Kale and Feta Quiche with an Almond Crust

I have always been a bit of a bread fiend. Age sixteen I worked in a local bakery and it has always been a joke of my husbands that if you give me a plate with bread and something else I will find a way to make a sandwich. So I surprised myself totally when I decided to give up wheat. My family still eat wheat and the agreement so far is that I’ll try it for two weeks to a month and see if it is making a difference. The thing is though, unless this is just psychosomatic, I think this giving up wheat thing is really rocking. Yes we are making two lots of meals quite often and I have to think more about what I am eating – but I had already given up sugar, caffeine and alcohol ten months ago so I am pretty used to thinking about what I am eating.

I made the decision to give up wheat after a conversation with my therapist. I had noticed that if I had toast for breakfast I felt a lot more confused and unable to function than if I had Overnight Oats for example. I mentioned this to my therapist. She didn’t know much about the science behind it and obviously is not a dietician but she said that she had had some clients saying they felt clearer headed after giving up wheat. So I decided to give it a try myself.

But I do feel brighter, happier, there are still memory issues but I am not getting as anxious over them and I am not feeling so soporific. I seem to be able to leave the panic attacks behind quicker. That plus a restart of following the home-organisation programme Flylady and I feel more able to do things that are productive and useful and that really makes me smile. Yes it is indeed baby steps, but that is okay for me right now because I am making progress.

So this week I have mainly been living on pilau, salmon kedgeree and a lot of frittata. Breakfast has been overnight oats every day. I tried making coconut flour flatbread but it came out really eggy, more like a pancake, so I have steered away from flatbread since then.

When I have looked at recipes for gluten-free baking in all honesty I got a bit overwhelmed. A lot of recipes tell you they can’t guarantee results unless you use a certain brand of flour and I had what I had in the cupboard. A lot of recipes blended flour but I didn’t want my recipes to be very fiddly. So for the last week I had been looking at gluten-free recipes but not really cooking anything new other than the aforementioned flatbread.

I decided one thing I did want to try and make for my lunches was a gluten-free Quiche. I wanted to make it with things that I had on hand in my kitchen and fridge. Initially my idea was to use the Caramelised Onion from this recipe and make a Caramelised Onion and Feta Quiche, but then I noticed the kale in my fridge that needed using up and the being able to put some lovely brain boosting folate into this recipe won the day. Kale is apparantly higher in vitamin C than an orange. It is also is very high in brain protecting antioxidants including flavonoids, beta-carotene and polyphenols.

Feta cheese, which is made from sheep or goat’s milk, is easier to digest and less inflammatory than cheese from cow’s milk. It is still high in sodium and fat though so should be used sparingly and not every day.

The almond flour in the crust (and it is blanched almond flour not almond meal that I used) are a source of protein, giving you some healthy fat. Almonds also contain tryptophan which is needed to produce the neurotransmitter serotonin. So all good things for my nutrient-hungry noggin. I had read so much about gluten-free baking that I figured it was going to be tricky and maybe a disaster. However, I found this recipe by Elana Amsterdam of Elana’s Pantry that used ingredients I had to hand. I don’t own a food processor so I used the method I would have used for making pastry with wheat flour. It surprised me by how well it came together despite me using a medium egg as I didn’t have a large one to hand.

Kale and Feta Quiche with an Almond Crust (Serves 8)

Ingredients

For the Almond Crust:

2 cups almond flour (In case the brand does make a difference I used some from The Grape Tree in this recipe)

2 tablespoons coconut oil, melted in a saucepan or microwave

1 medium-sized egg, beaten

1/4 teaspoon salt

For the Kale and Feta Filling

1 teaspoon rapeseed (canola) oil

1 onion, peeled and chopped

1 clove garlic, peeled and chopped

2 cups curly kale, roughly chopped and tough stems removed

200g packet feta cheese, drained, sliced into cubes and then roughly crumbled

1 eighth of a cup water

2 medium-sized eggs, beaten

150ml semi-skimmed milk

freshly ground black pepper to taste

1 9 inch flan dish

Method

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F / 200 degrees C / Gas 6.

Make the Almond Crust by adding the almond flour and salt to a large mixing bowl and stirring with a wooden spoon to mix together. Add the melted coconut oil and the one beaten egg. Mix all together with a wooden spoon until it forms a ball of dough.

If wished you can roll the dough out between two sheets of clingfilm, though I found it tended to break around the edges when I lifted the top sheet of cling film off and tried to transfer the pastry upside down over the flan dish. It made it flatter and neater for the most part but then I needed to press the dough into the edges of the case using the bits that broke off. It still looked pretty good.

I put the flan dish on a baking tray and blind baked the crust with in the oven for 5 minutes. I didn’t bother with baking parchment or baking beans and it was fine without. Set an alarm on your phone so you don’t forget to take the crust out of the oven.

For the filling I heat the oil to a medium heat in large frying pan and add the onions and garlic, frying for a few minutes until they start to go translucent. Then add the kale and stir fry for a couple of minutes until the kale starts to wilt. If the kale looks like it is going to catch and stick on the bottom of the pan add the eighth of a cup of water to the pan and continue to stir fry for a minute more until the kale has wilted. Put the kale and onion mix to one side.

Put the two remaining beaten eggs into a clean mixing bowl, add the milk and stir well. Then add the kale and onion mix and the crumbled feta cheese. Grind some freshly ground black pepper and mix the ingredients together well.

Pour the Quiche filling into the prepared almond crust. Use a spoon to spread the filling about a bit if necessary so all the elements are evenly distributed over the Quiche. Put the Quiche back in the oven (I didn’t place it on a baking sheet this time) for a further 15 minutes. Set an alarm if you need to. Then reduce the heat to 375 degrees F, 180 degrees C, gas 4 and cook for a further 20-30 minutes (do you want the alarm again?) or until lightly set.

Serve with a side salad.

Image by Scott Webb via Unsplash.