Vegetable Quiche

I made this for a little New Year's/Three King's Day get-together with Iris and Johanna this week. Johanna made cheese fondue and arugula salad, and Iris brought the bread, dips and mango salsa. Most quiche recipes consist of several steps, starting with making and then blind-baking the crust, then adding the filling, and baking again. I didn't have time for that, and I also prefer a softer, not crunchy, bottom, so I combined several recipes based on Impossible Quiche. Most recipes for Impossible Quiche use Bisquick, but I didn't have that in the house, so I made substitutions and it worked out fine. I didn't remember to take a photo but I'm making this again soon and will try to remember to take a picture to add!

Vegetable Ingredients:
1 finely chopped small onion (½ medium)
1 small leek, white and green parts (sliced lengthwise to wash then cut into thin half-rings)
½ container mushrooms, sliced (or chopped depending on how much you have to hide them!)
black pepper
1 tbsp fresh or 1 tsp dried parsley
1 tbsp fresh or 1 tsp fresh or dried basil
½ cup frozen spinach
chives from the garden (optional)
¼ cup grated cheese (any kind you like, I used mozzarella) or more if you want it very cheesy
sliced tomatoes for the top (optional)

Wet Ingredients:
1 ½ cups milk
½ cup flour
3 large eggs
1 tsp baking powder
salt

Preheat oven 350 degrees F

Sauté onion, leek and mushrooms in olive oil with a little salt until wilted and slightly browned. Add black pepper, parsley and basil.  Add frozen spinach and stir until softened and heated through. Take off heat and set aside. 

In blender, combine milk, flour, eggs, baking powder and a little salt and blend on low for 1 minute. 

Butter a baking dish (I used an 8 inch square aluminum pan). Transfer vegetable mixture to baking dish. Sprinkle half the grated cheese over. Carefully pour milk and egg mixture over it. Lay thinly sliced tomatoes and the rest of the grated cheese. 

Bake 35-45 mins in the lower to middle part of the oven until golden and a little puffy. Check it after 35 mins, test it with a toothpick (should come out mostly dry). Cool slightly before cutting and serving so it sets up.

Poffertjes

This is the best recipe I have tried so far, so for the record here it is! 

Actually I think I actually put in 2 tsp of bakpoeder (accidentally) but that turned out very well, they were nice and poofy so that is the only change to the recipe I'd recommend. 

http://www.brendakookt.nl/2013/05/18/poffertjes/ 

Julie's Witlof Tatin

based on a recipe by Phillippe Exertiec

(Will add photo next time Julie or I make one!)

For 4 people – Preparation time: 30 min – Cooking time: 30-40 min at 200ºC

4 Belgian endives; 4 rounds of Chavignol/goat’s cheese; 8 walnuts*; olive oil; caster sugar [Julie used brown]; salt; pepper; 1 rol of puff pastry

* Julie used toasted whole pine nuts which were even nicer.

1. Remove leaves of the endive one by one to leave the centre core for another use
2. Colour the leaves in a pan of olive oil and a pinch of sugar on each side
3. Set aside whilst buttering the tart forms then add the leaves one by one with the tips of the leaves pointing to the centre in a star form. We found two layers of endives more effective.
4. Add crumbled goat’s cheese and chopped nuts.
5. Salt and pepper
6. Cut puff pastry in rounds to cover forms [or use a single form – easier!]  and prick with a fork
7. Bake at 200ºC for 30-40 mins and turn over on to a platter to serve.

 You may find one not enough!

Braised lettuce with peas

Braised lettuce with peas

Ingredients

small knob butter
1 small onion, finely chopped
4 Little Gem lettuces
200ml fresh chicken stock
4 tbsp single cream or crème fraîche
500g bag frozen petits pois

Method

Melt the butter in a large sauté pan with a lid. Fry the onion gently for about 5 mins, until softened.
Meanwhile, pull any damaged or coarse outer leaves from the lettuces and trim the bases. Cut the lettuces in half lengthways, through the base. Place the lettuce cut-side up on top of the onions and cook for half a minute, then turn over and cook for another 30 secs. Pour over the stock and lightly season. Put the lid on the pan, reduce the heat to the minimum and cook for 10 mins. With a slotted spoon, lift the lettuces out and put into a sieve over a bowl. Raise the heat under the pan and boil the juices until reduced by half. Add the cream or crème fraîche and petits pois and boil for 1 min until heated through. Arrange lettuces in a serving dish and pour over the pea-and-cream sauce.

I just felt like having braised lettuce for dinner and found this recipe on the BBC Food website. Apart from substituting skimmed milk (!) for the cream, I actually (more or less) followed the recipe and it was dee-licious! We had 1/2 a gem lettuce each as I wanted to see what it was like first. Shall definitely be making it again - especially for friends!

Bon appétit!

Ultimate carrot cake

This carrot cake is so good, I had to put the link here so I would be able to find it again. It is not difficult but does have a few extra steps compared to usual cake making, which you should do. I didn't have grated coconut but substituted half a box of coconut milk I had leftover, and supplemented that with the oil (i.e. instead of 200 grams of oil, I combined probably 125 ml coconut milk and 75 gr oil). These two ingredients make (and keep) the cake more moist than butter-based cake - I actually often bake cakes with coconut milk and it always works out delicious. You can actually also use very mild olive oil instead of sunflower to make it less unhealthy.

Enjoy :)

Fig butter

Fig butter by Yvette van Boven

1 cup dried figs
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
salt

Blitz the dried figs, without the hard stem, in a food processor; add the spices and a pinch of salt. Roll the mixture into the log in plastic wrap. Leave to cool in the refrigerator and cut into attractive slices.

Iris's hapje: slice of fig butter, top with little bit of brie and thin slice of cucumber.

Note: you can use fresh figs, I used black missions. You get fig jam, also very delicious. Serve same way but the cucumber becomes the bottom layer, sliced about 1/4 inch thick.

Apricot Tapenade

Apricot Tapenade
from Home Made: the Ultimate DIY Cookbook by Yvette van Boven

1 1/2 cups dried apricots, soaked
2 sprigs rosemary
1/2 cup olive oil
juice of 1/2 lemon
1 clove garlic (or more...)
salt & freshly ground pepper

Blitz all the ingredients in a food processor. If necessary, add some more oil. You can keep the tapenade in the refrigerator for some time. Make sure the tapenade is always covered with a thin layer of oil. The tapenade is great on toast, as is, or with cheese or cured ham.