Magical Mini Quiches and a Trip to White Gate Farm

So I just joined a locavore dinner club here in Connecticut that turned out to be as much fun as I originally thought it would.  Basically each month the group sets a theme, and we the dinner clubbers create dishes based on it, made from ingredients sourced from within a 30 mile (or so) diameter of where the party is slated to be held. Each month a different dinner clubber hosts.

Saturday was my first event – the theme was soup – but I was assigned a hot appetizer as my dish which left the field more or less open.  The challenge of course was in finding fresh produce and ingredients in the middle of winter.

I pined and worried till I came across White Gate Farm’s (in East Lyme, CT) website.  Probably the only farm stand open year round amid freezing temps and snow on the ground – White Gate Farm has large greenhouses, and happy roaming chickens.  Eggs and greens, and some stored squash and potatoes were first on my list.

The farm is owned by Pauline Lord and her husband David Harlow – fairly recent transplants from Northern California (as am I) – and they have quite the operation going there.  Happy go lucky chickens as mentioned, a thriving greenhouse, homemade jams, sauces, dressings, bread, and a surprising number of customers for late January.

I really enjoyed my visit, and would have loved to have taken pictures of my own, but it was 18 degrees F when I was there and I’ve discovered my camera battery doesn’t enjoy operating in sub-freezing temps and promptly shut down.  So I was pleased to see that the Hartford Courant had written Pauline and White Gate up about a month ago and took the great photo of Pauline (below) – read more about them here.  I also found a few images that coelgart2009 took recently.

I ended up taking home some purple potatoes, some raspberry ginger preserves, onions, garlic, a bag of greens from the greenhouse, and some dried cherry tomatoes.

I also dropped by The Local Beet in Chester for local milk and hand crafted cheese – something quichy was obviously in the works but I wasn’t really sure what.  Finally by the time I got home I had about an hour to whip something up – the answer came from Tastespotting – I just punched in “quiche” and Christina Eats easy recipe for mini quiches popped up.

This recipe, as it turns out, is the perfect thing when you have a few eggs, and no time.  Just saute up whatever you have – onions, garlic and in my case purple potatoes from White Gate – and add to about 6 eggs and 1/3 cup milk.  I topped off this with a crumble of feta cheese and it was amazing!  Below is the formal recipe from what I finally took to the party.  Great for brunch, lunch, appetizers, you name it.

Mini Quiches
12 mini quiches

6 eggs
1/3 c. milk (I used 2%)
1 purple potato
1 onion
3 cloves garlic, minced
6 oz feta cheese

2 tsp. red chili peppers
1 tsp. each salt & pepper

Olive Oil.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Heat a generous pour of olive oil in a pan on medium heat. Add potato, onion, garlic – Cook for a few minutes until soft.

Whisk together eggs and milk in a mixing bowl. Add vegetable mixture and mix lightly.

Spoon mixture into lightly greased muffin pan. Top with a crumbled cheese.

Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until golden.

Cool for 20 minutes, then carefully remove mini quiches from pan.

I just happened to have a set of silicone muffin shapes which worked really well – no greasing necessary – just wait for a few moments and then pop the quiches out. You can also use regular muffin tins – I found that they turn out best if you fill the cups about half way full.

The party by the way was great fun – our next challenge is recipes from the 1700’s – wow!

Tagged as: Food, locavore, recipe, vegetables, white gate farm