Vegetarian Quiche with a Sesame, Linseed & Hazelnut Crust - An Original Weight-Loss Recipe

Since beginning my weight-loss mission and avoiding carbs I've been playing around with ingredients to create interesting things to eat.  I adore vegetables and eggs and all those wonderful things, but being a vegetarian and avoiding carbs means meals can get pretty 'samey'.  If I don't enjoy eating it, I don't enjoy cooking it.  So it's gotta be interesting or I'll get bored very quickly!  Some people who aren't into legumes often say they're too bland, but I love legumes and miss them in all their carby glory!  At least they're the 'good carbs' though, and thankfully I will be re-introducing them into my diet again soon.  

But until then a woman's gotta eat, so I made this experiment quiche and oh my goodness - it's soooo tasty!  I thought it would taste good (because how could it not with those ingredients) but actually it's really really really tasty!!!  I'm very happy with this recipe, and will be making this many more times for sure.  With a few adjustments it would work very well with a sweet filling too, so there'll be more recipes to come when I get chance!

I'm not 100% sure if this quiche would meet the 'rules' for the ketogenic diet, though I'm hoping it does as I'm still determined to provide @katdvine with at least one interesting recipe for her keto diet!  I'm pretty sure the ingredients are fine, but I wouldn't know about the calorie count and all that.  Perhaps a small slice along with vegetables etc would be OK.  I will be asking her anyway once I post this!

Ingredients:

For the crust:

200g golden linseeds

150g sesame seeds

150g ground hazelnuts

25g coconut oil

1 large free-range egg

25g sundried tomatoes

2-3 tblsp dried oregano

1 tsp cinnamon

For the filling:

2 large free-range eggs

120ml milk (any kind inc. non-dairy)

1 small red onion or 1/2 large

1/2 pepper or mix of peppers

2 tsp parsley

1/2 tsp chilli flakes

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp black pepper

15g cheese, grated

Method:

Finely grind the hazelnuts and 2/3 of the amount of seeds (I used the coffee-grinder attachment on my blender).  Put into a bowl and stir in the remaining 1/3 of seeds.  It's nice to have the texture of whole seeds in the crust.

Chop up the sundried tomatoes into small pieces... Using scissors instead of a knife is easier I find!

Add the sundried tomatoes to the bowl, along with the dried oregano, cinnamon, coconut oil and egg.  Squeeze the mixture with your hands until it's all blended together nicely.  It will be quite sticky, since the nuts and seeds are oily too, which makes it easy to form the crust.

Press the mixture into approx 8" tin or pie dish, which you should line with baking parchment and also grease well (with butter or coconut oil).  Keep the sides of the crust fairly thick so it won't crumble when removing from the tin later.  

Pop into a preheated oven at 190 degrees Celsius for 15-20 minutes until firm to touch.  It doesn't brown too much as you can see below, but the tomatoes end up slightly charred (in a tasty way not a burnt way!)

Dice the onion and peppers (or your choice of veg) and put them in the base of the crust.

Lightly whisk the eggs with a fork and add the milk.  Mix in the parsley, chilli flakes, salt and pepper.  Pour the mixture into the crust over the vegetables, sprinkle with cheese and also a final sprinkle of herbs/chilli to make it look pretty.

Pop back into the oven at 190 degrees Celsius for 25-30 minutes until golden looking and firm to touch.  If the filling wobbles when you poke it, give it a little more time in the oven :-)  Allow to cool for 5 minutes or so before removing carefully from the tin.  Serve with vegetables... or whatever you want depending on your diet!!!

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Many thanks.
 

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All photos in this post are my own original.