When I go out of town for business, I like to leave husband homemade meals that reheat well rather than take out menus.
This is one of his most requested recipes. It’s easy to reheat and travels well to work for lunches. In addition to something hearty like this, we stock the fridge with cleaned and chopped vegetables, quinoa salad and some fruit.
The crust recipe makes two 9-inch crust bottoms (or one top and bottom, for say an apple pie). You divide the dough in half during the process. If you want to freeze the second crust, just wrap the parchment paper packet in plastic wrap before storing in the freezer. It keeps for several weeks.
This seems like an insane number of flours for one dough, but the resulting crust is worth it flavor-wise and nutrition-wise. The flax, buckwheat and teff add protein, fiber and great flavor. You can streamline by using 1/3 cup of sorghum, buckwheat or quinoa flour in place of the teff, buckwheat and flax.
Quiche Crust:
1/2 cup cornmeal
1/2 cup potato starch
1/2 cup brown rice flour
1/2 cup white rice flour
1/4 cup almond flour
1 t guar gum
2 T teff flour
2 T buckwheat
1 T flax
1 t salt
1 T sugar
1/2 cup ice water
1-2 T ice water on the side to use as needed
2 sticks unsalted butter, cold
1. In a food processor, combine all the flours, salt and sugar. Pulse until combined.
After all the butter is added, the dough should look like this, like crumbled cookies.
2. Cut the butter into chunks, about 1/2 inch cubes. Drop into the food processor a few cubes at a time, while pulsing the food processor. Do this in short bursts, you don’t want to warm the butter by working the dough too much. Otherwise, the crust will turn out like a lead brick rather than light and flaky.
3. After all the butter has been added, the dough should look very dry and crumbly. Add the 1/2 cup ice water by streaming it in slowly. Pulse together a little more. Add the additional water if the dough has not smoothed out.
4. Lay out two fairly large pieces of parchment paper. Put half the dough on each piece of parchment. Pat the down and wrap the parchment over it. If you are going to freeze one half, you can do that now. Put the dough you plan to roll out into the fridge for an hour or so to firm up.
5. Leave the dough on the parchment paper. Dust both side of the dough with a little flour. I use potato starch or brown rice flour. Then roll it out to about 1/2 inch while it is on the parchment paper. This has the two big benefits: keeping the counters clean and making the more crumbly gluten-free dough easier to work with.
In the front is one disk of dough, patted down. In the back there is another packet wrapped in parchment paper, ready for the freezer.
Rather than rolling the dough over the pin, as one is normally instructed to do, I put the pan in the middle of the dough and then flip it over so the parchment paper is on top. I peel off the parchment paper and clean up the edges / trim the excess dough with a paring knife. I am not a total pro at this yet, and really need to practice more, so it is not a Julia Child beautiful crust, it’s tasty, just not pretty.
6. To blind bake the crust, poke a few holes in it with a fork. Heat the oven to 450ºF/ 230ºC and bake for 15 minutes or until the crust is lightly browned.
Getting the dough into the pie pan the easy way.
Bacon and Cheddar Quiche:
The classic proportions for quiche is about 3 eggs and enough cream to fill a cup to the 1 1/2 cup line, but I don’t really keep cream in the house and when you try that proportion with milk, it always ends up a bit funny.
By adjusting the egg-to-cream ratio when using milk instead of cream, I was able to produce a better texture on the filling. I would recommend using whole milk or 2% for the filling.
5 eggs
about 1-1 1/4 cup (s) milk
1/8 t nutmeg
1/8 t pepper
1/2 t salt
1/3-1/2 cup cheddar, roughly grated
5-6 strips bacon, cooked and crumbled
1. After the crust is blind baked, let it cool for about 10 minutes. Place the bacon in the bottom of the crust. Reduce the oven heat to 375ºF/ 190ºC.
2. Measure the eggs and milk in a 2 cup or larger measuring cup. First crack the eggs into the cup and then fill the measuring cup the rest of the way to the 2 cup mark with milk.
3. Pour the eggs and milk into a large bowl, season with nutmeg, salt and pepper. Whisk thoroughly until combined.
4. Pour into the crust, sprinkle the cheddar over the top.
5. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until the quiche is cooked through.
Serve with salad or peas and carrots.
Glutenfreehub 