Sunny days mean outdoor lunches and picnics and QUICHE!!! Or if you’re me you’ll end up eating the quiche for breakfast because it’s eggs and egg is a breakfast food.

This quiche also makes the perfect packed lunch for work, just serve it with a simple side salad of greens, some radish or cucumber and whatever else you have in the fridge/garden. I also love it with a green tomato pickle or beetroot pickle or any kind of pickle really because pickles are great.

I’ve loaded this quiche with delicious vegetables. I love that the kale tends to peak out the top of the tart and get all crispy while it bakes, it’s delicious. The pastry is my favourite easy to make home made pastry – spelt flour and olive oil. Much better for you than the traditional buttery kind (although that’s just as delicious) and the oil means it won’t stick to your quiche tin making for easy removal.

This is a great quiche to make in this trans-seasonal time where there’s still some winter veg hanging about but the spring things like asparagus are also popping up.

Confession: I hated quiche for 10 years. I had a weir problem with egg white and egg yolk mixed together and then having cream added was just ew to me. I still don’t love quiche with cream added, I just find it a little to heavy. That’s why I’ve made this one with whole milk. I use a lovely creamy organic one and it works a treat.

Serves 8-10

Ingredients

 Spelt Pastry

½ cup water

½ cup olive oil

1 tsp baking powder

2 cups spelt flour

½ tsp salt

Filling

1 small butternut pumpkin or ½ a large one, cut into 2cm cubes

2 tsp olive oil

1 tsp dried sage

1 bunch of asparagus, trimmed and cut into 2cm pieces

3 cups shredded kale

8 eggs

1 1/4 cups of milk

¼ cup freshly grated parmesan cheese

¼ tsp cayenne pepper

120g feta cheese

Directions

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

Toss pumpkin in olive oil and sage. Season and spread in a single layer ona lined baking tray. Bake for 35 minutes. Or until cooked.

Make pastry: combine flour, salt and baking powder. Whisk together water and oil and then combine with flour mixture. Mix until a dough forms. Roll out on a piece of baking paper until about 3mm thick. Make sure it is at least 6cm wider than your quiche tin.

Use Your rolling pin to pick it up by rolling the pastry on to the rolling pin. Lay it gently over a deep sided 20cm fluted quiche tin with a loose base. Gently press the pastryinto the bottom of the tin and into the sides. Use any over hanging pastry to patch up holes. Trim so that the pastry comes to the top of the tin. It will shrink while it cooks and this is fine.

Line the pastry with baking paper. To make it fit more easily scrunch up the baking paper and then lay it in. Fill with a couple of cups of pie weights or rice.

Bake for 15 minutes. Remove the pie weights and bake for another 5 to 10 minutes or until lightly golden with no visible raw patches.

Back to the filling: Place kale and asparagus in a bowl. Cover in boiling water. Allow to stand for 1 minute and then drain.

Beat the eggs and then add the milk and parmesan. Add cayenne and season with salt and pepper.

Sprinkle 1/3 the feta over the base of the cooked pastry shell. Follow with ½ the pumpkin and ½ of the kale and asparagus. Pour in half the egg mixture then sprinkle ½ the remaining feta the remaining vegetables and pour over the remaining egg mixture. You want the vegetables poking out just above the egg mixture. Sprinkle with the last of the feta and some freshly ground black pepper.

Bake in your preheated oven for 35-45 minutes or until egg is just set in the centre and golden around the edges.

Allow to cool on a wire rack.. Once the tin is cool enough to handle slide the quiche on to your hand and allow the fluted sides to loosen and slip down your arm like a giant quiche bangle. Carefully slide onto a plate. Once coo,l cut and serve. (You can eat warm too!)

HH. x