Well that big hunk of smoked salmon in the fridge didn’t end up going anywhere. I felt leery about it after reading that you should only keep it in the fridge for a few days after opening…and this pack had been there since before Easter. I should probably throw it out, now that I think of it.

But I’d set my mind on quiche. Some kind of eggie delicious pie. To be honest, I’d set my mind on bacon. Also, I’m currently experiencing a renaissance of food: I am eating (or planning to eat, since I haven't cooked since last Sunday...) all of the things that Rob would never eat. Foods such as cous cous (‘tastes like sand’/’it’s too small’), haloumi (‘strange cheese’), couscous with haloumi, dumplings from Din Tai Fung (‘meh’), apple pie (‘has fruit in it’), food containing sultanas (‘has fruit in it’’), and that glorious creature, risotto (‘it’s just *scrunches face* …’). I’m not sure exactly what the problem with quiche is, but like frittata and spinach pie, its place was also firmly in the Do Not Eat pile. He's just not a flan.

I'm lagging behind here in the challenge I've set myself. Firstly, in a shitty apartment, late home from work, by myself, I'm feeling too maudlin to cook. And, I’m still faced with the same problem as last week, which is that all of my cookbooks are in a box in the living room. I’ve narrowed it down to the exact box, but they’re right at the bottom and after some blind digging, followed by frenzied contents unpacking, I’d only managed to retrieve the Women’s Weekly Retro Cookbook. It was my goal, because I was sure that there would be a recipe for quiche Lorraine in the retro cookbook, but to my horror there was only ‘baby rocket quiche’. What kind of establishment do they think I’m running here??

Let's just take a moment to reflect on this egg cup...

So I defaulted back to the Commonsense Cookery Book – I’ve still no idea what ‘pastry mix’ is, only that a 300g packet is required for their recipe. I thought maybe it was the actual pastry, which you put on the bottom of the pan, or perhaps something you mix with butter to transform into pastry, and yet the instructions tell you to mix it in with the egg and the cheese and the milk. I substituted it for cream. You rarely go wrong with cream.

Just an FYI here: rocket, pear and balsamic glaze is the best salad going. And it looks so fancy.

By the Book - Week 15 

(well, technically this is last week's, but the sun had set by the time I'd finished cooking and so the photos were awful)

Quiche Lorraine (adapted from the Commonsense Cookery Book's Quick Quiche)

Ingredients
3 eggs
120ml milk
30ml cream
1 onion, diced
200g bacon, diced
150g grated tasty cheese
2 tbps chopped parsley

Some pastry, I used frozen that was so old it had lost its puff (which actually worked out well), but I don't know your life.

Method


Preheat oven to 200 degrees c.

Grease a dish and put pastry in it, then put it in the oven. I was impatient and tried to do this before it had fully defrosted... Don't do that. Frozen pastry does not conform to rounded edges.

Fry bacon over medium heat until it gets deliciously brown and the fat starts to render out, then add the onion and let it sauté until it's translucent. Take it off the heat.

In a largish bowl, whisk the eggs, milk and cream together, then stir in the cheese and parsley.

Add the bacon/onion to the egg mix, and pour this into the now semi-baked pastry shell.

Bake until a knife comes out clean from the centre - mine took about 40 minutes because the dish was quite deep, but for a shallower pie 30 minutes should do it. You might need to cover with foil for some of the time to stop the pastry from burning...it depends how artfully you were able to drape it in the dish and how much of the edge is exposed.



And then you just eat it. Try not to eat it all and remember that quiche is notorious for burning the tongue.