Deep-dish Crustless Quiche with Sweet Corn, Leeks, and Artichoke Hearts

We had a lot of eggs to use up this week, and I had been wanting to make a crustless quiche for a while, so I searched on the internet for some lower-fat crustless quiche recipes. Most of the recipes I found were for crust…ful? quiches. A lot of them were extremely high fat, or really complex and involved, but I found a recipe for crustless quiche at About.com that just gave the basic parameters, and didn’t seem too difficult, so that’s what I went with as my jumping off point.

For some reason, the combination that came to mind was sweet corn and leeks. Then I remembered the wonderful packaged (but fresh) artichoke hearts that I found at Whole Foods last week while searching for supplemental omelet ingredients, and thought that might be interesting to throw in. (I used the Natural variety, but the company, Monterey Foods, has other varieties as well). I planned to use the same mix of cheese that I used for my Lasagnaesque Eggplant and Squash earlier this week, since it tasted quite good, and was much lower in fat than what most quiche recipes call for. As I’ve shared in my earlier posts, I like Dofino’s light havarti, and love the goat cheese from Haystack Mountain. The pecorino romano I use is from the supermarket deli section.

I don’t seem to want to do things very traditionally lately, so I used a about three times the vegetables that recpies usually call for. Since I had that much more to go in my ‘quiche’, I couldn’t use a regular pie pan, so I used our 2 1/2 quart casserole dish (which has been seeing a lot of action in the kitchen lately for some reason). The recipe I used had a time of 30-45 minutes in the oven, but since I needed to strive for uniqueness with my deep-dish style, it actually took 70 minutes. I put aluminum foil over it at about 30 minutes because it was already browned on the top, but still quite mobile when I gently shook the casserole dish.

Quiche Ingredients

Deep-dish Crustless Quiche with Sweet Corn, Leeks, and Artichoke Hearts
Adapted from Make a Crustless Quiche on About.com by Laura Dolson
serves 4-6

3 leeks
2 ears of sweet corn
6 oz. cooked artichoke hearts
1 whole egg
6 egg whites
1+1/2 cup skim milk
2 oz lowfat havarti, grated
2 oz goat cheese, very thinly sliced or crumbled
3/8 oz (~10 g) shaved pecorino romano
1 tsp olive oil
1/2 tsp paprika
salt
pepper
butter for greasing casserole dish (optional)

Grill, boil, or microwave corn, and cut kernels off once the ears have cooled. Remove the green stems from the leeks (and be sure to wash out the dirt that likes to hide between layers close to the stems). Heat 1 tsp of olive oil in a skillet over medium heat and then saute leeks until tender, about 3-4 minutes. Cut the artichoke heart pieces into even sizes if necessary.

Combine eggs, milk, paprika, and salt and pepper (you can’t taste it because of the eggs of course, but just use the amount of salt and pepper you would in say, scrambled eggs), and beat with a whisk, a fork, or a blender until slightly frothy.

I’m not sure you really need to grease the casserole dish, as I had absolutely no problem with it sticking, and only used about 1/2 tsp of butter – but you can if you want. Spread the leeks on the bottom of the casserole dish, then follow with the corn, and then with the artichoke hearts. Layer the cheese on top of this, and then pour the egg mixture on top.

Bake in a 375 degree oven on the middle rack. Start checking at 30 minutes. It will likely be nowhere near done, but if it is browned on top already, cover it with aluminum foil for the rest of the cooking. Keep checking every 5 to 10 minutes. It’s done when a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

Deep-dish Crustless Quiche