Garden Variety Gluten & Dairy-free Quiche

I love quiche, and it can be made gluten and dairy free. This recipe solves the sad problem of a crust that is normally made with flour — or by the uninformed who substitute corn starch for flour (yuck! And even if it could taste OK, most corn grown in the US today is genetically modified to produce its own pesticide. Dear reader, this means you are eating the pesticide when you eat the corn or corn products from those GMO corn plants, and soy, and cotton / cotton seed oil…)

What could make more sense than a potato-based crust? Yummm!

And, of course, it is important to use high quality eggs!!  Grass fed, free range, chicken eggs are nutritionally superior to commercial egg-layers. And that’s an understatement! At 2⁄3 more vitamin A • 2 times more omega-3 fatty acids • 3 times more vitamin E • 7 times more beta carotene, free range chickens allowed enough space to roam and graze are nutritional powerhouses (and if you want even more discussion and studies go here).

Commercially-raised chickens are kept in assembly-line conditions and fed pellets that contain ground corn and soy meal as the top two ingredients (and these are most likely to be GMO if not certified organic, see above). The pellets also contain wheat which may affect people sensitive to gluten or wheat products. If that’s not all, every pellet that the chicken eats every day contains Amprolium™ or a similar antibiotic because chickens raised in concentrated commercial settings are stressed, don’t see much daylight, and do get sick. Remember, drugs — all drugs that I have researched, and that is a lot of drugs — leave residues in the fat. The brain is 2/3 fat; the body stores fat as an energy source. Antibiotics and hormones fed to animals become part of our next meal as they are retained in the fat. Eggs are high in fat. You need fat and even some cholesterol in your diet.

With spring on the way here in Anchorage, our Community Supported Agriculture boxes are beginning to have a wider variety of vegetables and the farmer’s markets are starting to open again. So it is easier than ever to create a delicious, garden-variety, quiche.

Go ahead, invite your favorite friends and enjoy that morning cuppa while this delicious quiche is baking in the oven. Serve with sliced seasonal fruit and enjoy!

Serves 6

Ingredients

Potato Crust

1½ pounds organic red potatoes
1 tsp sea salt
½ tsp pepper
1 tsp dry thyme
¼ cup Bob’s Red Mill garbanzo flour
2-3 Tbs olive oil or softened butter from pastured cows (money saving tip: buy a roll of Amish butter, much better and in most grocery stores)

Filling

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup (1 small) onion, chopped
1 cup (1 small) zucchini, washed and sliced
1 cup (1 medium) red pepper, washed and cut into inch slices
1 cup (2 small heads) baby bok choy, washed and cut
1½ cup grated garlic & herb flavored almond “cheese” (I use Lisanatti)
6 large eggs from pastured hens
¼ tsp Tabasco sauce (I use Cholula)
1 tsp sea salt

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 400°F. Grease a 10-inch deep-dish pie pan. Set up a strainer over a bowl or sink.
2. Grate the potatoes and put into the strainer. Press extra water out of the potatoes.
3. Immediate combine the potatoes with all the dry ingredients. Press this crust mixture into the pie pan, up the sides, and somewhat rounding the top edge of the crust.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes.
5. Remove crust from oven and brush the top edge with softened butter or olive oil so it does not burn. Return to the oven and bake an additional 10 minutes until the top edge is golden. Remove from oven.
6. While the crust is baking, sauté the onion in oil until beginning to turn translucent. Add the zucchini and pepper and sauté until the vegetables are just beginning to soften but are not cooked through. Remove from heat.
7. Layer sautéed vegetables, cut bok choy, and cheese into prepared pie crust until all the ingredients are used. As you go, reserve enough almond cheese so that the top layer is almond cheese.
8. Beat the eggs and the Tabasco sauce. Pour the eggs over the vegetables starting with a little around the edges, let the eggs sink in and then add more so the egg mix is evenly distributed.
9. Bake for about 30 minutes or until the center is fully set but the top is not browning (or just a little).

Notes:

• This quiche can be made ahead and reheated, by heating for 25 to 30 minutes at 325°F or less time for individual servings.
• The variations on this are as endless as your imagination and desire for traditional quiche. Keeping about the same volume of vegetables, you can make fresh spinach and mushroom quiche, asparagus works well, and if you can locate some high quality nitrate-free, sugar-free bacon or ham for a meat and cheese quiche. You can also adjust the amount of eggs to accommodate your fillings. Add some, wait a bit for them to sink in, and add again, slowly.

Copyright © 2012 Marie Sternquist Cecchini. All Rights Reserved