Tag Archives: breakfast

Dairy-Free Bacon and Kale Crustless Quiche

No cheese? No cream or milk? Believe it, because it works: welcome to the dairy-free (and gluten-free) quiche.

This is the perfect quiche to bring to a group event where there may be people with special dietary needs. My friend Sarah (a fabulous cook, by the way) brought this to our women’s ministry brunch a number of months ago, and it’s really delicious. While there’s no cheese, the bacon adds the richness that could have been lost when the cheese got the boot. Plus, as my husband said after eating two generous slices of this, it doesn’t give you the feeling of “I never want to eat again” that a really rich quiche can produce after one hefty serving. Know that feeling? Not the best sensation. In fact, after 3 slices of this quiche for dinner, I was feeling great, light on my feet, and my stomach was a happy place.

The flavor of the coconut milk is definitely present, and while I loved it, my husband was a little wigged out by it. So if you’re one to be wigged out by coconut milk, this may not be the dish for you. But if you’re lactose intolerant, this is such a great alternative to traditional quiche–and I’ll be making it again even though I’m all about the lactose and the gluten. Because it’s tasty, man.

Adapted from this recipe, let’s make it this morning, eh? Eh.

Ingredients

(Serves 4)

5 eggs
1-15 oz can coconut milk
5 pieces of bacon
1 onion, diced
1/2 bunch of kale or spinach
1/4 cup white wine
salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 350ºF. 

Warm the eggs and coconut milk until they reach room temperature (you can sit them in a warm water bath for 15 minutes to accomplish this).

Dice the bacon and fry it in a large skillet over medium high heat.

While the bacon fries, dice the onion . . .

. . . and chop up the kale or spinach.

Today, it’s kale all the way.

When the bacon is close to being crispy, drain most of the bacon fat out of the skillet . . .

. . . and add the onion.

Fry for 8 minutes over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the onion is starting to brown.

Add the kale or spinach . . .

. . . and sauté for about 2 minutes, or until wilted.

Add the wine, and continue to cook until the liquid evaporates (another 3-4 minutes).

Sooooo good.

Let the bacon and veggies cool down for about 15 minutes (you can spread them out on a plate to speed up this step).

I may have taken a few bites of this and promised myself that I would soon make a bacon/onion/kale sauté that I could simply eat piled over white rice. I recommend that you do the same.

Beat the eggs and coconut milk in a large bowl . . .

(bowl pictured not large enough = transfer to a different bowl)

. . . adding salt and pepper (about ¼ tsp of salt).

Whisk the bacon and veggies into the eggs until they are well suspended in the egg mixture. Grease an 8×8 glass dish or a pie pan with coconut oil or cooking spray, and pour in the egg mixture.

Bake for 35-45 minutes, or until the center has solidified.

Remove the quiche from the oven and let it sit for about 15 minutes so that the eggs set.

Dig in!

Oh my word. How I love this quiche. How I love the kale within . . .

. . . and the bacon within.

 It’s a winner!

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Cranberry Pumpkin Spice Bread

It there’s a woman who knows her baking, it’s Veronica. I know I’ve raved about her before, but she’s worth raving about. From her Buttery Beer Bread to her Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies to this lovely Cranberry Pumpkin Spice Bread, her recipes are tried-and-true. So this morning we’re going to make two fabulous, moist, nutty, sweet-but-not-too-sweet loaves of bread (original recipe here).

Ingredients

(Makes 2 loaves)

1 cup dried cranberries
¾ cup orange juice
1 cup chopped walnuts
4 eggs
2 (15 oz) cans pumpkin puree
3 cups granulated sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
1 TBS vanilla bean paste or extract
3 ½ cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp nutmeg
½ tsp ground cloves
½ tsp allspice

Roughly chop the dried cranberries and put them in a small bowl.

Soak them in the orange juice for 1 hour.

Now! If you have big walnut pieces, give ’em a little crush-crush with the heel of your hand, just to break them up a little.

After you’ve exerted yourself in this fashion, please take a little drink of red wine. You’ve earned it. Unless you’re making this in the a.m., in which case stick to the coffee.

Spread the walnuts on a microwave-safe plate . . .

. . . and microwave them in 30 second increments (for about 2 minutes total), stirring them with your fingers in between bursts, until they’re toasted and fragrant.

I dearly hope no one’s allergic to these babies, because they add such a fabulous dimension to the bread.

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Butter (or spray with baking spray) two 9×5 loaf pans.

Drain the orange juice from the cranberries into the bowl of a stand mixer–but keep the cranberries aside for now.

Add the eggs to the juice, and whisk ’em until they’re well beaten.

Add the pumpkin puree, sugar, vegetable oil, and vanilla to the eggs/OJ.

Beat until well mixed, scraping down the bowl with a spatula if needed.

Combine the flour and remaining ingredients (all dry stuff) in a bowl.

Stir it all around until it’s combined. I like to use my fingers to feel for any clumps and break them up.

Add the flour mixture to the pumpkin mixture little by little, beating until smooth.

Gorgeous! Now stir the cranberries and walnuts into the batter.

That’s what I’m talkin’ about.

Divide the batter between the two pans . . .

. . . and bake for 65-80 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

At this point, I had severely miscalculated how long this would take to make (I kinda forgot about the hour-long cranberry soaking) so I was in bed, waiting for the sound of the timer to get my butt back outta bed and remove the loaves from the oven.

And of course, for some mysterious reason my loaves kept coming up raw and batter-a-licious in the middle.

They had to go for more like 85 minutes. Maybe even 90–I was too sleepy to keep track.

Cool the loaves for 10-15 minutes, then remove them from the pans. Let them finish cooling on a wire rack.

Around 11:30 pm my loaves were finally cooling on the rack. Of course, then I started worrying that if I left them out all night, they would dry out and go stale on me before their time.

So I decided to trust my habit of waking up to pee in the middle of the night, at which point I decided I’d scurry out to the kitcen to wrap the fully cooled loaves in aluminum foil for safe storage.

And that’s exactly what happened. It was a midnight baking adventure. 

The next day I got around to taking pictures of the loaves, buttering a piece, and (last but not least) taking a bite . . . and oh man.

Pumpkin cranberry walnutty bliss!

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