The Lake District: Quichey quichey ya ya da da

Quiche night: Kim, Fi and Oli

The hours before dinner have been blissful with the gang either in the lounge room or front garden enjoying some reading time with a nice cold beer. It's so quiet all you can hear the babbling of the brook running through the back of the house and the song of woodland birds. Then suddenly...

WHOOOOOOOOOOOP!!WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP!! WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP!!!WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP!!!

The fire alarm is going berserk. I race up to our bedroom to find Jasmine still sound asleep (I swear, once that girl actually gets to sleep not even a death metal band turned up to 11 can wake her)
I look out the window and there is smoke streaming out from the kitchen windows below. While the techies in our group try to figure out the code to turn the alarm off, everyone else races around the building opening windows and fanning the air with whatever comes to hand. I head down into ground zero - site of the burning quiche - and find Kim in the kitchen enjoying a fine glass of red, a picture of detached calm amid the chaos...



At some point the peace and quiet was restored, the smoke cleared and we enjoyed a delicious spread then played petanque until the midges and mosquitoes chased us back indoors.



Leek and Stilton quiche (from BBC food)

What you need
2 tbsp vegetable oil
25g/1oz butter
350g/12oz onions, finely sliced
675g/1lb leeks, shanks only, sliced
2 garlic cloves, crushed or finely chopped
2tsp soft thyme leaves
1 tsp caster sugar
1 tbsp plain flour
3 eggs
290ml/½ pint double cream
100g/4oz Stilton cheese, cubed
2 tbsp fresh grated parmesan
300g/12oz short crust pastry
seasoning

The do
1. Line a 25cm/10in flan tin or dish with the pastry. Place in the refrigerator to chill.
2. Heat the oil and the butter in a pan until melted. Add the onions, leeks, sugar, garlic and thyme and cook gently until they have started to turn golden brown and are soft. Allow to cool slightly. Fold in the flour and add seasoning.
3. Beat the eggs and cream together and add to the onion mix. Fold in half the parmesan and the Stilton cheese.
4. Spoon the mixture into the flan case and sprinkle with the remaining parmesan. Bake in a preheated oven at 190C/375F/Gas 5 for about 50 minutes until golden brown and set.

Spinach, mushroom and ricotta quiche with sauteed spinach (from BBC food)

What you need
For the quiche
butter, for greasing
400g/14oz ready-made shortcrust pastry
350g/12oz flat mushrooms
3 sprigs thyme, leaves only
2 tbsp olive oil
salt and freshly ground black pepper
500g/1lb 2oz baby spinach leaves
freshly grated nutmeg, to taste
salt and freshly ground black pepper
250g/9oz ricotta cheese
1 tbsp grainy mustard
3 free-range egg yolks
300ml/11fl oz double cream
salt and freshly ground black pepper
For the spinach
25g/1oz butter
1 garlic clove, lightly crushed
500g/1lb 2oz baby spinach leaves
salt and freshly ground black pepper

The do
1. Preheat the oven to 180C/465F/Gas 4.
2. Grease a 25cm/10in loose-bottomed tart tin with butter.
3. On a lightly floured work surface, roll out the pastry to line the tart tin. Cover with cling film and place into the fridge to chill for 15 minutes.
4. Remove the pastry tart case from the fridge, cover with greaseproof paper and fill with baking beans. Transfer to the oven and bake blind for 10-15 minutes.
5. Remove the beans and greaseproof paper and return the tart case to the oven to bake for a further 3-5 minutes, until golden and just cooked.
6. Turn the oven temperature up to 200C/400F/Gas 6.
7. Meanwhile, place the mushrooms onto a baking tray, sprinkle over the thyme, drizzle over one tablespoon of the olive oil and season well with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Place into the oven to bake for 5-6 minutes, or until the mushrooms are beginning to soften. Remove and set aside.
8. Heat a large frying pan until hot and add the remaining one tablespoon of olive oil and the spinach and cover with a lid. Cook until the spinach has just wilted, then remove from the pan and drain.
9. Season the spinach well with freshly grated nutmeg and salt and freshly ground black pepper.
10. Place the ricotta into a bowl. Add the grainy mustard, season, to taste, with salt and freshly ground black pepper and mix well.
11. Spoon the mustard and ricotta mixture into the bottom of the tart case, top with the wilted spinach, and carefully place the roasted mushrooms on top.
12. Place the egg yolks and cream into a bowl, season well with salt and freshly ground black pepper and whisk together. Pour the egg mixture into the tart case.
13. Transfer to the oven to bake for 40 minutes, or until golden-brown and bubbling. Remove and cool slightly before serving.
14. For the sautéed spinach, heat a frying pan until hot. Add the butter and swirl the garlic clove around to flavour the oil.
15. Remove the garlic clove, add the spinach and sauté until wilted down. Season, to taste, with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
16. To serve, cut slices of quiche and place onto plates with a spoonful of sautéed spinach alongside.

Tune
Burning down the house Talking Heads

pies not pills for winter blues

Just like Chew I've been surrounded by germinators this week. The number of work casualties peaked on Monday, myself included. On Tuesday everyone clucked and ruminated about their particular germ strains and I joined in; but only because waffling on about some imaginary bug was far preferable to telling people I'd cracked the SADs.

It used to be that English people had a reputation for drinking too much hot tea and complaining about the weather. Now they call it Seasonal Affective Disorder. It goes something like this:

1) October: You begin to feel the pinch and start digging in -- the shrinking days are hard to ignore.
2) November/ December: The air has a lazy bite and there is some layering going on but you don't yet care too much. Why would you? Christmas is coming and you're drunk.
2) January: You return to work a little flabby and grey with a sharp pain where your liver should be. Your energy is depleted but there's still enough to shrug off the blocked sinuses and chilly days.
3) February: there's been no daylight before or after work for three months, you've been sniffing like a coke junkie since Christmas, you've grown a modesty flap where your stomach once was, everyone's an arsehole, your gas bill is stratospheric... but isn't the snow pretty?
4) Early March: Oh my god oh my god oh my god! Daffodils and cherry blossom!! It's light till 5.30!!! There's sunshine!!!!! IT'S OVER!!!!!!
5) Late March: False alarm. It's snowing again. Snow sucks. The greyness of the day matches the palour of all the twisted, snappy faces walking by. I am one of them. I am officially a broken woman. Oh, misery.

Just when you think it's over, bam, the sting of the tail. No wonder so many people can't get out of bed. Last year my grandad told me to install some bright lights in the house, paint a room yellow and red, and get some spring flower oils from an aromatherapist. We decided it was easier to buy a tent and head to the south of Spain. That and cook a lot of comforting food, heavy on the potatoes.

Potato and garlic cream-your-pie

This pie has been adapted into a kind of pasty pie from Tamasin Day-Lewis' book, The Art of the Tart, and it's a perfectly delicious winter warmer. I should really fess up that I actually have very little reason to complain right now, given Adam and I fly south next week; home to Melbourne for the first time in three years. That's enough to kick anyone's SADs and it also lends itself as a decorative theme for my pasty pie.

Ingredients

400g puff pastry (in two sheets)
500g of potatoes
1 brown onion
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
3 tbsp finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
Salt, black pepper
1 beaten egg and 2 egg yolks
200ml organic double cream


Preheat the oven to 200(C). Grease a pan (I used an oven-proof deep dish fry pan). I don't think Tamasin digs bought puff pastry but what are you gonna do? Lay one of the sheets down in the pan.

Cut the potatoes and onion very thin.
Mix them with the parsley, garlic, salt and pepper then layer them (alternating potato and onion) onto the pastry base, leaving enough edge to fold the base pastry over the pie lid.
Cover the potatoes with your second sheet of pastry and fold the edges of the bottom sheet over to seal the pie.

Because the top sheet of pastry doesn't need to be as big as the bottom, I cut a strip off to make some stars for a little Southern Cross, so excited am I to be seeing it for real once more next weekend.


Brush the top of your pie with the beaten egg and slice a cross in to let the steam out.
Bake the pie for 50 minutes then take it out for creaming.
Mix your cream and egg yolks together and carefully inject them into the pie via a hole in the top. Tamasin advises using a small funnel. I didn't have one and so used a jug -- with a very steady hand and pouring at a slow stream. You don't want the cream to spill onto the top, you want it to get in there. I cut a few holes to make for an even distribution.
Cook the pie for another 10 minutes and you're done.
A salad of green leaves, mint, pear, walnut and a splash of balsamic vinegar was an ideal accompaniement.