Girl attempts to make quiche the morning after a night out. Hilarity ensues.

Okay, the title is misleading. It wasn't that funny.

I used to make quiche on a semi-regular basis. My parents are quiche people. Mum enjoys eating it, but doesn't enjoy making it. I do. So quiche was always my job. Then, in December 2010, I went vegan for about 10 months. More about that in a blog to come, but suffice to say quiche was no longer on the menu during that time. But I do love quiche, so the other day, when my friend James came down for one of his regular weekend visits and expressed his love for quiche, I seized the chance to make one again. I had it all planned out. James was leaving on Sunday evening, so I'd make it on Saturday evening to avoid rushing. I bought all the required/desired ingredients. I was ready.

As you've probably already guessed by now, that plan went to shit. A friend's birthday party-shaped spanner was thrown in the works. I went out. I had many a few drinks. All the while telling myself "I'll make it tomorrow morning, no problem." 

Cue me getting up at 10 am after 4 hours' sleep, making a beeline for the kitchen, still relatively drunk, and throwing myself into the task without much thought or preparation. See, the problems I soon encountered were as per usual equipment-based. a) had no quiche tin, b) no rolling pin, c) no tinfoil. My past quiche-making experiences have all been at my parents house, which is decked out with any kind of kitchen item you could possibly want. I had obviously forgotten that I was not in my parents' kitchen. 

Anyway, I overcame these hurdles by using my excellent improvisational skills, which I'm sure were only sharpened by the alcohol still hanging out in my system. I have two small round cake tins, so the one large quiche became two small quiches. I saw nothing even vaguely resembling a rolling pin in the kitchen, so I just banged the dough into shape using my fists. I needed help with the third dilemma. You can't fake foil, right? Simon came to my aid- I used writing parchment as a substitute. Having a writer in the house can be very helpful.

And while they certainly didn't turn out as pretty as I wanted them to be, they were delicious.

Here they are, being filled with yummy stuff.

DONE.

I decided on leeks, mushrooms, sun dried tomatoes, and goat's cheese. Because I'm really into vegetables. But for all you carnivores out there, ham or smoked fish both are good traditional filling additions. Leeks just belong in any quiche, in my opinion.

Here's James, enjoying his quiche.

Quiche is ALWAYS worth the hassle. Do yourselves (or someone else) a favour and make one. 

For the crust, you will need:

- 185 g all-purpose flour

- 115 g butter, straight from the fridge and cut up

- 1/2 tsp salt

-ice water  

For the filling, you will definitely need:

- 5 eggs

- 2 cups milk (or if you want a richer filling, substitute 1/2 of those cups with double cream.)

- 115 g Gruyere or Emmental cheese, shredded

- 2 medium leeks, thinly sliced

- pepper and salt to taste

You may want to add:

- 2 handfuls of spinach leaves

- a good few button mushrooms, sliced up

- sundried tomatoes, cut into little pieces (how many you want to put in there is entirely up to you, just note that going overboard will make it too salty)

- a handful of crumbed feta or goat's cheese 

To prepare the crust, preheat the oven at 200 degrees C. Mix the flour and the salt together in a large bowl. Then, with a pastry cutter or 2 knives held parallel (basically, pretend you're Wolverine), cut in the butter until the mix resembles coarse crumbs. Sprinkle in 3 to 4 tbsp ice water, a tbsp at a time. Mix lightly with a fork after each addition, until the dough is just moist enough to hold together. Shape the dough into a ball, wrap it and refrigerate it for a minimum of 30 minutes. Afterwards, on a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out into a round that is slightly bigger than your quiche receptacle of choice (a tart pan works best, but any round cake tin will do). Ease the dough into the pan, fold the overhang in and press it against the side of the pan to form a rim about 1/8 inch above the pan edge*. Line the pan with foil and fill it with pie weights, or dried beans. Bake for 15 minutes, then remove the foil and weights, return it to the oven for 10 minutes and bake it for a further 10 minutes, or until golden.

To prepare the filling, beat the eggs, milk/cream, salt and pepper until blended. Stir in half of the shredded cheese.

Fry up the sliced leeks for about 10 minutes until soft, add the spinach and cook until just wilted. This is the base of your quiche so spread it over the bottom of the crust. Next, fry the mushrooms until there is no more liquid in the pan. Those go in the crust next. Spread out the dried tomatoes, then top it all with the remaining cheese. Pour the egg mix in carefully, top it all with the crumbled goat/feta cheese.

Shove it back in the oven, and bake for 25-30 minutes (the top should be nice and golden brown).

*A fairly important tidbit everyone should be made aware of is that the pastry crust will shrink when baked. I can feel some of you rolling your eyes at me: "Well, duh…". Good for you guys, you can skip this part. Go forth and open your 2 Michelin star restaurants. Anyway, make sure that the crust extends right up to the edge of the pan, and then some. Otherwise the egg mix will overflow into that limbo between the crust and the pan, and we wouldn't want that to happen now would we? That would be a quiche disaster! It totally didn't happen to Wally over here….

What to eat when you're eating your feelings.

Right. It's half term, and this means that a) I have a week off work, and b) there are children EVERYWHERE, including my gym locker room, which is infuriating. They run around and scream and cry and try to crawl under the gap in your shower cubicle door. That actually happened yesterday. True story. ("You're not mummy!" No, kid. I'm not.)

Combine a) and b), and you get me sitting at home, trying to sort my life out and actually do stuff I've been meaning to do for ages, including posting some actual food on this blog. Because guys, I totally made food, took shitty pictures of it, and now I shall post!

I was leaning towards something savoury and winter-friendly as a first post, given all this gnarly weather we've been having. But then the first week of February happened. I was a sad banana for no particular reason... it was definitely an Eat My Feelings kind of week. So, in an attempt to make myself feel better, I made whatever the hell I felt like at the time. And that happened to be chocolate mousse. Mousse au chocolat. Mmmm.

My mum is the Queen of Chocolate Mousse.  As a kid, I always got really excited when my parents had company over, because it meant there was a possibility of having leftover chocolate mousse for breakfast the next day. And I've never been a breakfast person. That's how far my devotion to this chocolate mousse goes. This recipe is based on hers. It's only been slightly adapted. She won't mind.

Because I wanted to go a bit further than a plain dark chocolate mousse, I decided to try making a milk and dark version and layer them, separated by ginger nut crumbs. Mum thought the milk chocolate idea sounded gross, and in the end she was right - she usually is. I didn't like the milk chocolate version. It was just a bit too sweet and bland for my liking. But I had three taste testers try some, and all three liked it. I guess it's a personal preference ting, but I'd recommend sticking to dark chocolate. Keep it old school, people! Also, the ginger nut crumbs were a yummy addition, mainly for texture, and because I love ginger nuts so much I want to become one. Just be sure to eat it within 24 hours, otherwise the crumbs go kinda soggy and blah.

If you have a mixer for the egg whites and the cream, this will be easy-peasy. If you're like me and have no kitchen utensils to speak of, it's gonna be a bitch to make. Especially those effing egg whites. I recommend arming yourself with a whisk. Or if you're like me and don't even have that (yeah I know...), then get a fork, think of someone you'd really like to punch in the face repeatedly for 15 minutes, and start beating the shit out of those egg whites. It's therapeutic, and I'm pretty sure it counts as exercise too. You'll need it if you're about to eat a portion of this.

Here. Look. Shitty photos. I promise they will get better.

Add caption

The dark mousse finished, plus my blurry hand.

Double dark chocolate on the left, milk/dark combo on the right. Oh yeah, next time I'll remember to clean and make the background look nice.

You will need:

• 100g good-quality dark chocolate (I used Lindt 75%)

• 3 large eggs

• 125 ml heavy cream

• 4 tbsp granulated sugar

Place chocolate in a bowl (preferably pyrex), place it in a larger bowl/pot of boiled water to let it melt.

In the meantime, whip the cream in a bowl, and add 2 tbsp of sugar. Set aside.

Separate egg whites and yolks into two separate bowls. Set aside the yolks, and beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Add a tbsp of sugar.

Lightly beat the egg yolks until creamy, and add that last tbsp of sugar.

Pour the melted chocolate into the bowl with the egg yolks, stir in. Add the cream and lastly, gently fold in the egg whites.

Pur it into a pretty bowl, or a goblet, or whatever, and refrigerate. If you want it layered with the crumbs, make two batches, one dark and one milk chocolate*. Start with one batch at the bottom, add crushed ginger nuts, layer the second batch at the top... you get the picture.

*If you do decide to make a milk chocolate version, omit the granulated sugar. It's very sweet, even without it.

You're welcome.