This post concludes my love affair with nopales. Yes, my little prickly friend, we are done! I have used you up and now we must part. And same to you Delicata, you are the very end, my friend. It was good while it lasted – even great! – but now I must move on to greener pastures….
Nopales and Delicata Squash Quiche
This quiche is completely a Pie Ranch creation: from the flour grown & milled on-site, to the foraged nopales (edible beaver tail cactus), to the eggs, to the milk, to the last of the winter squash – it’s a great feeling to be able make a meal from food that fresh.
For the most part I have cut out gluten from my diet. However, I don’t seem to have the same sensitivities with flour from Pie Ranch. The variety of wheat they grow, called Expresso, is a hard red Spring wheat that is low in gluten and as high as 13% protein. For pies and tarts it is fantastic and yields very flaky pastry crust with a toasty nutty flavor that can’t be beat .
Nopales & Delicata Quiche with Pie Ranch everything!
Nopalitos (chopped nopales) pairs great with eggs because it has a slightly sour taste (remnicient of a canned green bean – yes, I know that sounds terrible, but you gotta trust me on this one). Delicata squash are butternut sweet, but much easier to handle. Just slice them crosswise into rings; don’t worry about peeling, or perfectly cubing, or any of that annoying stuff. .
This is one of my favorite squashes because it’s so pretty as a topping. I often use it on pizzas (no need to cook ahead), in quiches, roasted for salads & sides, or cut lenthwise, roasted and filled with brown butter. The seeds are great too! If you are roasting Delicata as a side dish leave the seeds in the slices for some extra crunchy pepitas!
Thomas Keller has cornered the market on quiche custard filling. I don’t stray too much from his proportions. Of course, when I use fresh Pie Ranch whole milk with a cream float, it’s often hard to tell exactly what the fat ratio is and I use farm eggs that vary in size and weight but, my quiches always seem to turn out gorgeous. There’s a lot of forgiveness in this recipe. I love to sauté up whatever is seasonal and scatter it around the bottom of the crust before adding my milk-cream-egg mixture. Don’t be afraid to experiment! If Gruyère cheese is not available, use whatever is! Sometimes I like to use a combo of soft and hard cheese.
More recipes on Quiche, Edible Cactus, and Delicata Squash:
Heirloom Carrot & Nopales Green Salad
Roast Pork Loin with Fresh Bay Leaf & Prickly Pear Glaze