Vegan spinach and mushroom quiche

This week as the sweltering heat hit LA, Angie and I chose to make a quiche. I was silly enough to think that we would only have to be around the stove when we were baking the quiche, and we’d be able to leave the room for that. It actually takes a bit of stove top cooking to make this though and we ended up spending about four hours in the kitchen. What can I say, I’m a pretty slow cook (Angie was done with her half of things way before I was ), and the recipe does take time. But it was worth it. The quiche was a great success!

The recipe for the filling was taken pretty much verbatim from 101 cookbooks, except that we used silken tofu instead of firm, and tripled  the quantities in order to feed all the hungry co-opers. I’ll leave the quantities at as they were in the original recipes so that those who don’t want to cook for 14 can make this without having to divide by 3 (I always like multiplying better than dividing anyway)

The recipe for the crust was taken from lunchboxbunch.com and slightly altered to fit our taste/ budget constraints/ available ingredients. It was still tasty tasty! Anything that differs from the original recipe is in blue.

Crust:
1/2 cup water
1 tsp salt
2 Tbsp agave
1/3 cup flaxseed meal
*Ground up flax seeds (which we left out due to budget constraints)
3/4 cup flour (any variety)
1/4 cup chickpea flour (or any variety you’d like)
1 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 Tbsp dried herbs (rosemary, thyme, sage, basil)
cornmeal for dusting

Grease a 8-9″ cake pan with vegan buttery spread.
Flour dust the inside as well.
Combine all the crust ingredients in a large bowl.
Add a bit more or less flour as needed to get a soft, but kneadable dough.
Roll out dough on floured surface to about a 12″ circle.
Drag bottom of crust through a few Tablespoons of corn meal.
Position dough in cake pan.
Try to get a nice even wrap-around crust with edges, but it’s OK if it isn’t perfect.
Brush crust with an olive oil/agave glaze.
Poke a few holes in bottom of dough.
Place a parchment paper circle on top of crust, fill with cooking weights or dry beans.
(This will prevent the crust from rising during baking.
Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes to partially brown edges.
Set Pan aside to cool while you work on filling.

Filling:

7 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 cup finely diced onion
10 ounces white button mushrooms, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons dry white wine or water
1 1/2 teaspoons coarse sea salt
3 garlic cloves, slice crosswise into 1/8-inch rounds
10 to 12 fresh basil leaves, chopped
1/2 teaspoon finely chopped fresh thyme leaves
Pinch hot red pepper flakes
1 pound silken tofu, rinsed and patted dry
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
2 pounds fresh spinach
Paprika for dusting

In a wide saute pan over medium heat, warm 2 tablespoons of the oil. Add the onion and mushroom, raise the heat to high, and saute for 10 to 12 minutes, stirring and shaking the pan until the vegetables are caramelized. Add the wine and scrape up any brown bits from the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon. Season with 1/2 teaspoon of the salt and continue to cook until dry. Using a rubber spatula, scrape the vegetables into a mixing bowl and set aside.

In a small saucepan over medium heat, warm the remaining 5 tablespoons of oil. Add the garlic, basil, thyme, and red pepper flakes. Simmer gently for 3 to 4 minutes or until the garlic is golden. Do not let the garlic brown or it will become bitter. With a rubber spatula, scrape the garlic oil into the bowl of a food processor.

Crumble the tofu into the bowl of the food processor. Add the lemon juice, vinegar, and remaining 1 teaspoon of salt and puree until smooth. With a rubber spatula, scrape the puree into the mushroom-onion mixture.

Remove and discard the tough stems of the spinach. Wash the leaves in a large bowl with several changes of cold water. Transfer the spinach to a pot and cooke, covered, over high heat for several minutes, just until wilted. Drain in a colander and rinse under cold water to arrest the cooking. Drain well and squeeze dry. Transfer the spinach to a cutting board and chop fine. Add the spinach to the rest of the filling and stir well to combine.

Fill the tart shell with the tofu and vegetable mixture and smooth the top with the back of a spoon. Dust with Paprika. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes,until firm.

Let the tart cool for 8 to 10 minutes before slicing and serving.

Yield: 4 to 6 servings

Which Veggie Burgers Were Made With a Neurotoxin?

By Kiera Butler, Mother Jones Online
Posted on April 13, 2010, Printed on April 14, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/146439/

 

This is about the time of year when I start keeping packages of veggie burgers in the freezer, just in case of an impromptu barbecue. In the past, I haven’t had much fake meat brand loyalty: I’ve found that once I smother my hunk of textured vegetable protein in barbeque sauce, all soy patties are pretty much created equal. But after reading a recent investigation by the Cornucopia Institute, I’m going to be a lot more picky: The food and agriculture nonprofit found that most non-organic veggie burgers currently on the market are made with the chemical hexane, an EPA-registered air pollutant and neurotoxin.

In order to meet the demands of health-conscious consumers, manufacturers of soy-based fake meat like to make their products have as little fat as possible. The cheapest way to do this is by submerging soybeans in a bath of hexane to separate the oil from the protein. Says Cornucopia Institute senior researcher Charlotte Vallaeys, “If a non-organic product contains a soy protein isolate, soy protein concentrate, or texturized vegetable protein, you can be pretty sure it was made using soy beans that were made with hexane.”

If you’ve heard about hexane before, it was likely in the context of gasoline—the air pollutant is also a byproduct of gas refining. But in 2007, grain processors were responsible for two-thirds of our national hexane emissions. Hexane is hazardous in the factory, too: Workers who have been exposed to it have developed both skin and nervous system disorders. Troubling, then, that the FDA does not monitor or regulate hexane residue in foods. More worrisome still: According to the report, “Nearly every major ingredient in conventional soy-based infant formula is hexane extracted.”

The Cornucopia Institute found that a number of popular veggie burgers were made with hexane. The list (pdf, page 37, and below) is longer than you might think:

Amy’s Kitchen

Boca Burger, conventional

Franklin Farms

Garden Burger

It’s All Good Lightlife

Morningstar Farms

President’s Choice

Taste Above

Trader Joe’s

Yves Veggie Cuisine

Hexane-free products:

Boca Burgers “Made with organic soy”

Helen’s Kitchen

Morningstar “Made with organic”

Superburgers by Turtle Island

Tofurky

Wildwood

Also worth noting: Products labeled “organic” aren’t allowed to contain any hexane-derived ingredients, but that rule doesn’t apply to foods that are labeled “made with organic ingredients.” For more on soy sourcing, plus a list of popular “made with organic ingredients”-labeled protein bars that are made with hexane, read the Cornucopia Institute’s full study, “Behind the Bean.”