Hello pretties! How are you? Are you having a nice weekend? I have been enjoying a work night-out on Friday (having nice colleagues makes such a difference!), then yesterday my partner’s family had a Secret Santa party which was really good fun and lovely atmosphere (although, as with all the family reunions, I need A LOT of mental preparation – introvert for life…). A very busy, but great weekend! To close this, I wanted to share a recipe I followed this week for a Vegan Quiche with Asparagus by Jo’sKitchenLarder – this week I was short on time so I used puff pastry instead of making the pastry.

Ingredients

Pastry

• 250 g plain (all-purpose) flour
• 125 g unsalted vegan block butter cold and cut into cubes, I like Flora Plant
• good pinch of salt
• 2 tablespoon cold water you might not use all of it, depending on your flour

Filling

• 360 g leeks weight after trimming, cleaned and thinly sliced
• 350-400 g asparagus woody ends discarded, I used 15 thin asparagus spears for my quiche
• 300 g silken tofu drained
• 100 ml soya cream or any plant based cream of choice
• 2-3 garlic cloves peeled and finely chopped/minced
• 1 tablespoon (heaped) cornflour or potato starch
• ½-1 teaspoon black salt (kala namak), regular salt can be used here instead, adjust saltiness as per your liking
• ½ teaspoon onion powder
• ½ teaspoon garlic powder/granules
• ¼ teaspoon turmeric for colour
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 2 tablespoon nutritional yeast

Instructions

Pastry

1. Put flour and cold butter in a bowl of your food processor and pulse until you’ve got sand like consistency. If you don’t have food processor simply use your hands to rub butter and flour together to the same effect.
2. Add cold water, drop at a time and pulse or mix it in gently with your hands until your dough starts coming together into a ball.
3. Turn it out onto a floured surface and shape into a disc. Wrap it into wrap of your choice and put in the fridge to chill for at least 15 min.
4. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas Mark 6.
5. Roll out the pastry to fit loose-bottomed tart tin (23-25cm/9-10inch). Line the tin with pastry (bottom and sides) and trim any overhanging bits with the stroke of a knife against the edge of the tin. Save excess pastry for later in case you need to patch any holes.
6. Line your pastry with baking paper and fill with baking beans to blind bake first. Bake preheated oven for 15min.
7. Next, remove the paper and beans, patch up any holes with the saved pastry (if necessary) and return (uncovered) to the oven for another 5 minutes.
8. Once 5 minutes is up take the pastry out of the oven and set aside as you prepare your filling. Lower oven temperature down to 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4.

Filling

1. Prepare the leeks by trimming the dark green tops, cutting them in half and giving them a clean to ensure there is no grit leftover in between the layers. Slice each half nice and thin.
2. Heat up some oil in a large frying pan and add sliced leeks followed by minced garlic. Fry them stirring occasionally until nice and softened but not too coloured.
3. In the meantime, put tofu in a sieve over a bowl or a sink to drain the excess water.
4. Next, place the tofu and all of the herbs, spices, soya cream and cornflour in a bowl of food processor and mix until nice and smooth. You can also do it by hand mashing and mixing everything with a fork, although food processr will definitely give you smoother consistency.
5. Once the leeks are nice and soft and tofu mixture ready, mixed them togetherand and transfer into pre-baked pastry case.
6. Arrange trimmed asparagus spears on top as per your liking and bake your quiche in preheated oven (temperature lowered to 180C/350F/Gas Mark 5)) for approx. 30-40 minutes until set.
7. Take the quiche out of the oven and let it cool down in a tin for a bit before slicing and serving.

Enjoy!

Love,

TVCL xx