Weekend baking - quiche Lorraine

A lazy Saturday lunch - quiche Lorraine

There is little I love more than waking up on a Saturday morning to a cloudy day full of drizzle. Especially on a day when I don't have to be anywhere or do anything. When I can roll over for another hour of sleep, and then spend a good few hours on the couch watching Rage, reading the weekend papers and drinking tea. Bliss.

Yesterday was one of those days.

At some stage I did start to think of food. Which made me think of using up some of the multitude of eggs that are in our fridge. Eggs from our beautiful chickens. Which then made me crave bacon. Which then made me think of quiche. See how my mind works?

So THEN I removed myself temporarily from the couch to see which of my cookbooks had a fabulous quiche recipe - using the absolutely BRILLIANT Eat Your Books website. If you have loads of cookbooks you rarely use, this is the site for you.

Anyhoo, Eat Your Books pointed me in the direction of the gorgeous Jude Blereau and her beautiful book Coming home to eat - wholefood for the family. I'm a massive fan of Jude's and have been for years. Her food philosophy is similar (but far more advanced) than mine, with her advocacy for eating whole foods. I'm seeing her at a Thermomix cooking demo on Monday and I cannot wait! (Massive thanks to Thermomix too, for comping me a ticket - very grateful).

Me (in the brown dress!) with Jude last year when she was in Brisbane

I love this book and was dancing the happy dance when I found it for $7 in my local Lifeline Book Shop. Especially as it's now out of print. 

What I love about this quiche recipe is that it uses spelt flour for the pastry and full cream, non-homogenized milk instead of cream (although I did add a bit of cream...). I used the beautiful milk from a cow named Dolores (owned by a friend), but you can also purchase full cream, non-homogenized milk from health food stores and some good delis.

Jude suggests that this recipe wouldn't work with regular milk, but if that is all you have, perhaps try with 50% cream and 50% milk (just don't blame me if it doesn't work!). Don't use skim, trim, soy or any other variety.

Quiche Lorraine
By Mel Kettle, adapted from a recipe by Jude Blereau 

What you need: 
90g plain wholemeal spelt flour
90g plain white spelt flour
100g chilled butter, cut into cubes
80-100ml ice cold water (I use filtered tap water and stick ice cubes in it to chill it quickly)
butter for greasing
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
450ml full cream, non-homogenized organic milk
50ml cream
80g cheddar cheese, grated
175g bacon, finely diced
1 red onion, finely diced
5-6 button mushrooms, thinly sliced

What you do:
Put the flours and butter in your thermomix (or food processor), turbo pulse 3-4 times until it looks like small breadcrumbs. Add about half the water and mix for 3-4 seconds on speed 6. Slowly add more water until it comes together to form a fairly moist ball of dough (I used about 90ml and in total it mixed for about 8 seconds). DO NOT OVERMIX otherwise it will be too tough.

Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and place it in the fridge for about 20 minutes.

Once the dough is chilled, roll it out - you'll need to flour the mat or bench, and also flour your rolling pin well as the dough should be a bit sticky. Try not to use too much flour, but make sure it's enough so the dough doesn't stick. Once you've rolled it out, use a palette knife (or an egg flip if you don't have a palette knife) to carefully lift the dough to turn it. Roll the other side - you want it to be about 33cm in diameter and about 2mm thick.

Preheat the oven to 200c.

Grease a 24cm loose-based tart tin that is 3cm deep. Carefully transfer the pastry to the tin (this can be fairly easily done by loosely folding the pastry into four, placing it the tin, then gently unfolding it. Carefully push the pastry into the tin and cut off any excess pastry that hangs over the edge. You might need to use some of this excess pastry to patch any gaps or holes in the pastry. Pop the remaining pastry back in plastic wrap and in the fridge.

Place some baking paper over the pastry and fill it with pastry weights or dried beans or rice. Place the tart tin on a baking tray and in the oven. Bake for 10 minutes, then remove from oven and remove the pastry weights and baking paper. Reduce the oven temperature to 180c and pop the pastry back in the oven for another 9 minutes.

While the pastry is blind baking make the filling. Cook the bacon in a frypan on medium heat for about 2-3 minutes (I don't add any oil as my bacon had quite a bit of fat, but you might like to add a small amount), then add the onion and the mushroom and cook for another 4-5 minutes, stirring so it doesn't burn. Set aside once cooked.

In a medium sized bowl, add the eggs, egg yolks, milk, cream and salt and pepper. Whisk it well. Set aside.

Once the pastry is cooked, remove it from the oven and increase the oven temperature to 200c.

Check there are no cracks in the pastry - if there are, use some of the excess pastry to fill them in (otherwise your filling will leak everywhere and make a huge mess). Scatter half the cheese on the bottom of the tart, then all the bacon, onion, mushroom mix. Put the tart tray on the baking tray and carefully pour the egg mixture into the tart.

Pastry shell after it was blind baked, with the cheese and the bacon, onion and mushroom mix. 

Gently place it in the oven and bake it for 15 minutes. Lower the oven temperature to 180c and bake for another 15 minutes. Scatter the rest of the cheese on top and bake for a final 15-20 minutes until the filling is lightly puffed and the centre just set. It should be a light golden colour when cooked.

Once cooked, remove from the oven and let it rest for 15-20 minutes. Serve warm with a simple salad (mine was just baby spinach leaves, tomato, red onion and an oil and vinegar dressing).

Ready for lunch! 

What is your favourite thing to do on a lazy Saturday? or Sunday? Baking nearly always happens in my kitchen!

In my kitchen - May

The months are rolling around far too quickly for me to keep up right now! But I have a few fabulous delights in my kitchen this month, so I thought I'd share.

I'm trying to crank up the health factor in what I'm eating [and drinking] so making a bit more of an effort to have a green smoothie every day. This one had baby spinach leaves, cucumber, carrot, ginger and some pear. It made loads and was very refreshing to slurp on throughout the day.

Sometimes I think the chickens are the best fed at our place! I'm really grateful to our local greengrocer, Feast on Fruit at Morningside, for helping us keep our girls fed in greens. At least three times a week they give us a very generous bag of lettuce and cabbage leaves from their scraps pile. The girls go crazy when they hear that red bag rustle! We've been buying loads of our fruit and veg there since moving here about 8 years ago, and their deli is sensational!

My fairly blah day yesterday was brightened immeasurably when this gorgeous pack of goodies arrived from Nessun Dorma Coffee Roasters and cafe at Yeronga. A bag of coffee, a couple of macarons, some drinking chocolate and a gift voucher to check out their cafe for lunch or breakfast over the next couple of months. Excellent timing as I'm just about out of coffee - a calamity when you are a full time uni student, and trying to run a business and blog and feed a hungry hubby and step-kid!

I'm a massive fan of Thomasina Miers Mexican cookbooks, so I was beyond delighted when Fiona from Tiffin gave me a pack of wahaca chilli seeds she collected on a trip to the UK. I really need to plant them, but I love the pack too much!

This wooden flour scoop was mum's that I found a couple of years ago. I remember using it as a kid when I baked, and I love that it is now in my kitchen again. Especially as I've been having a bit of a baking revival over the last year or so.

I'm a massive fan of Marion Nestle and her wonderful blog Food Politics - a blog that everyone who wants to know more about food and the power of "big food" should be reading. I bought a couple of her books recently, and they are fascinating reading - especially What to Eat. 

The gorgeous people at Heilala Vanilla noticed a tweet of mine a while back that said I hadn't ever tried their product, so they sent me some. How kind was that! I'm now a convert, especially to that vanilla paste. OMG yum. Shortly after it arrived, Bizzy Lizzy posted about a slow cooked vanilla beef casserole that I just had to make - it was stunning.

What's in your kitchen this month?

Thanks to the lovely Celia from Fig Jam and Lime Cordial for instigating In My Kitchen - you can check out other kitchens on her blog.

Gardening as graffiti - Ron Finley's story

I absolutely love TED [the ideas conferences, not the annoying teddy bear in that woeful movie with Marky Mark. What was he thinking...]. 

I try to watch a few TED videos each week and there are few that have stayed with me as much as this one. 

Ron Finley grew up in South Central LA, a part of the world perhaps best known for 1965 Watts riots and the 1992 Los Angeles riots. 

South Central is definitely NOT known for is its proliferation of fresh fruit and veg. It has been classed as a food desert [defined by US Department of Agriculture as “parts of the country vapid of fresh fruit, vegetables, and other healthful whole foods, usually found in impoverished areas. This is largely due to a lack of grocery stores, farmers’ markets, and healthy food providers"]. 

Ron was sick of having to drive a 45 minute round trip to a grocery store to get an apple "not impregnated with pesticides" so he decided to do something about it. That something was plant a few veggies on the verge outside his street. The barren bit of land was going to waste - you know the ones. Just like I see in Brisbane every time I go for a walk. Sure there might be grass and a tree or two, but surely at least some can be put to better use. 




I'm not going to tell you all of Ron's story as I want you to watch it. It's only about 10 minutes long. Less than a quarter of the time it took Ron to drive to buy an apple. 

This is something many of us can do in our communities. If you don't want to be as "radical" as Ron, there are other ways. Plant some herbs in a pot, pop some tomatoes in the ground (cherry tomatoes grow anywhere!], become part of a community garden or volunteer at one - check out the Australian City Farms and Community Gardens Network or google community gardens in your town. 

If you're in Brisbane check out the herb and veggie gardens at South Bank [along the river, between QPAC and GOMA]. They are very cool. They are a bit overgrown, but over the last 18 months I've seen a huge variety - lemongrass, thyme, basil, chives, sorrel, rosemary, chilli, mint, rocket, tomatoes and I have even seen beetroot! They are intended to be eaten, so next time you go to South Bank take a little plastic bag so you can collect a few fresh herbs to add to your dinner. 

some of the herbs at South Bank, Brisbane

Feel free to share your ideas or any community gardens in your community in the comments below. 

Meatless Monday - spanakopita

Before I embarked on meat free week a month ago I put out a call to twitter [as well as to you, blog readers], to ask for some meat free recipes that the carnivores would like. 

The wonderful Julie Goodwin [who I WILL meet one day] very kindly, and immediately [!] tweeted me a few ideas, then saying if I sent her my email she would email some recipes. Um, YES! Not only have I been a fan of hers since she her first audition when she won over the judges with lamb and mash, but she is also from the Central Coast, where I grew up. And we've had a few twitter chats, which makes her even more likeable as far as I'm concerned. 

Anyway, Jules [can I call you that?] sent me a bunch of vegetarian recipes [including one with bacon - great to see someone else considers bacon to be a veggie :)]. I didn't make any of them during meat free week, but I did whip them out yesterday when wondering what to make for meatless Monday. 

After a quick look through the fridge and discovering a wilting bunch of silverbeet, I went with spanakopita, a dish I've always loved but not cooked in at least a couple of years.  Perfect for meatless Monday. 

Warning - dodgy photos throughout! We were hungry and hubby and Mr12 were keen to go and hit golf balls at the driving range

Spanakopita
By Mel Kettle, based on a recipe provided to me by Julie Goodwin

What you need:

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 onions, diced (I used 1 brown and 1 red as that was all I had]

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 large bunch silverbeet,  about 1kg, stalks cut off, washed well, then dried

200g feta

250g ricotta

50g freshly grated parmesan

2 tablespoons fresh dill, chopped

¼ teaspoon grated nutmeg

salt and pepper

4 eggs, lightly beaten

12 sheets filo pastry (about half of a 375g packet)

80g butter, melted

What you do:

Preheat oven to 180C 

Heat oil in a large frypan over medium-high heat. Gently fry the onion, then add the garlic and cook for 2-3 minutes until it softens. Be careful not to let it brown.  

Add the spinach and cook for another 3-4 minutes or until the spinach has completely wilted. Drain off as much liquid as possible [you could use a colander] and squeeze the excess moisture out with some tongs [mine didn't have a lot of moisture, as most of it cooked off]. 

In a large bowl, mix the cheeses, dill, nutmeg, eggs, salt and pepper. I find cheese quite salty so didn't add much salt - but taste to see what you think. Add the spinach and mix well together. 

How beautiful does this look! The vibrant yellow is courtesy of the eggs from our gorgeous chooks 

I used a large lasagne dish (20cm x 30cm) to bake this in, but Julie also suggests a baking tray. Place one sheet of filo in the lasagne dish and brush it with melted butter. Repeat this step with five more sheets of filo.

Add the spinach mixture into the dish. Top with a sheet of filo, brushed with butter. Add the five remaining sheets of filo , each brushed with butter. Fold up the edges and brush the top with butter. 

Before baking

Bake at 180c for about 30-40 minutes, until the pastry is golden. 

Serve with a salad.  

Perfect for meatless Monday - served with a simple salad of spinach [yep, more!], home-roasted tomatoes and avocado

The dish was a complete winner with hubby asking for leftovers for lunch [however I am assuming he forgot about the leftover slab of lamb from Sunday night in the fridge!], and Mr12 eating a [small-ish] piece without complaining. That counts as a massive win! 

Thanks Jules!

Meat free week - an update

Well it's been a month since we embarked on meat free week in our household. It was mostly a success, with meat only being consumed twice during the week - and each time when I was out and someone else cooked for me.

A huge thanks to everyone who provided me with recipes, inspiration and support! Especially twitter friends @brocklesnitch, @CeliaFigJam, @Bittersweet_Qld and especially @_JulieGoodwin, who emailed me her favourite meat free recipes [and by her favourite, I mean the ones all the carnivores in her house love. Perfect.]. While I didn't use all your recipes, they certainly gave me loads of inspiration, as well as a great repertoire for future meals. Thank you.

Hard to go wrong with a breakfast of mushrooms, haloumi and an egg. When I'm extra hungry I'll add a piece of toast with avocado too.

So, what did we have. Well, breakfast was the easiest of all, thanks to our chickens. Most days I had eggs, and often with sautéed mushrooms and haloumi. To tell the truth, I could eat this most meals. Lunch tended to be leftovers from the night before's dinner, and dinner, well, that varied.

We started on a Friday night, and I deliberately chose a weekend when we had Mr12. He is a massive carnivore [just like his dad] and not known for his love of the veggie [fortunately, very unlike his dad, who loves veggies]. However I must say, he has been a lot more accepting of trying new food and eating veggies over the last 12 months, which gives me no end of joy.  Particularly as I didn't believe I would ever see the day.

A favourite of Mr12's [and all of ours], is a Thai green curry, previously always made with chicken. I made a veggie version, and the look on his face was priceless when he realised there was no meat. But not as priceless as I'm sure mine was when I realised I had WAAAAYY overdone things with the green curry paste. A cup of yogurt later and mine was edible. Hubby loved it [sans yogurt], Mr12 looked like he was in pain [he wasn't prepared to try it with yogurt], so I relented and gave him a blueberry and spelt muffin to eat. No curry paste in those!

 

The killer Thai green curry

Veggie meals could only improve from there!

Saturday night I made one of the most gorgeous meals I've ever cooked. Massive thanks to whoever suggested this one, straight from the VeggieNumNum site. This veggie korma kofta took a bit of time to make, but was so worth it. The leftovers for lunch the next day were even better. It was also the first time I'd ever deep friend anything [yes, I know!].

The korma in this dish was absolutely sublime. I'll definitely be making it again and using it as the base for a bunch of dishes, with and without meat. It was also incredibly easy to make.

The veggie kofta - made with sweet potato and carrot. No pic of the whole meal as it was just gobbled down. SO GOOD! 

However the winner of the weekend, and possibly the whole week, were these little bites of awesome. These vegetarian sausage rolls, made with oats, walnuts, fetta and a bunch of other good stuff come courtesy of Cindi O'Meara's website. Mr12 went back for thirds, saying "anything wrapped in pastry is good". Talk about a massive light-bulb moment for me! I'll be making these again next weekend when we have Mr12, but adding in a zillion more veggies. Mwah hahaha [insert evil cackle...].

Thank you Cindi, but mostly thank you to the 4-5 people who told me about these! 

The week couldn't go by without eating vegetarian versions of my favourites - a toasted wrap, this one with spinach, cheese, tomato, mushroom, capsicum and a couple of felafel. And of course, pizza, but this one vego. And not on a Friday night.

A toasted wrap is a regular lunch fixture for me - great way to get in a couple of serves of veggies, and also to use up leftover meat. Or not, as in this instance.  

Pizza is my all time favourite food, and something I could eat almost every day. But I don't. 

So to wrap up, the week was a success. Since then I've tried to be a bit more adventurous with my meat free cooking, and am trying to have many more meals without meat.

Did you participate in meat free week? How did you do? And how are you faring now that it's over?

Meat free week - need your recipe inspiration!

I've been trying to eat a lot less meat lately, with varying degrees of success. Late last year someone alerted me to Meat Free Week, on from 18-24 March 2013. I was intrigued and thought what a great idea.

We'll be eating lots of these during meat free week!  

And these...

Well, it's almost that time. 

Eek!

I'm not at all organised, and need some serious help in getting together a tasty repertoire of meat-free meals to feed myself, my mega-carnivore hubby [who, unless he reads this blog post, won't actually know what's happening until it does... mwah ha ha...], and my ultra-mega-carnivore and super picky 12yo stepson.

Our week of meat-free awesomeness is going to run from Friday 15 March - Thursday 21 March.

This is a meat-free fave 

And so is lentil-bol

Needless to say, I'm quite pleased wine is meat-free. Particularly as we have Mr12 here for half of that time.

I'm really curious to see how we all go.

If you have any meat-free favourites, please let me know. The more "meaty" the better. And if it has tofu or tempeh please don't bother sending it. Absolutely can't stand either of them.

THANK YOU! And stay tuned to see how we fare...

Meatless Monday - corn, leek and ricotta fritters

One of my goals for this year is to eat less meat and many more veggies. I do struggle with this, because I do love meat, but I am determined! Often to the frustration of the mega-meat eaters in this household!

Consequently it's quite rare that we actually have Meatless Monday. It's usually Meatless-any-night-but-Monday. Harder to predict that way [insert evil cackle].

This dish was inspired by JJ, my friend and fellow food blogger [over at 84th & 3rd]. JJ frequently posts beautiful photos of corn fritters, and every time she does I tell her I will be making them. So finally I am!

What I love about this dish is its flexibility. I've added leek [because they were languishing in the veggie crisper], but you could easily add mushrooms, capsicums, red onion or zucchini [which I had intended to add until I realised there were none in the fridge!] instead. I'm fairly sure hubby wishes I'd added some bacon as he isn't a huge fan of meatless meals. But he is getting used to them. Or he will do...

What you need:
2-3 leeks, washed and sliced
splash of olive oil
420g can of corn, drained
250g ricotta
30-40g parmesan cheese, grated
1 egg
1 tbs flour
bit of basil, shredded
pepper to taste
splash of tabasco [optional, but I add it to most things]

What you do:
Gently fry the leeks in the olive oil on a low-ish heat until softened. This only took about 2-3 minutes.
In a large-ish bowl add the corn, ricotta, cooked leeks, parmesan, egg, flour, basil, pepper and tabasco if using. I deliberately didn't add salt as I find parmesan quite salty, but you might want a bit. Mix well.

Heat a non-stick frypan [or a bit of oil in a sticky-pan] to medium hot. I use a non-stick teppanyaki plate that is part of my stove. THE best thing ever!

When hot, blob on spoonfuls of fritter. I was quite generous and this made 9 fritters [but one was quite small].  Cook until it's brown [4-5 minutes], then carefully flip over [I used two spatulas for this] to cook the other side. You might need to turn the heat down if they are thick, so they cook through without burning.

I served this with my favourite Mexican bean and corn salad as I had leftovers from the weekend [it's basically black beans, corn, tomato, red onion, red capsucim, coriander, lime juice, tabasco]. You could serve it with any salad or with steamed veg.

I'll be having a leftover fritter or two for breakfast tomorrow with an egg. And maybe a bit of bacon. YUM!

This serves 4, unless you are hungry [or a bit greedy], then it serves 3.  

I'm always seeking meatless meal inspiration - please, please share your favourites.