This is a guest post by jokergirl, who blogs about vegetarian and pescetarian bentos at WereRabbits.

"Go ahead, bake my quiche."

Queen Magrat, Lords and Ladies

As a pescetarian leaning heavily towards full-time vegetarianism, finding the right protein for my bento is often a strain. I'm not a fan of soy meat replacements to boot, so often I look to eggs as a handy protein packet to put in my bento. Luckily, scientists now say that eggs are good for you again, so I'm not worried about cholesterol.

These mini-quiches are a tasty and healthy freezer staple for those times when boiling an egg or making tamagoyaki seems like too much effort. Each one of them contains about 1-2 tablespoons of egg-vegetable mixture, equivalent to about half an egg (plus a bit of milk).

Here are a few bentos I have used them in:

Now, how to easily make bento-sized quiches? It's actually quite simple - I bake them in a silicone muffin tin!

You can technically use any dough for it. I used premade butter dough for a mediterranean flavour (and because you can buy it in handy little rolls that fit 8 muffins).

Base Recipe: Mini Quiches Baked In Muffin Tins

Preheat the oven to 250°C / 480°F.

Cut the dough of your choice into 6 squares and line the muffin form with the pieces.

Hint: Put some aluminium foil (or, as my old-fashioned cookbook recommends, dried peas) along the edges of the dough to prevent it from shrinking into the moulds.

Put them in the oven to pre-bake and poof up a little for 5-10 minutes. The dough shouldnít get brown yet, just a little poofier!

While the crust is baking, mix together the filling ingredients and stir well. Tae out the baked crusts from the oven, and spoon 1-2 Tsp. of the mixture into each muffin,

Here are some of my favourite filling recipes.

Recipe: Vegetarian Quiche Lorraine Filling

(makes about 12 muffin-sized pies)

• 3 eggs
• 2-3 Tsp. Greek yoghurt or sourcream
• 1/3-1/2 zucchini, shredded and drained on a towel
• 1 cup of grated cheese (anything yellow and tasty)
• 1 cup of chopped leef or spring onions
• 1 tsp Dijon mustard
• Salt, pepper, thyme to taste

Recipe: Feta-and-Tomato Quiche Filling

(makes 6 muffin-sized pies)

• 3 eggs
• 125g / 4oz (or more) feta cheese, crumbled
• 4 pieces of sundried tomato, cut into small pieces
• fresh herbs, e.g. thyme, basil, oregano, rosemary (I used all 4, and it got really spicy!)
• Salt, pepper to taste

Turn down the oven to 200°C / 400°F for baking the egg mixture. They bake in 10-15 minutes (do a test to see if the egg has solidified completely, by poking in a skewer or the tip of a knife).

Let the quiches cool thoroughly on a wire rack so that no moisture can form underneath and ruin their crispyness.

You can stack them in plastic boxes and freeze them after cooling. They warm in the microwave in just 90 seconds to 2 minutes.

Happy bentoing!

PS: It's pronounced keesh, not kishay. The quote above always gave me troubles in Lords and Ladies. ;)