Mini crustless quiches

I love quiche! My old quiche recipe had so much butter, cream, cheese and loads of eggs. It was so delicious but really heavy. Vegan quiches are a nice alternative to the traditional quiche- it's one of the veganized foods that actually taste a lot like the original thing. I was afraid of these mini quiches at first but they were really good! The original recipe calls for mushrooms but I forgot to buy them at the store so I put in "bacon" bits instead. Try them out- they have that fantastic smoky bacon flavor. I bet you could bake crusts for these- just use a pie crust recipe and pre-bake them in the cups for 10 minutes before spooning in the quiche batter.

I got this recipe for these from an online search. Yeah, google!

Ingredients:

olive oil spray
1 tsp minced garlic (I went for 2 tsp)
1/2 cup bell pepper
1 cup chopped mushrooms (I omitted these and added about 1/8 cup "bacon" bits instead)
1 Tbs minced fresh chives (or 1 green onion)
1 tsp minced fresh rosemary (or 1/2 tsp dried, crushed)
black pepper to taste
1 12.3 oz package lite firm silken tofu, drained of water
1/4 cup plain soymilk
2 Tbs nutritional yeast
1 Tbs cornstarch (or arrowroot or potato starch)
1 tsp tahini (I threw in a few soaked cashews because I didn't have tahini)
1/4 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp turmeric
1/2-3/4 tsp salt

1. Preheat the oven to 375ºF. Spray 12 regular-sized muffin cups well with non-stick spray. I used 2 mini-muffin pans and made 24 little quiches. Silicone pans work well because the quiches don't stick to them as much.

2. Lightly spray a non-stick skillet with olive oil and sauté the garlic, bell peppers and mushrooms (if using) over medium heat until softened or the mushrooms just begin to exude their juices. Stir in the chives, rosemary, freshly ground black pepper, "bacon" bits, and remove from heat. If using green onion instead of chives, sauté these with the garlic.

3. Place the remaining ingredients into a food processor or blender. Process until completely smooth and silky. Add the tofu mixture to the vegetables and stir to combine. Spoon equally into the muffin cups, it will fill regular cups about halfway.

4. Put the muffin pan(s) into the oven and immediately reduce the heat to 350ºF. Bake until the tops are golden and a knife inserted into the middle of the quiche comes out clean- about 25-35 minutes depending on your oven and muffin cups. Remove from oven and allow them to cool for about 10 minutes.

I made these for our Super Bowl party the day before and chilled them in the fridge then re-heated them on a silpat the next day. They were great warm or cold. We taste tested them to make sure they were good enough to serve to non-vegan friends:)