Vegetable quiche is a great way of getting rid of leftover vegies in your crisper that might just be a little bit past it. It sounds fancy and complicated but is actually quite easy to make Almost any vegetables will go in a quiche, but leek, mushrooms, capsicum, corn. This one includes making the pastry from scratch, which tastes much nicer than the store bought one, but if you are feeling really lazy you could just buy some shortcrust pastry from the supermarket. If you want to, you can also add some bacon , ham or salmon for protein.

Ingredients:

Pastry

250g butter

125g cream cheese

1 cup plain flour

Filling

1 leek, rinsed and chopped

1 cup mushrooms, chopped

½ cup chopped capsicum

1 teaspoon of Dijon or wholegrain mustard

Mixed herbs ( use chopeedfresh if you can ) – chives, oregano or dill if using salmon would go beautifully

4 eggs

300ml cream

1 cup of tasty cheese ( for extra cheesiness and flavour add different types of cheese e.g parmesan, pecorino)

1 cup of diced bacon or 425g  red salmon.

Salt and pepper to taste

Pastry

Place all the ingredients in a bowl and mix together well. You can use a mixer but it works just as well using your hands to really knead the dough. Make sure it all blends thoroughly. Roll dough into a ball, cover in plastic and place in the fridge to set for half an hour.

Filling

Pre heat oven to 180 degrees

Once the dough has set roll it out with a rolling pin, and mould into a quiche dish. Use flour on the surface and the rolling pin to avoid it sticking. A small baking dish will suffice if you don’t have a quiche dish. Alternatively, you could make mini quiches with muffin tins. NB, if making this in a hot, humid environment ( like Darwin), place the quiche in the fridge once you have rolled it out and while you make the filling or it will melt.

Lightly saute the leek and mushrooms in butter

Cook diced bacon

In a bowl mix together the eggs, cream, and mustard., herbs and salt and pepper and cheese.

Place the vegetables in the pastry lined quiche dish.

Pour the liquid filling over the vegatables.

Place in the oven for half an hour or until golden brown on top.

Serve with a crisp garden salad