While searching for an idea for dinner, I ran across a recipe for Crustless Asparagus and Mushroom Quiche in the April 2005 issue of Shape magazine. I read through the ingredients list, decided to substitute broccoli for the asparagus, and headed to the grocery store.
Later in the afternoon I started really reading the recipe, and it called for starting the quiche in a frying pan, then transferring it to a glass baking dish and finishing it in the microwave. The microwave? I've never made a quiche before, but I've had quiche, I am aware of the concept of quiche, and I've never heard of making it in the microwave. That's when I abandoned the recipe. I searched the internet and found generic instructions for crustless quiche, and decided to follow the recommended baking method. This is what I came up with:
Crustless Brocooli and Mushroom Quiche
Ingredients:
cooking spray
butter
1 1/2 cup broccoli florets
1 cup coarsely chopped white mushrooms
6 large eggs
1/2 cup milk (I used 2%)
1/2 cup lowfat sour cream
1/4 teaspoon paprika
3 slices lowfat Swiss cheese, coarsely chopped
salt and pepper to taste
Preheat the oven to 375
I briefly steamed the broccoli and sauteed the mushrooms in a tiny bit of butter. I sprayed a 10 inch glass quiche pan with a quick coat of cooking spray, then spread the cooked broccoli and mushrooms in the bottom. In a separate bowl I whisked together the eggs, milk, sour cream, paprika, salt and pepper. I poured the egg mixture over the vegetables, then sprinkled the chopped Swiss cheese on top of everything.
The generic recipe calls for baking it from 30-45 minutes, beginning to check on it after 30 minutes. I started checking on it at 30 minutes, and pulled it from the oven after 38 minutes. I let it rest on the counter for 5 minutes, then we dug in. It was perfectly delicious. I ate 1/4 of it. My husband went back for seconds and ate close to half of it.
This was fantastic, and I will definitely be making other variations of this. As an added bonus, my "You're putting meat in that, right?" husband ate it without complaint. In fact, he raved about it and declared it one of his new favorites. This further proves my theory that he doesn't miss the meat if a dish is hearty enough.
Here is the nutritional info provided by Shape for their version: 250 calories, 15g fat (7 saturated), 8g carbs, 20 g protein per serving. One serving is 1/4 of the quiche. Substituting broccoli for asparagus shouldn't make much of a calorie difference. I did add a tiny pat of butter to the mushrooms, but without the butter those numbers should be pretty close.
