I came up with this recipe when I was completing an assessment for my nutrition degree on public health and where nutritional medicine fit into the public health system..   Studying makes me super hungry and as I had been so busy with work and study I had not done a great deal of grocery shopping that week.  I looked in the fridge and saw many ingredients that would make a delicious fried rice but something inside me was fighting this decision.  Then my “social life deprived” (due to my study and work committments) self started craving pizza..  My body was going into “study over-drive junk food mode” and I knew I had to come up with a healthy solution!!  My first attempt had 5 eggs and fewer ingredients and I garnished the top with cheese so in a way it was a pizza but with egg as a base, well that’s what I told myself and VOILA my cravings were satisfied whilst enjoying a healthy meal!!

The “Quirky Quiche” serves four and has a calorie count of 365 calories!!  I absolutely love this dish and take left overs (if there are any) to work for lunch the next day and eat it with a leafy salad!!

Ingredients

1. 8 x large eggs
2. 160g mushrooms
3. 2 x chillis
4. 160g left over baked potato ( ** SEE NOTE BELOW ** )
5. 260g leek
6. 145g ham off the bone
7. 180g left over BBQ chicken meat ( ** SEE NOTE BELOW ** )
8. 10g chives
9. 80g diced carrot
10. 30g parsley (nearly the whole bunch)
11. 40g low fat grated cheese (I actually wanted to use parmesan but I ran out)
12. salt, pepper and dried mixed herbs of choice

Directions

1.    Pre-heat fan forced oven to 180 degrees celcius (if not using fan forced, just cook for suggested time and check if cooked at end, may need to leave for another 5 minutes)

2.    Crack 8 x eggs into a large mixing bowl

3.    Whisk eggs until beaten

4.    Season with salt, pepper and dried mixed herbs of choice (I used basil and thyme as I ran out of mixed dried herbs).

5.    Slice ham, chicken, mushrooms, leek, baked potato and chives

6.    Dice carrots

7.    Finely chop parsley

8.    Add all ingredients into the egg mixture gradually and stir in (it will look as though there is not enough egg to cook this dish but there is, you could probably add another egg or two if you wanted to have a more eggy quiche consistency as this dish has emphasis on the ingredients)

9.    You may need to add a few more dried mixed herbs here, I will leave this up to you

10.  Transfer into a pie dish and pat down so that the filling is even

11.   Sprinkle 40g light cheese on top (as I stated above, I wanted to use parmesan but we had ran out but still nice with the light cheese I used

12.   Place in oven on mid to low shelf and bake for approximately 40 minutes, you are best to check at 25 minutes to see the progress as every oven is different.  You will know this dish is ready when you can no longer see any gooey egg on the top of the dish

13.   When ready, remove from oven and let sit for approx 3 – 5 minutes..  I actually use a pizza cutter to cut the quiche in quarters and voila, dinner is served!!

I would serve this with a LARGE salad of baby spinach, cherry tomato, cucumber, chopped carrot and sliced fresh beetroot (you do not have to cook the beetroot) with a dressing of fresh lemon, a little white wine vinegar and salt, yummo!!  The salad will add approximately 60 – 100 calories depending on how many ingredients you include.

*** NOTE ***

• The baked potato was left overs from the night before, I knew I was making my quirky quiche today so I made extra potatos last night..  I simply lined a baking tray with foil, heated fan forced oven to approx 195ish celcius, cut the potatos in half (small pale skinned weighing approx 50 – 60g each) sprayed them with spray oil, sprinkled with salt and pepper and baked until they were done (approx 20 – 25 minutes)
• The chicken was also left over BBQ chicken that I had taken the skin off and had in the fridge for a few days, you could use any meat protein that you had left over but I prefer this combination.