Spring Quiche & Salad

Last week a friend of mine gave me six precious eggs laid by her hens. The eggs were a mix of blue, green and brown eggs. At the time of my visit it was the first day that all six hens had laid an egg since winter started! Forgive me for only remembering that at least 2 of her hens are Ameraucanas. Ameraucanas are Easter Eggers, because they have the blue egg gene. They lay blue and green eggs.

So what to do with these lovely eggs? How about a quiche.

Asparagus Romano Cheese Quiche
serves 6

• 1 pie crust recipe
• 1 25 cm / 10 inch pie plate
• 8 large eggs
• large splash of milk
• 1 bunch of asparagus, (about 2 cups cut up), trimmed and cut in 5 mm (1/4 inch slices)
• 125 ml / 1/2 cup Romano cheese, grated
• pinch of fresh thyme
• 5 ml / 1 tsp hot sauce or pinch of cayenne
  
• salt and pepper to taste
  

The recipe link for the pie dough above yields 2 23 cm / 9 inch disks, but make one disk slightly larger to fill a 25 cm /10 inch pie plate. The other can be tightly wrapped and frozen for another recipe.

I pre-bake my crust when I have time. If you do not have time the only real difference is that the crust will be less golden (but cooked nonetheless).

Pre-heat the oven to 350F. Roll out the dough and fit to the pie plate. Decorate the edges if you like. Fit the plate containing dough with parchment paper and then weigh it down with pie weights (or dried beans, uncooked rice etc...), and cook in the center of the oven for 15 minutes. Remove parchment paper and weights,and let cool slightly before adding egg mixture.

In a large bowl whisk eggs and milk until well blended. Add the cheese, asparagus, thyme, hot sauce and season with salt and pepper. Stir to blend. Gently pour egg mixture into pie crust and cook on the middle rack of the oven for 45 minutes* or until center is just set. Let stand for 15 minutes before serving.

*Add 15 minutes if the crust is not bre-baked!

The asparagus will be perfectly cooked and although this is not a rich quiche the combination of Romano cheese and asparagus make this quiche a delicious spring time main course. This recipe would fit well in a more decadent Easter menu or as a weekday vegetarian dinner.

I served this quiche with a Celeriac & Cabbage salad. As the year of the vegetable continues around here I am forging ahead with the goal of adding a larger variety of vegetables to the menu. Celeriac is a economical low starch root vegetable also known as celery root. I bought a medium size celeriac last week, and have used it in 2 salads, thus far, and there is still 1/3 left! I think I will make a soup with the remainder of the celeriac.

Celeriac & Cabbage Salad
serves 6

• 500 ml / 2 cups green cabbage, julienned
• 500 ml / 2 cups celeriac, peeled and julienned
• 1 sweet pepper, julienned
• 1/2 english cucumber, julienned
  
• 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• splash of maple syrup
• juice of half a lemon
• splash of white balsamic vinegar
  
• splash of extra virgin olive oil
• salt an pepper to taste

Toss all ingredients in a large bowl, and let stand at room temperature for about half an hour before serving. If I had parsley I would have chopped some up and thrown it in.