#36 Sunshine, Quiche, & a little more Spring in my step

Hey friends! Happy Sunday! how are we all doing?

Has there been a change in the air this week? I’m not sure about everyone else, but I’ve peeped out of my pit in the last few days, and it’s been SUCH a pleasure. Let’s be real, I’ve felt far from my best self, but I have felt more content, alive, and generally calmer which I’m eternally grateful for.

I honestly find the power of the mind astonishing; it baffles me how a seemingly innocuous event can so profoundly impact my mood. I feel more alert and aware of things when my head is in a better place; I see and acknowledge the beauty around me, I can hear more, absorb more, and appreciate more. I find it somewhat scary just how marked the difference is.

I think it all started with that hair wash last week, (I performed another one this week, just so you’re up to date with hair wash matters), I then cleaned the kitchen over the weekend – and subsequently have had a few, ‘yay it worked’ moments in the kitchen - recipes pending. Basically, things have gone ‘well’, I’ve felt productive, I’ve slept better, I’ve felt more connected to people, and worried just a little bit less. I genuinely feel like I’ve been blessed with a little fairy dust, and I’ve grabbed it with both hands.

Just to lower the mood a touch - because I always have a way of bringing the mood down, don’t I? – the flip side of feeling a little better is a niggling sense of fear – a fear of if/when I will slip back into that pit again, the embarrassment that comes with admitting not feeling so great if or when it happens, the thought of things not going quite so ‘well’ and there being fewer things to smile about. I know it’s absurd to live in a state of fear, conjuring up false expectations of how the future may look, but I find it hard not to when life has felt quite so bleak. Nevertheless, I am currently ‘here’ and not ‘there’ so for now, I’m going to do my absolute best to lap up these good ‘vibes’ and just roll with the punches if they come knocking.

Besides the slight lift in my mood, I have also taken huge comfort from others:

• A few people have shown me immense kindness – it’s been as simple as a few messages of love and support, and people going out of their way to try to help me.

• I’ve also really appreciated others being vulnerable and expressing their feelings; so often we bury the truth for fear of being judged, we rarely consider how much our openness can help others feel better about themselves too. Simply hearing from friends and family that they feel similar emotions to those I have felt, or am feeling, is a real comfort.

• I’ve also loved witnessing joy in others; some very close friends have gone on holiday this week, they are staying at the hotel we visited together pre-COVID. Unfortunately Mum and I haven’t been able to afford it this year but seeing them happy on their holiday has been so lovely. Another friend is in Mauritius and frankly I want her to stay just so that I can keep watching the glorious scenes from her trip.

• Meanwhile, I have seen marriage proposals between people who deserve nothing more than happiness, and read about someone’s experience of living through years of profound sadness – such that she thought that ‘sad’ had become the ‘norm’ for her – to recently feeling alive and happy again – I couldn’t have read a better message of hope.

My final bit of news from this week is that I’m due to be doing some REALLY exciting recipe testing next week for a friend and I literally cannot WAIT! I don’t know if this sounds really self-indulgent and I’m not sure if it’s just me, but, I find helping someone out or being of value to them, is one of the best feelings EVER.
What makes this particular ‘help’ even better is that I’m going to be doing the thing that I loveee - BAKE!
*It’s worth noting that I am going to be prioritising this recipe testing over developing my own recipes, whilst I will endeavour to provide you with the usual TCC update and lots of foodie goodness, consider this advanced warning that things may be slightly paired back in next weeks newsletter!

Right, enough waffle… let’s get down to business with my top bakes form this week:

Spring-time Quiche

My first recipe to kick of this week is seemingly VERY on brand. I hadn’t really acknowledged that the Coronation is creeping up on us when I decided I wanted to have another go at THAT quiche I made a few weeks ago. I merrily went about my recipe on Monday only to find myself being epically trumped when the royal recipe appeared on ‘The One Show’ and was later published online. I now feel compelled to have a go at the Royal one because, well, it must be pretty fabulous and sounds rather delightful… butttt mine was a bit of all right too so if you fancy a quiche that isn’t Royal but still wonderfully spring like, and very adaptable, then you can have a go at mine.

The pastry dough for my recipe incorporates some wholemeal flour for nuttiness (which you know I love) and is wonderfully tender and crisp, it’s blind baked and sealed with egg to reduce the chances of that dreaded soggy bottom. The filling is simple; creamy stuff with eggs – I opt for crème fraiche and single cream as my creamy elements - I think they contribute a good balance of tang and richness without being heavy. I pack it with seasonal veggies – tenderstem broccoli, asparagus, and shallot - and plenty of cheddar, as well as a pinch of nutmeg, although you could totally switch things up here to suit your preferences.

For me, it’s literally spring on a plate, and such a great lunch time dish to serve up for guests or just gobble through the week. I know quiche seems a bit retro these days and in truth, I’ve never really been a MASSIVE fan of it, but I’ve recently discovered what the hype is about and I’m here to shout about it!!

Recipe

Serves: 4-6 (8-inch loose bottomed fluted tart tin (depth at least 3.5cm))

Ingredients

Pastry Dough

120g Plain flour
50g Wholemeal flour
Pinch of salt
90g Unsalted butter cold cubed
I Egg yolk (17g)  
1 tsp White Vinegar
20g Water

Custard filling

130g Egg weight out of shell – this is just under 3 medium eggs (we can use the excess for sealing the pastry case)
75g Crème Fraiche
145g Single cream

1/8- ¼ tsp sea salt or to taste
Ground Black pepper to taste
1/8- ¼ tsp Freshly grated Nutmeg

Veggies
1 tsp olive oil
1 banana shallot
180g Tenderstem broccoli/ asparagus
100g Mature Cheddar – coarsely grated – reserve 25g to top

Method

First prepare the pastry. Measure the flours and salt into a food processor, pulse a few times to combine. Add the cold cubed butter and pulse until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Next measure the egg yolk, water, and vinegar into a small bowl, whisk briefly to combine then stream into the flour mixture (pulsing as you do), continue to pulse until the mixture just starts to clump together and fall in on itself, tip out into clingfilm, and use the clingfilm to gently flatten into a disc – this prevents any unnecessary handling of the dough. Rest the pastry dough for a minimum of 4 hours – I usually go for an overnight rest.

Once rested, roll out the pastry to the thickness of a pound coin – (circle around 28cm diameter), then gently transfer to an 8-inch deep fluted tart tin (see above, pressing the pastry into the sides with the side of your finger. Return to the fridge and chill for a further 30 minutes minimum.

Meanwhile start preparing the greens mixture. Measure the oil into a large saucepan and place over a medium heat, once hot, add the shallot and cook for around 8-10 minutes until softened and translucent, once cooked, turn off the heat and leave to cool a bit. Blanch the broccoli and asparagus in salty boiling water for around 1 minute before refreshing in ice cold water. Once cold, drain thoroughly – pat/squeeze out as much excess moisture as possible using paper towel. Trim the stems and chop into small chunks leaving the florets/spears whole - set aside until required.

Next prepare the custard mixture. Combine the egg (reserve the excess for sealing the pastry case), crème fraiche and cream in a large jug and beat together until smooth. Pass the liquid mixture through a sieve into a large jug, season with, nutmeg, salt, and pepper. Transfer to the fridge until required.

Preheat the oven to 200C/180C fan. Once rested, line the pastry case with a piece of scrunched up parchment and weigh down with baking beans or uncooked rice. Bake for 20 minutes, before very carefully removing the baking beans and parchment, liberally brushing with the remaining egg, and baking for a further 5-10 minutes or until golden brown, once baked remove from the oven and get ready to assemble your tart.

Once everything is prepared, line the pastry case first with the shallot spread over the base, next spoon in the chopped broccoli/asparagus stems and sprinkle over 75g of the cheddar. Slowly pour over the custard mix as full as you can get it without overfilling – I find this amount fits perfectly in my tin - then sprinkle over the remaining grated cheddar. Bake in the oven for around 30 minutes or until just set (the internal temperature of the quiche should reach around 71-73 C on a digital thermometer).

NOTES:

• Use up your excess pastry – re-roll and stamp out small rounds – approx. 5-6cm - rest again for 30 minutes, then top with some grated cheese and a sprinkle of flaky sea salt, before baking at 180C fan for around 15 minutes or until golden. You could use these for canapes if you were hosting – a perfect vehicle for some cream cheese, dill, and smoked salmon!

• As I mentioned in the intro, this recipe is really adaptable – keep to the ‘base custard’ and pastry case recipes above – too much deviation here could lead to quite erratic results. However, I urge you to have some fun with the mix-ins; comté, gruyère, feta, goats cheese would all be delightful alternatives to cheddar, as would any seasonal veg and herbs – just keep roughly to the quantities suggested and remember, if you use particularly ‘wet’ veg, make sure you drain and pat it dry WELL after blanching.

Oatcakes

Next up on my recipe menu this week are these seedy oatcakes – this one is for Becca and Vicki who both seem to share my love for an oatcake. As I relayed to Vicki earlier in the week, oatcakes have long been my handbag snack, (I actually rarely carry a handbag these days, so let’s call it a pocket snack), I generally like them dry (because I’m wild like that), although I will admit that PB&J/cheese are also excellent accompaniments. My favourite to buy are these from M&S – they taste more...  ‘indulgent’ (I’m not sure that word is quite right for an oatcake but you get my gist) than the rough Nairns oatcakes, I also like Rude health’s range and Stocken’s triangle ones. OK so they may not be the trendiest snack on the block but they’re one of my faves and this is my take on them – also, toasting seeds and then blitzing them with oats yields a very lovely aroma, so try them just for that!

Recipe

Makes 9-10

Ingredients

25g Medium Oatmeal I use Mornflake
50g Rolled Oats I used Quaker
1/8 tsp sea salt
1 tbsp/ 8g Toasted seeds
20g Olive oil
20ml Boiling Water

Method

Preheat your oven to 200C/180c fan and line a baking sheet with parchment. If you haven’t toasted your seeds, get that done now.

Next combine the oatmeal, rolled oats, salt, and seeds in a medium bowl. Next transfer to a high-speed blender and blitz to form a fine powder with a few nubbly bits in (the smell from the toasted seeds when you do this is insane!). Transfer the mix back to the bowl, add the oil and mix to make sure all of the oats are coated in some oil – you end up with a fairly dry rubble mixture – next add the boiling water, mix briefly with a spatula then get your hands in and bring together to form a soft dough – it may be a teeny bit sticky to begin with but the oats absorb the moisture quite quickly.

Place the dough between 2 pieces of parchment, roll the dough out between the parchment to around 3mm thick, stamp out 5-6 cm rounds and place on the lined baking sheet before re-rolling your dough – I managed to eke out 10 rounds from this amount of dough.

Once all your dough is used up, bake the rounds in the oven for around 20 minutes or until golden – 5 minutes before the end of the cooking time you can gently flip the oatcakes over to ensure an even bake underneath too! Cool on a wire rack before topping with your favourite cheese or spread – HELLO PBJ/banana and tahini!

MORE STUFF

• I’m a recent subscriber to David Lebovitz’ newsletter – David is a renowned chef and writer; he’s written countless recipe books and seems like a bit of a legend! Anyway, he recently posted this photo with the caption ‘Paris in spring’ – not only do I think the photo is STUNNING – what is it about in season fruit and veg that is just SO visually appealing – but also, I now want to go to Paris… in Spring – it’s on my bucket list!

• Food nostalgia – I’m not sure what sparked this, but I woke up Thursday morning thinking about my late Grandad and his love of bread; one distinct memory was crusty white cobs (rolls) spread with butter, and filled with fresh Ham from the local butcher. There also had to be a thick smear of mustard, and a wedge of sliced beef tomato. I can still seem him chomping into a roll, much to the annoyance of my Grandma, who would inevitably end up hoovering around him to clear up the crumbs, and relishing every mouthful! Anyway, I decided I needed a crusty roll to soothe the emptiness I felt from his absence. Again, these were a really fortuitous ‘random’ bake – there was no planning, and I didn’t have huge hope in the robustness of the recipe, yet the result was more than satisfactory. A mix of wholemeal and T55 flours from Shipton Mill made up the dough with a hydration of 72%, I topped these little rolls with seeds and baked them until deeply golden and shatteringly crisp! I made 6, ate 3, and frankly could have eaten the remainder! NOM!

  

• Birds - my garden seems to be THRIVING with birds of late – honestly, it's delightful to watch and listen to them play and sing. On Wednesday we had the most beautiful Goldfinch visit. My Dad reckoned he was going to return as a Bullfinch after he died. Bullfinches seem to be fairly rare, which is typically ‘Dad’, I’m yet to see one yet but I’m holding out for the moment he pays me a visit - in the meantime, our new resident Goldfinch is very welcome!

• Cakes - I’ve been loving my cake experiments of late. Quests for perfect versions of various flavours have been well and truly ON - this week has been banana cake and vanilla sponge. According to my friends and tireless taste testers Martin and Anne, I’ve hit the jackpot with the banana cake - at Martin’s request, I’m sharing it on TCC+ (aka for paid subs) - you can be the Guinea pigs and let me know what you think! As for the vanilla cake - it needs a tiny bit more tweaking I think, I felt it was a bit… airy? can you have too much fluff in a cake? Leave it with me, I’ll continue on my quest for *perfection*!
  Slightly off topic - I read a really thought-provoking piece the other day about always aiming for more from ourselves - as great as this is in some respects; I love the idea that we can always do or be a little better - we must never let it be to the detriment of our happiness or the joy of an endeavour. The question posed at the end of the piece was, “If you’re only ever obsessed with becoming better, when do you ever get there? and what happens when you do?” The takeaway message was that we must approach every goal as a direction to pursue, and not simply a destination to reach… we must enjoy the journey, be open to obstacles and embrace uncertainty, allow the goal to evolve and develop, blossoming along the way. I really love this simple but very valid notion.

  

• More Coronation worthy bakes - I’m on a mission to get in the Coronation spirit so I’m doing my best to rustle up lots of celebration bakes - watch this space.

• ‘Colin from accounts’ - who’s watching it? It’s on iPlayer and is my latest fix for light-hearted comedy pre-bed!

• … I also thoroughly enjoyed Masterchef this week - Anurag with his meticulous planning (a fellow spreadsheet fan) and stand out dishes was my favourite - can’t wait to see how he gets on in the rest of the competition!!!

Right - another week boxed off… as ever, I hope everyone is doing ok? If not, if you are facing something tough and life feels hard, don’t be afraid to talk to someone about it. You really are not alone, every adversity can be faced, tackled, and overcome… believe it, have hope - things WILL be better!

Sending love to you all!

Steph X X X