Cooking has been mostly one handed, and increasingly fragmented for me over the past month since my little girl was born. While we’ve been super lucky to be surrounded by wonderful and generous cooks, treating us to most of our meals, I’ve been drawn to the kitchen, even if just for a few minutes at a time, to chop veggies for a fresh salad or make a batch of granola. It helps me feel a little more like myself during a time when I sometimes forget who that person was only a short month ago.
Last weekend I decided to try tackling a few more ambitious recipes, this quiche being one of them. I love having a few quiches on hand for super easy meals. They graciously accept whatever ingredients are needing some love, and work wonders for quick breakfasts, dinners (with a side of soup or hearty salad), or random snacks.
The crust recipe makes enough for 3 medium-sized quiches, roughly the size of standard 9” pie dishes (other shapes, like my rectangular 13″ by 4″ tart shell, work well too). I encourage you to make that amount and refrigerate/freeze leftovers even if you’re making one quiche, as that quantity is easier to work with.
I always used to blind bake the crust – a process that I’ve worked hard to master over the past few years. This time around, with my sleep-deprived brain, I forgot. I poured the filling into a raw crust, and since it was past the point of no return, I crossed my fingers and slid the quiche into the bottom rack of the oven (a must to have the bottom cook through). Don’t you love it when a mistake leads to a discovery? Turns out that you can make a quiche without the extra step. The crust isn’t quite as flakey and golden, but with a small child on hand, I’ll gladly take that short cut.
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PinIngredients
- OAT & RYE CRUST (for 3 quiches)
- 1/2 cup dark rye flour
- 1/2 cup oat flour
- 1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1 Tbsp. sugar
- 1 cup (~ 225g) unsalted butter, cubed & frozen
- ~1/2 cup ice water
- FILLING (for one quiche 13″ x 4″ quiche)
- 2 Tbsp of butter
- 1 medium-large leek, white and pale light parts, sliced
- salt, to taste + a pinch of cumin seeds
- 1 delicata squash, seeds removed, cubed
- olive or avocado oil + salt to dress the squash
- 1/4 cup crumbled goat’s cheese or feta
- 2 eggs
- 2/3 cups half and half cream
- 1/4 tsp. salt
Instructions
- Preaheat the oven to 400F.
- Start by preparing the crust dough. Pulse the dry ingredients in the food processor, add the frozen butter cubes (make sure they’re separated) and process for a few seconds until the largest butter pieces are roughly pea-sized. Add ice water and pulse, a few tablespoons at a time, until the dough resembles wet crumbs.
- Empty the dough onto a floured surface and shape it into a rough ball, kneading a few times to bring it together.
- Divide the dough into 3 equal portions, wrap, and refrigerate for up to a few days, until ready to use. You can also freeze extra dough, tightly wrapped, for up to a few months.
- Toss the squash pieces in oil and season with salt on a parchment lined tray.
- Roast squash for 20-25 minutes, until cooked through and slightly charred at the bottom.
- In the meantime, place a medium/large pan over low/medium heat. Melt the butter and sautee the leeks until soft and translucent.
- Blend of whisk the eggs, cream, and 1/4 tsp. of salt.
- Roll out one dough ball to fit your pie dish (9″ round or 13″ x 4″ rectangular), allowing for about 1″ of extra crust to hang over the dish.
- Fold it in half, place it over the pie dish, and unfold.
- Trim any edges hanging over more than 1″ and tuck the remainder perimeter of the pie under and into the dish.
- Place the leeks, roasted squash, and goat’s cheese into the raw pie shell (you can blind bake the crust if you’d like but a 1-time bake works too), then pour the egg mixture in, making sure to fill all the spaces between the fillings.
- Lower the oven heat to 375F, bake on the lowest rack in the oven, for 45-50 minutes, until the filling is set and crust is golden around the edges.
- Let the quiche cool completely before cutting and refrigerate any leftovers for a few days
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