Vegan Quiche

I have a few leeks that have been in the fridge for three-plus weeks now and I give them a once over every time I open the bottom vegetable drawer.

“What am I going to do with you?” I say, as I am in the midst of making a sandwich for lunch or grabbing an apple for a snack.

There were a few approaches I could take to solve my leek dilemma, with the most popular being leek and potato soup or braised leeks. Neither of those sounded very appealing to me. So, it was time for a Google search.

Leeks are similar to onions and garlic and the long vegetable fades from a bright green stalk to a pale green middle and then to a white top with tiny sprouts sticking out, like you’d find on the top of green onions.

Along with my trio of leeks, there is a stray bag of whole wheat pastry flour in my pantry and a few sun dried tomatoes left in a bag on the shelf. And then, there are the breadcrumbs leftover from a holiday food project hiding in the cabinet above the stove.

Leeks are easy to dice and sauté – their flavor really comes out.

Shades of green...

That’s when I decided that a vegan quiche was the way to go.

Ready to go in the oven.

I made my quiche adapted from this recipe, subbing the olive oil in the recipe out for extra virgin coconut oil. Try adding a few drops of red wine vinegar to the filling to kick up the acidity. I also threw in some nutritional yeast flakes, Italian herbs, pepper, more salt and garlic and herb seasoning. Garlic and herb seasoning make almost everything and anything taste better, at least in my opinion.

I sautéed the leeks with garlic & coconut oil and threw in some chopped kale to add another element to the quiche.

The crust comes together pretty fast by pulsing together whole wheat pastry flour, baking powder and pine nuts in the food processor and mixing it with a dash of salt, unsweetened almond milk and melted coconut oil. The original recipe calls for soy milk, but lately I’ve been using unsweetened plain almond milk for baking, cooking and enjoying with a bowl of fruit and nut granola. Plus, the light nutty taste of the almond milk pairs well with the pine nuts.

The tasty crust made with whole wheat pastry flour, pine nuts, extra virgin coconut oil, baking powder and a dash of salt awaits the filling.

I pressed the crust mixture into a glass pie dish sprayed with nonstick cooking spray and baked it in an oven preheated to 350 degrees for five minutes, according to the recipe directions and then got to making my filling.

So there you have it, you can have your French eggy, cheesy cake and eat it too, all without the eggs or the cheese. The firm tofu, mixed with a little coconut oil and nutritional yeast flakes and the other ingredients creates it’s own unique flavor that won’t have you missing the traditional dish. This vegan version even had some of the fluffy consistency that is found in traditional quiches.

Have your vegan quiche and eat it too!

This vegan quiche will probably serve four to six hungry people for dinner, or a single person like me for the rest of the week.

The sun dried tomatoes, miso, kale, leeks and garlic lend wonderful flavors to the dish, all topped off with the whole wheat crust and light breadcrumb mixture in the filling.

On a side note, I only used two of the leeks, as the recipe called for. Now I just need to find something to do with the last one that's still sitting in my bottom vegetable drawer at the bottom of the fridge...