form a ball (about the size of a cherry tomato). If it doesn’t hold together, add another egg. Form the rest of the mixture into balls.

7. Spread the balls out onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and drizzle a tiny bit of olive oil over them. Roll them around a little bit to spread the oil on most sides. Bake at 400 for about 10 minutes.

Guava Spinach Muffins

Our guava harvesting crew at work!

I don’t bake muffins very often, but my basic muffin recipe (that started out inspired by a protein-rich zucchini bread back when I was a high school teacher looking to feed my kids well on those long testing days) has seen several funky incarnations. This is a new one, now that I’m looking to use what I have around (I’m learning to eat with the seasons!) and feed my two hungry, growing little kids. My goals: it must be sweet enough for them to love it, not so sweet that I feel guilty about feeding it to them and enough protein and greens in there that it’s almost a meal for my stubborn little newly-turned two-year old. Sigh! Ok, so here’s the late fall recipe—-

Ingredients:

1 cup walnuts

⅓ cup coconut oil

2 tbs molasses

1 tbs maple syrup

2 tbs fruit preserves (I used strawberry, and only added this ingredient because I ran out of maple syrup…you could skip this and add two more tbs maple syrup instead)

2 eggs

½ cup almond milk

2 tsp vanilla

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 tbs cinnamon

¼ tsp nutmeg

zest from one orange

1 cup chopped guava (which is about three large guavas, de-seeded…here’s how)

1 cup spinach (finely chopped)

1 cup oat flour

1/2 cup almond flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Warm up the coconut oil until it’s liquid. I did this by placing the metal mixing bowl on the stove top while the oven preheats.

3. Crush and toast walnuts for two minutes in a cast-iron pan with a little syrup or fruit preserve to candy them up. You can also do this step in the oven by laying out the walnuts on some parchment paper, drizzling with syrup and toasting for about 5 minutes).

3. Take the liquified coconut oil and add the molasses, maple syrup, fruit preserves (if using), eggs, almond milk, vanilla, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Mix well.

3. Stir in the guava, spinach and orange zest.

4. Stir in the flours.

5. Pour mix by the spoonful into muffin tin lined with baking cups.

6. Sprinkle tops with the candied walnuts.

7. Bake for about 20 minutes. Check with a fork when you start to smell them. If the fork comes out clean, then they’re done.

Makes about 16 small muffins

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!