Walnut Crusted Quiche with Roasted Broccoli

I loved quiche in my omni days. We used to visit a restaurant called La Madeleine that had all this gorgeous, rustic French food. They also served strawberries Romanoff which we have veganized --but that will be a post for summer when the strawberries are in season.

But you can’t make quiche without breaking a few eggs, I hear you cry. Fear not, dear reader, Spidergrrl to the rescue with a quiche made from silken tofu. Seriously. Silken tofu is great when you want a thick pudding-y type texture. You can make a silk pie with it that is to swoon over as well as this quiche. This recipe was adapted from the blog Fat Free Vegan and her post on crustless tofu quiche. http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/2006/12/mini-crustless-tofu-quiches.html  I like a bit of a crust and this wholemeal walnut crust delivers a healthy and savoury punch to hold up the delicious quiche. I served it with roasted tender stem broccoli because I love it and can’t get enough of its roasty goodness.

Wholemeal Walnut Crust

Preheat your oven to 180 C/350 F

1 cup wholemeal pastry flour (not bread flour--it’ll be too tough--I used spelt)

½ cups walnuts

¼ tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

2 TB olive oil

¼ cup “milk” I used oat milk

Pulse the flour and walnuts in your food processor until the walnuts are like course crumbs. Then add the baking powder, salt and oil and milk and mix until a stiff dough forms. Press into a greased pie plate (important to grease it!) and bake for 5 minutes.

When you take it out to cool bump up the oven to 190 C/375 F.

Wash out your food processor and let it dry. Then start work on the quiche.

Quiche

5 sun dried tomatoes (not oil packed) soaked in a bit of hot water

1 small red onion, finely diced

1 small pepper (or half a large one) finely diced

Large pinch dried rosemary

Lots of grinds of black pepper

4 strips smoked tofu, diced--I used Taifun smoked tofu with almond and sesame

In a greased pan saute the onion and pepper until soft and add the black pepper and rosemary and drained sundried tomatoes and tofu. Stir to coat with spices and then set aside.

In the mean time while the above stuff is sizzling in the pan work on the quiche.

1 box firm silken tofu put into a clean tea towel and squeezed over the sink to get rid of some of the water. Squeeze until it looks like crumbly ricotta. I used Mori Nu brand

¼ cup “milk”

2 TB nutritional yeast

1 TB arrowroot or cornstarch

1 tsp sesame tahini

¼ tsp onion powder

¼ tsp turmeric (for colour)

Psst salt

Whiz all this together in your handy dandy food processor until it looks completely smooth and custard-y. Pour this into the pan with the rosemary onion, pepper, sundried toms and smoked tofu and mix well. Spoon into the crust and bake for 40 minutes.

Then you can work on your broccoli. Drizzle a bit of olive oil (I used garlic infused olive oil to ring the changes) and black pepper and sea salt. When the quiche comes out it needs to sit for 10 minutes to firm up so crank up the oven to 220 C/ 425 F and roast that broccoli for 8-10 minutes until it’s all sizzle sizzle and roasty toasty. Then serve!