ROASTED ASPARAGUS, MUSHROOM AND SHALLOT SOY-FREE VEGAN MINI QUICHES

Roasted Asparagus, Mushroom and Shallot Mini Quiches
    Makes 12 mini quiches

Ingredients:

• 1 pre-prepared vegan pâte brisée (pie dough), recipe below*

Filling

• 4 oz button baby portobello mushrooms, diced
• 1/2 bunch asparagus, trimmed and chopped into 1” pieces
• 2 medium shallots, halved lengthwise and thickly sliced
• 3 medium cloves of garlic, crushed
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 tablespoon balsamic glaze or balsamic vinegar (I definitely prefer glaze, but if you use it just make sure you find one that is dairy-free)
• Coarse salt and fresh cracked pepper

"Egg” mixture (adapted from this recipe)

• 1/2 cup chickpea flour
• 1 1/4 cups water
• 1/3 vegetable stock cube (1 full cube should make 2 cups stock)
• 1/2 teaspoon turmeric
• 1 1/2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
• 1/4 teaspoon salt (according to the original recipe you can add black salt/kala namak to give it more of an egg flavor. However, I couldn’t find black salt in any of the stores near me so I went without and it still tasted great.)

Method:

Preheat oven to 400 F. Roll out the pie dough on a floured surface until it is about 1/8 inch thick. Cut out twelve 4" circles (I used a mug with a 4" diameter to cut the circles into the desired size. But you could also use a cookie cutter, a small bowl/tupperware container, etc). Press the circles into a 12-cup muffin tin. Using a fork, poke several holes at the bottom of each pie crust and blind bake for 10 minutes (I chopped up the vegetables while I was baking the crust).

Preheat oven to 425 F. In a large bowl, combine chopped vegetables and toss with olive oil, balsamic glaze, salt, and a generous amount of fresh pepper. Spread veggies out on a cookie sheet and bake for 15-20 minutes until asparagus is bright green and tender. (As an aside, these roasted veggies are absolutely delicious on their own or tossed over a bed of mixed greens. I kept snitching them after they came out of the oven - I’m surprise there were actually any left for the quiche.)

Now make your eggless/soyless quiche mixture!

Whisk together the chickpea flour and 1/2 cup of water and set aside. In a small saucepan, add the final 3/4 cup of water, the stock cube, nutritional yeast, turmeric, and salt. Once the water comes to the boil, slowly add the chickpea mixture while stirring continuously. After all the mixture has been fully combined, lower the heat and stir until the mixture becomes thick and glossy (about 1-2 minutes). Remove from heat and add the roasted vegetables to the "egg" mixture.  Mix well and spoon into the individual pie crusts.

Bake at 425 F for 20 minutes. Remove from oven, brush with melted earth balance, and return to oven for another 5 minutes.


*Vegan Pie Crust
Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 cup (2 sticks) earth balance
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup ice water

Method:

Cut butter into small cubes and chill in freezer for about 10 minutes. While butter is chilling, combine flour, sugar, and salt in a large mixing bowl. Add butter and rub it into the flour with your fingertips (you can also use a fork, a pastry cutter, or even a food processor instead of your hands) until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add 1/4 cup of the ice water and continue to work the mixture with your fingertips until dough comes together in moist clumps. If the dough is too dry, work in more water 1 teaspoon at a time until you reach the desired consistency. Gather dough into a ball and flatten into a disk. Wrap in plastic and chill until firm, at least 1 hour.

I'm constantly torn between craving the positive health effects of eating a vegan diet and simply craving cheese. I've been on-again-off-again vegan for many years, and I'm still not sure which I love more -- cheese or good health. I'm off the vegan bandwagon at the mo but recently I've been contemplating diving back into veganism. Which is why, after Kaitlin and I decided to make quiche this week, I wanted to attempt a vegan version (and because I love a challenge — pretty much the whole reason I got into vegan cooking in the first place). Since most store-bought vegan imitation meat/dairy products are soy-based, I try to avoid soy in my own cooking when I can, both because I think it's important to consume varied sources of protein and also because, like I said, I love a challenge.

Fortunately, these soy-free vegan quiches were a success! I kept a few in my fridge to eat during the week and froze the rest for my potential return to veganism. However, one of my first thoughts after biting into my quiche was "all this needs is bleu cheese and it would be perfect." So, that return to veganism might be much farther off than I planned. Or maybe attempting a vegan bleu cheese is in order (the immense difficulty but awesome payoff of that challenge is already luring me in...stay tuned, I may soon blog a vegan bleu cheese recipe).

Bleu cheese or not, this vegan quiche is pretty amazing. To see a more traditional quiche (that DOES include bleu cheese omgyes), check out Kaitlin's recipe for caramelized onion, zucchini, and blue cheese quiche.