Come on dear Sun, show your face again pleeeeaassseee! After some short lived (3 days!) summer-like weather, we are back to ‘way too chilly for May’ again. I now understand why the British spend so much time discussing weather. It’s because it always keeps you on your toes. As soon as you’ve unpacked all your summer clothes again, you’ll need your winter parka again, no doubt!
So while the weather is way too cold for a picnic, let’s practise making come picnic-appropriate food so that we are ready when the sun graces us with its presence again. As for the rest of the world readers, I know, I know, these are very British problems indeed, but this stuff is real…Sun is life. My today’s offering to you is a tray of vegan quiches with wild garlic. They can be made into one large vegan quiche, of course, but as I have a penchant for small things, I made several small ones instead. The filling is made with wild garlic that I picked in the Wye valley over the weekend. I put it in a glass of water and into the fridge and it kept well for 3 days, so don’t worry if you pick more than you can immediately use up. If you are not into foraging, you can always make the filling with garlic cloves and a bunch of herbs (fresh basil or mint leaves will work) and some asparagus as it’s very much in season. I’m loving foraging for food and I’m planning to school myself on wild mushroom picking so that come autumn, I am ready to pick the nicest and most harmless 😉 mushrooms around. This is where living in a wet climate pays off. If anyone has recommendations on essential mushroom foraging literature, I’m all ears as I’m well aware that I really need to know what I’m doing. If the blog suddenly grinds to a halt and you hear nothing from me for a while, that probably means that I did not know my mushrooms after all…
240 g / 2 cups gluten-free flour mix (I used Dove’s Farm) ½ tsp fine sea salt ½ tsp xantham gum (only if your flour mix doesn’t contain it) 6 tbsp mild olive oil or mild coconut oil
FILLING
10 ml / 2 tsp olive oil 4 spring onions, sliced thinly 60 g / 2 oz wild garlic, chopped small 15 g / 0.5 oz fresh basil or mint leaves, chopped small 300 g / 10.5 oz silken tofu (I used Clearspring) zest of 1 lemon + 3 tbsp lemon juice 1 heaped tbsp capers, chopped 2 tbsp nutritional yeast ¼ tsp herbs de provence ¼ tsp nutmeg ¼ tsp fine sea salt, adjust to taste black pepper, to taste 2 tbsp chickpea flour 8 cherry tomatoes, halved 2 tbsp pine nuts, to decorate
The filling has been roughly adapted from this recipe.
