I experimented with a basic Quiche recipe and came up with this distinctively flavored blue cheese and broccoli pie. Although both ingredients have strong characteristics, they balance one another and blend together to create a sumptuous dish. It would be great for a light lunch with rocket or endive salad. The blend of ingredients would also do well in little, individual pies and served as hors d’oeuvres.
fresh or dried sage, to taste (not too much! about 1/4-1/2 tsp)
salt and pepper
1 medium-sized tomato, sliced
Broccoli. Image by sk8geek via Flickr
Method
Preheat oven to 200 C
Line a 7 inch Pyrex pie plate with crust, prick the bottom and put in oven to start pre-cooking while you prepare the other ingredients.
In a medium size bowl beat the eggs, milk and seasoning.
Add the garlic, shallots, and blue cheese and beat some more.
Add the broccoli.
By now your pie crust should be starting to cook. Remove from oven and pour in the broccoli-egg-cheese mixture. (Remember to close the oven door while you do this so you don’t lose all the heat!)
Lay the tomato slices on top.
Cover with another layer of pastry.
Bake for 40-50 minutes. Check the pie after 30 minutes and turn if one side is browning more than the other.
Allow to cool for about 20 minutes before serving.
Quiche doesn’t usually have a top crust. I just really enjoy puff pastry – so any excuse to eat more of it!
Adjusting Quantities for Larger Pies
The 375 gram package of pastry was more than enough for my 7 inch pie plate, in fact, I had enough pastry left over to make a fruit pouch. So if you’re working with a larger pie plate you’ll have enough pastry, but you’ll need to increase the quantities – of the other ingredients – proportionally.
The quantity of milk and eggs could be increased, even for a 7-inch pie plate. I purposely limited the eggs to cut down on cholesterol because this dish is loaded with it! Eggs, pastry, cheese…
I wanted to write about Quinoa for the letter Q in my A-Z Food as it’s such a magnificent food, but I haven’t yet mastered cooking it.
Always rinse quinoa seeds before cooking. Image via Wikipedia
What makes it so great? It’s a plant that provides a complete protein, and it’s right up there with oats for protein concentration.
If you want to give it a try, there’s lots of information on the web. Clearly, I haven’t yet found a website that successfully communicates (to me) how to cook it. When cooked properly, its texture is a bit like couscous, and mine’s more like a sticky blob!
Quinoa before flowering. Image via Wikipedia
Quinoa flowering. Image via Wikipedia
Quinoa plants near Cachora, Peru. Image via Wikipedia
Alison Amazed 