So (Crab and Gruyere) Quiche

20140402-144558.jpg

Serves 6-8

1 ready to roll pastry sheet

150g crab meat

125g Gruyere, grated

6 spring onions, chopped

3 eggs, beaten

Half a red bell pepper, diced small

230ml single cream

Preheat your oven to 180 C/ 350 F/ Gas mark 4

Grease parchment paper to fit a 10 in quiche/ flan dish. Roll out your pastry to fit your dish. If it comes in a sheet, patch the sides with left over pastry and press in to seal the joins. Cover with parchment paper and fill with baking beans/ uncooked rice, lentils. For easier removal afterwards, put the rice, beans or whatever you use into an oven-proof bag, or a muslin cloth tied with cooking twine if you’re super fancy.

It took about 40 minutes for my pastry to blind bake. It could have done with being left for longer but I chanced it.

Take it out, remove the top sheet of parchment paper and baking weights. Leave on a wire rack to cool while you prepare the filling.

Grate the Gruyere (after all my grater hateration in the asparagus tart post, I caved and bought one-it’s rapih). Whisk the eggs in a medium bowl. Add the cream. Mix with a fork. Add the crab meat, spring onions and pepper, and stir. Mix in about two-thirds of the cheese.

Pour the mix into the pastry case and sprinkle the remaining cheese on top.

Pop it back into the over for 30-40 minutes, or until the mix has set. If it’s still wibbly in the middle (like myself, wha’), leave for another ten minutes.

Leave to cool for ten to fifteen minutes. Lift out of the quiche dish using the sides of the parchment paper. Plonk onto a serving plate to cut up and serve.

Serve with a side salad and lots of wine. So quiche.

https://i0.wp.com/24.media.tumblr.com/974fef3c3daef020b59e3db7f2b447a6/tumblr_mv3t0j0Jls1seg1mro1_500.gif

Four Cheese Asparagus Tart with Coppa

20140322-131335.jpg

This week the words ‘asparagus tart‘ kept coming into my head. The voices in my head are feeders and mega fans of pastry, apparently. So, it was done.

Adapted from this recipe-

Feeds 4

  • 1 sheet of ready made puff pastry
  • 1 whole egg, beaten
  • 800g of fresh asparagus
  • Olive oil
  • Juice from ½ a lemon (optional)
  • One lot of Coppa, chopped, from an antipasto pack such as this
  • 90g Ricotta cheese
  • 100g Gruyere cheese
  • 100g Parmesan cheese
  • 100g any tasty hard cheese you have around
  • Salt and pepper to taste

Depending on how long it takes your oven to heat, preheat yours to 400 f/ 200 c/ Gas Mark 6

If you’ve defrosted your ready roll pastry, you can either get it ready first or last. I’m sure there’s reasoning for keeping it as chilled as possible but I prepped mine first and left it out while I did everything else as I had no room in the fridge. It made no difference whatsoever.

Tear parchment paper to fit your baking tray, lightly grease with butter, lay over your ready rolled puff pastry. Homemade pastry evangelists, if you come to mine and have a problem with it, you can ‘ave a bit of dust.

https://i0.wp.com/25.media.tumblr.com/ede9bcd3782ebf0871d81ac00cdf6d57/tumblr_men00bmnSe1r60h6bo1_250.gif

I heart ready-roll pastry!

With the beaten egg, brush around the edges and fold over to make a little lip. Brush over the lip when in place. Pinch the corners.

Grate your hard cheese if you’re so inclined. Besides knuckles knocking on counters and potentially grating skin, I haaaaate cleaning cheese graters so avoid it if I can. Same for garlic presses, totes a pain in the hoop.

I figure if the cheese is going to melt, it’s fine to just chop it into small cubes. I inhaled the first lot of Gruyere that I chopped up. Fooking delicious.

20140322-130641.jpg

You can steam your asparagus (oh, you fancy, huh?), as in the original recipe, but I dry fried them in a griddle pan as I’d be using it later and I don’t need an extra thing to wash, thankyouverymuch. Just toss them around a little so they don’t colour.

Once they’ve softened a bit, take them out and chop the ends off so the bits with the tips fit widthways in the pastry. You can blanch them…but who are you trying to impress, just put them aside. They’ll be grand, sure.

The bottom stalks are going to be fried and blended with the cheese and egg for the filling before laying the asparagus tip bits on top.

Chop up the bottom bits of the stalks, pour a couple of turns of olive oil in the pan and throw the chopped stalk bottoms in and fry for about 3 minutes. Then plonk them into a food processor or blender.

Chop your cured meat and fry off in the pan for 2 minutes to get them a little crispy. Set aside.

Return your asparagus tips to the pan and sauté for 2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

You can add half a lemon, but I don’t think it adds anything. Remove from the pan and set aside.

Now would be a good time to prep your pastry if you haven’t already.

Add the ricotta and the rest of the beaten egg to the chopped stalk bottoms in your blender/ food processer. Blend until you have a coarse purée. It might look a bit liquidy at this stage but it’ll be fine once you add about 3/4 of your cheese and meat. Mix with a spoon until it’s fully incorporated. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Pour the purée mix out evenly into the pastry.

20140322-130602.jpgLay the asparagus tips widthways on top of the mix. Sprinkle over the remainder of your cheese and meat. Add more Parmesan on top if you need it.

20140322-130547.jpg

Bake tart for 25 minutes, or until the filling has set. Serve warm.

20140322-131322.jpg

The Weekend On Tap

https://i0.wp.com/persephonemagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/karen-box-wine.gif

Since discovering no waste collection service in the area I just moved to collects glass, I’ve been forced, FORCED, I tells you, to buy boxed wine.

Well, if it’s good for the environment…..

Cheers!

Sharknado 2 To Start Filming in February!

Sharknado 2: The Second One. That’s the actual title. Just soak that up for a second. Oh, it turns out they asked fans to name the sequel, hah! I like these people.

The good news is Ian Ziering and Tara ‘prima Jedward hag (yes, I’m jealous)’ Reid have signed back on to battle the storm of pissed off sharks again….in New York!

They missed a casting opportunity by not getting Mark Wahlberg in on it. Surely he could stop them. Yo, shark…YA MATHA! But, then that would be a very short movie altogether, and we can’t have that.

I hope for more scripted gems such as-

Nova: They took my grandfather. That’s why I really hate sharks.

Matt: Now I really hate sharks, too.

and

George: [upon being overcome by a wave of sharks] OW!

not forgetting

Robbie the Bus Driver: My mom always told me Hollywood would kill me!

[just before Hollywood sign crushes him]

and OUR FAVOURITE

Nova: [having just been rescued after falling out of a helicopter and being swallowed whole by a shark in midair] I really hate sharks.

Now, all we can do is wait for July when it’s due to release. We’re gonna need a bigger drinking game.

Nigella’s Mexican Lasagna

20140124-141455.jpgI’m not a regular lasagna fan, mostly because I find pasta sheets chewy and pointless. Since this uses tortilla wraps instead I figured it might make a lasagna believer out of me. Also, I had the ingredients (or close enough) in the press and I was not venturing out into the manky rain to hunt and gather for something else to eat.

Possibly the easiest thing I’ve ever made, and it takes no time at all.

For the original recipe and method, click here

The filling-

8 tortilla wraps (depending on your dish, you may use less)

1 x 400gm (approx) tin of mixed beans

1 x 300-400 gm tin of butter beans

300gm tin of sweetcorn

250gm grated white cheddar cheese

The sauce-

A bit of olive oil to fry the onion/ leek and so on

1 teasp garlic paste

1 teasp chili paste

1 leek, halved lengthways and then chopped

1 red pepper diced small, plus half a green pepper left lying around needing to be used up

A few grinds of sea salt

1 x 80g bag of fresh coriander chopped

2 x 400-ish gram tins of chopped tomatoes

400ml water, used from the empty tomato can

A good squeeze of tomato sauce

I used a deep paella pan that’s about 10 in wide at the top, and 8 in at the bottom

Preheat your oven to 200 deg C, Gas 6, 400 deg F.At the same time, put a big ol’ tray in for your dish to sit on because it does bubble over and make a mess. I’m yet to clean mine, slattern that I am.

Pour a turn or two of olive oil into a medium sized pot. Over a medium high heat, add your leek/ onion, pepper/s, garlic and chillies. Add more oil if needed. Add a few grinds of salt. Twerk, bitch.

Leave to cook gently for 10-15 mins until the peppers are softened but not coloured.

Chop up your coriander and mix it in.

Add the canned tomatoes and pour in some water from rinsing out the cans. I used about one full can of water. Squeeze in about a tablespoon worth of tomato ketchup, stir and leave to cook on a low/ medium heat for about 10 minutes.

Drain your beans and sweetcorn into a colander. Rinse if you need to. Drain off, pour into a biggish mixing bowl and add nearly all the cheese, keeping some back for sprinkling on top. Mix up the beans and cheese.

Have your dish close to the oven before starting to assemble the layers.

Turn off the heat under the tomato sauce. Ladle out about a third of the sauce into the bottom of your lasagne dish. Cover with a single large tortilla if it’ll cover it, or use two, overlapping so it covers as much as it can. Pour on some of bean cheese mix, enough to cover the tortilla/s, ladle some sauce, cover with tortillas the same again, repeat until you have three layers of bean and cheese topped with salsa. You’ll have enough, I promise!

Top with one large tortilla/ two overlapping wraps and ladle the last of the salsa. Sprinkle the remaining cheese on top, and tah dah, you’re done!

Put into the oven on the tray to catch anything that spills over.

The original method said it takes 30 mins in the oven. Not in mine! 10-15 was puh-lenty. It would have burned to a crisp if left for any longer. Do leave it for about ten minutes once out of the oven, however, as the inside is piping hot and it’s easier to dish up when slightly cooler.

20140124-141506.jpgRuddy delicious. What I wasn’t expecting is how filling it would be, and how far it would go. It would easily feed six people. I rate it a screaming Jazz Hands FABULOUS.

https://i0.wp.com/img.pandawhale.com/12715-cm1271505006fa866e85ajpeg-gn52.jpeg