Roasted Carrot and Parmesan Quiche

As a food blogger, I try a lot of new ideas for dinner.  Some of them work, and some of them don't.  It is always depressing when we have to spend the next 3 days eating something semi-lousy that I made as an experiment.  Thankfully, I am getting better at making my experimentations turn into something delicious.  This quiche, for example, was an absolute winner.  If I owned a restaurant, this would be on the menu.  

I had been googling carrot quiche, because I needed to use up some carrots and had almost nothing else in the fridge.  Thankfully, I had some eggs, milk, and ingredients for a crust, so I whipped this baby together, and it has become a regular on the dinner table.  It is light, fluffy and absolutely delicious! 

Roasted Carrot and Parmesan Quiche:

serves 4-6

2 large carrots, tops and bottoms chopped off, and quartered lengthwise

1 Tbs olive oil

1/4 tsp salt

a pinch of pepper

1/4 tsp thyme

1 butter crust

1 cup whole milk

3 medium eggs

1/2 tsp dried thyme

1/4 tsp sea salt

1/4 cup freshly shredded parmesan

1/16 tsp pepper

Spread your carrots out on a silicone lined, rimmed cookie sheet.  Pour olive oil over the top, and toss the carrots a bit, until they are covered with oil.  Sprinkle the carrots evenly with salt, pepper and thyme, and mix with your hands to coat them evenly in spices.  Cook the carrots in an oven preheated to 400°F for 20 minutes, until they are soft.  

Meanwhile, make your crust (or roll it out and put it in a pie pan). Line it with foil, and pour raw rice into it, to keep the center from puffing up while you cook it (you will cook it first, without the filling, then bake it again, with the filling, to ensure the bottom and sides get cooked all the way.  When your carrots come out of the oven, bake the rice-filled crust for 25 minutes at 400°F.  

While either the carrots or crust are in the oven, prepare your filling.  In a medium-sized bowl, combine, milk, eggs, thyme, salt, paremsan and pepper.  

Once the crust comes out of the oven, very carefully remove the rice-filled foil, and save for next time.  If there are any stray pieces of rice left in the crust, make sure you use your fingers, or a small set of tongs to remove the pieces, don't try tapping the rice out over the sink (I dumped an entire crust into the sink that way, once...).  

Fill the now-empty crust with the milk/egg filling, then gently set the cooked carrots on the top in a star shape, with one end in the center, and the other ends of the carrots fanning out into a wheel.  

Cook in the the oven, preheated to 400 °F for 45 minutes.  Remove and let cool for 5 minutes.  Then eat immediately.  

Enjoy!