Today, I’m not gonna lie to you, started off pretty well, working with some of my favourite people, having a giggle as we worked…. Then a couple of depressing mini meetings later… everything went bad…. I didn’t get to eat my lunch until half 3 (the bad/good thing of being a Microbiologist is that you really can’t eat or drink at your desk!) So, by the time I left to go home? Well, I was in a bit of a funk. And not a good funk.

The answer? Well, when you’re me, it involves turning the volume up and having a prance. Also, my plans for the evening involved meeting up with my girlies, who I hadn’t seen in ages, so I decided to make some food!

Thankfully I had been organised enough to make some pastry for a quiche before I went to work this morning, so when I got back it was a case of rolling, pricking, baking, filling, and more baking.

All while prancing.

Naturally.

Funk be gone.

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Cream Cheese and Spinach Quiche Recipe – based on a recipe from Delia Smith’s Complete Cookery Course (AKA the bible)

 

Ingredients

Pastry

50g vegetable fat (I use Trex, I like it much better than Cookeen, which has a horrible texture)
50g unsalted butter
220g plain flour
Pinch of salt
Water to mix

Filling

60g spinach, wilted
100g cream cheese – I used full fat Philadelphia
150ml double cream
100ml milk
2 eggs and 1 extra yolk, large size, beaten.
Salt and pepper, to taste

 

Method

This is a lazy person’s quiche.

Place the flour, salt, butter, and vegetable fat into a food processor and process until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Then, with the processor going, add water, bit by bit, until the pastry just comes together. Wrap in cling film and chill for at least 20 minutes. NB. I actually made mine before I left for work, then made my quiche when I got home. Planning ahead!

By making this quiche, I finally had occasion to use my new shiny tin that I bought with some birthday money. Look how shiny it is! I love these tins.

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F. Place a baking tray in the oven to warm up.

Roll out the pastry, and line the tin.

Prick all over the base with a fork, then bake on the tray for 15 minutes.

Remove from the oven, and brush with some of the beaten egg from the filling. Return to the oven and bake for a further 5 mins.

Meanwhile, add the cream and milk to the egg mixture and whisk thoroughly, add salt and pepper to taste.

Once the second bake is done, arrange the wilted spinach over the base of the case, and blobs of the cream cheese, then pour over the egg mixture, and return to the oven and bake for a further 30 minutes.

Done!

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This was my quiche in situ on the table. You may think I was trying to be artful and patriotic… but in reality, I had removed the quiche from the oven not 5 minutes before I had to leave the house, so to prevent the metal base from melting my carrying box, I had stood it on my oven gloves, but then put a barrier of a nice clean teatowel between quiche and gloves!

Quichetastic!

Everyone said it was nice, for me, I liked it, but… I think next time, if I add a little bit of something extra then it would lift it from good to awesome. Isn’t it odd, I don’t really eat quiche very often, which is odd as I like quiche, I think it’s possibly that I have never embraced the homemade quiche making properly (perhaps because I did not yet own a suitable tin?), and shop bought quiche always seems a bit…. Limp. No more I say! Homemade quiche is easy, with crisp tasty pastry! Armed with my sparkly new tin I shall embrace the quiche!

I think it looked pretty good though!

Note: Mr M and I ate the leftover couple of pieces for lunch the next day… Yum.