An April hike with Jasper
Driving home from a hike with Jasper, I discovered I was hungry (Surprise!). There was that bunch of red-stemmed dandelion greens, already steamed and sitting in the fridge. Not so exciting, but healthy. I figured I’d warm them in olive oil and sprinkle with some parmesan cheese. But then again, I was really hungry. I thought maybe I should add an egg and milk, like a meatless, pastaless carbonara. Once I got home and gathered the ingredients, I saw I had an almost full container of ricotta cheese. Mmm. Now I was thinking, meatless, ziti-less, sauceless baked ziti. Did I need to make a roux, to thicken the veg-cheese mixture? Nope! When you make baked ziti or lasagna, you only need to add egg to bind it up.
I seasoned the cheese the way I do for lasagna, but doubled up on the red pepper flakes for a little excitement. (Such is the state of life these days when red pepper is exciting.) To stuff it with more greens, I diced a small bunch of broccolini and stirred that in. I upped the parmesan, too, and added gruyere, because—CHEESE. After I put it in the oven, I noticed a little zip-loc baggie of caramelized onions and shallots hiding on the bottom shelf of the fridge. At first I was annoyed that I hadn’t mixed it in, but in the end, scattering them on top of the shell-less tart while it was already bubbling away turned out to be the better option.
I ate almost half for lunch, but I still felt pretty virtuous. Not only did I use up those greens, my portion amounted to less than one egg, one cup of ricotta, and tons of veggies! Oh, yeah, and some parmesan and gruyere–not much, and grated cheese never counts anyway. Pretty healthy for a rich tasting lunch. Ate it with a sliced tomato. (Actually, that’s a lie. I just ate the tomato like an apple, sprinkling salt as I went.)
Ingredients:
- 2 cups of chopped vegetables, like dandelions & broccolini: greens must be steamed with salt and squeezed dry
- 1 16 oz container of ricotta cheese
- ½ cup grated parmesan cheese
- 2 eggs
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1 tbsp red pepper flakes
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 2 teaspoons onion powder
- ¼ cup fresh parsley or 1.5 tbsp dried
- ground black pepper
- ¼ cup grated gruyere
- 1-2 tbsp carmelized minced onion/shallot
- butter for baking dish
Equipment:
Ceramic quiche dish, or a baker of similar volume
Method:
- Heat oven to 400 degrees F. Place a pat of butter in the quiche pan and place in oven as it heats. Remove when butter is soft and spread around inside of pan with a pastry brush.
- Combine first ten (10) ingredients in a medium bowl. Mix thoroughly.
- Spread into prepared pan. Sprinkle with gruyere and some more grated parmesan to cover. Scatter onion/shallot over the top.
- Bake for 25 minutes until set and lightly browned on top. (Move to the top rack if it’s not browning after 20 minutes.)
- Let cool for 5 minutes on a rack. Serve hot!
Note: Feel free to up or change the cheeses other than ricotta, add diced and drained tomato, ham, sausage, other herbs, etc., as long as you keep the egg/ricotta proportion and don’t add extra liquid.
Serves two hungry folks, or three not so hungry.
