Quiche with Fresh Vegetables

Yesterday was one of those days when everything is crazy. I had planned to make a soup I saw at Dana's, but then I arrived at the school to pick-up my daughter and she started telling me 10,000 things at once, how was at P.E., how she did great at math and how she wanted to have a playdate with another classmate. Long story short, I forgot to buy the main ingredient for the soup I had wanted to make: the chicken. I decided then to make a quiche with vegetables and I started with the dough, because it needs to sit in the fridge for half hour.

For the dough:

- 140 gr butter, at room temperature

- 140 gr Philadelphia cream cheese
- 300 gr all-purpose flour

- 1 teaspoon of salt

Mix very well the butter and the cream cheese in a bowl

Add the flour and the salt and mix again until it starts to come together

Knead by hand until the dough comes off the sides of the bowl, then shape it in a ball and place in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Now, for the filling:

- 2 slender carrots, trimmed, peeled and finely diced
- 2 celery stalks, trimmed and cut into small dice
- 2 slender leeks, white and light green part only, quartered lengthwise, washed and thinly sliced
- 1 medium red bell pepper, cored, seeded and finely diced
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
- 2/3 cup heavy cream
- 1 large egg
- 1 large egg yolk
- 2/3 cup grated cheese, preferably Gruyere (can be replaced with Cheddar)
- salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium-low heat. Toss in the vegetables

and cook, stirring, for about 10 minutes or until they are tender.

Season with salt and pepper, then scrape the vegetables into a bowl and let them cool.

Centre a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 400F. Get the dough tart and roll it out at a 3 mm thickness. Transfer the dough to a removable bottom tart pan, preferably a 9-inch one (mine was 10-inch and the result did not have sufficient height). Press the dough against the bottom and up the sides of the pan. Trim the dough even with the top of the pan (I had enough dough left to roll it out again for 12 tartelettes made in the muffins tin).

Spoon the vegetables into the tart pan and spread them out.

Whisk the cream, egg and egg yolk together, season with salt and pepper

and carefully pour it over the vegetables (for a 9-inch tart pan you may have too much custard - don't push it. Pour in as much custard as you can without it overflowing).

 Bake the quiche for 20 minutes.

Sprinkle the cheese over the top

and bake for another 5 to 10 minutes, until the cheese is golden and, most importantly, the filling is uniformly puffed, browned and set (I did stab the centre a couple of times, I admit :D).

I'm sorry I don't have a slice photographed, but there was nothing left to photograph today :)). It is that good!