Bacon & Pumpkin Mini Quiches

I made these little morsels after another recipe I tried failed. They're delicious and very easy.
The quantities have been estimated as I didn't measure anything!

Mini Bacon & Pumpkin Quiches

100g matured cheese, chunked

25g Parmesan cheese, sliced

400 – 500g butternut pumpkin, peeled and chunked

2 -3 rashers bacon, finely diced or chunked

20g oil

Dried onion flakes

4 eggs

1 ½ cups milk

1 cup cream

salt & pepper

puff pastry sheets

Place cheeses into Thermomix and grate on speed 8 for a few seconds.

Remove and set aside.

If chopping bacon in Thermomix, then add to bowl and chop.

Place pumpkin into bowl and grate on speed 4 – 5 for a few seconds until chopped evenly.

Add oil and cook for about 5 minutes on 100, speed 1. It should still be in pieces, not mushy.

Remove from bowl and cool in fridge.

Meanwhile, preheat oven to 200 ºC, defrost pastry sheets and grease shallow patty pan tin.

Whisk eggs in jug and whisk in cream and milk, salt and pepper.

Place pastry rounds into tin, add sprinkling of dried onion flakes, ½ tsp of grated cheese, 1 tsp pumpkin mixture. Pour enough egg mixture to just come to top of pastry rounds.

Bake for 15 minutes or until lightly browned and puffed.

Blog Design

By the way, you may have noticed that my blog looks a bit different.  I loved the design that I had, but the person who designed it hasn't updated it for New Blogger and it won't work. So sad. I haven't found another design I liked, so basic and simple it is!

iPad Apps for Foodies

I haven't posted for a while as I've been away on holidays in Bremer Bay. Well, back and forth on holidays, anyway. We've been home twice for bowls and going back next week to finish our holiday! Luckily when I booked the caravan last year I booked for 4 weeks - I must have known it would be a strange season.

Anyhoo, I've lashed out and bought myself an iPad. I tossed up between a Kindle and the iPad, but after lots of research, went for the big one.  I'm glad I did because I'm quite besotted with it.

The Apps! I've downloaded heaps of them. Best of all are the recipe apps, there's some clever ones out there. I'm loving the following Thermomix Apps - RoboGourmet, Spin A Dinner and Thermomix. Others I'm enjoying are Paprika, which allows you to grab recipes from the net or add your own, and Jamie Oliver recipes.

I also love Kindle, Words with Friends, Seven Little Words, Tapatalk (so I can connect to the Thermomix Forum) and I get all my email on my iPad.

Here's a link to a whole pile of foodie apps.
I had to laugh at "The Perfect Egg Timer". My lord, if you need an App to boil an egg, there's something seriously wrong!!

Enjoy!

Megan

Delicious Tuna Slice

My gorgeous sister now has a food blog. Her recipes are simple and delicious, designed to be made with ingredients you're likely to have in the pantry or freezer.

This particular one is a winner. It's one I'd forgotten about and I realised the last time I made it would have been almost 30 years ago when we were living out at the old farmhouse, better known as "Charlie's".

I've made it for tea tonight as I forgot to defrost the fish I was planning to cook. The whole thing was made in the Thermomix and there's minimal washing up. My kind of meal!

I seem to remember adding some finely diced onion to the rice, so I did this when I made it tonight. It's in the oven as I type.

Here's a link to Nan's Country Kitchen and her Curried Tuna Slice.

Enjoy!

Megan

Excellent Online Grocery Store

 As most followers of my blog would know, I like to try and shop locally. However, there is a limit to what my local storekeeper can provide, so I do shop elsewhere when necessary.

This online store was recommended to me by my Thermomix consultant. It's exceptional because they only charge a flat $5.00 fee for postage.
I ordered 10kg of goods recently, so to receive a package from Perth for only $5.00 is incredible.

http://www.2brothersfoods.com are just brilliant. The various things I bought included some fresh almonds, some yummy Sour Cream and Chives Soy Crisps, delicious Roasted, Salted Edamame, Peaz Wheelz and Rice Crackers. I also bought some flax seed and buckwheat for bread.

Everything was packed beautifully and arrived here very quickly. I can't recommend them highly enough.

Brown Butter Shortbread

I adore shortbread, but have never been successful in making it myself. It's usually too crumbly or too soft and just doesn't taste right.
Since Christmas is nearly upon us, I thought I'd try again. I've been inspired by a cookery programme I saw recently where a Scottish woman showed Rick Stein how she made shortbread. She didn't give the recipe, but she showed her method. The unusual part was that she didn't mix the ingredients until she got a dough. She simply put the processed ingredients into a dish and pressed it all in.

I used the recipe from the Anchor Ground Rice packet as there was still some in the pack. I must have bought it a while ago because I can simply make my own ground rice in the Thermomix these days.

As I was busy this morning, I forgot about the shortbread cooking away and it went quite golden in colour. This resulted in a delicious brown butter flavour as the butter hadn't quite incorporated in parts. So, I've renamed this recipe, Brown Butter Shortbread. I thought afterwards that I should have removed some of the sugar and sprinkled it on top, so have added that tweak to the recipe.

Brown Butter Shortbread
90g rice (ground rice if you don't have a Thermomix)
80g castor sugar
210g plain flour
180g cold diced butter
1 Tbsp castor sugar extra

Preheat oven to 170C. Grease and line a slice tin - place lining in so it comes up at the sides for ease of removal.
Blitz rice on speed 9 for a minute or so. If using regular or raw sugar, you can add it after 30 seconds to make castor sugar.
Place all ingredients into the Thermomix or food processor and blend on speed 6 until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs.
Press into slice tin and bake for about 7 minutes. Remove from oven and score into pieces. Sprinkle extra castor over the top and bake until golden.
Let cool in tin for 10 minutes or so. Lift out and cut into pieces along score lines.

Next time, I'll sub out about 30g of the flour for some almond meal.

Pumpkin & Spinach Salad

This delicious salad is a combination of two or three and was inspired by two friends Julie & Robyn who both make delicious salads.

Pumpkin & Spinach Salad
1 small butternut pumpkin, peeled and diced to thumbnail size
2 rashers of bacon, cut into small strips and sautéed until crisp
2 spring onions, sliced into rings
1/4 cup pumpkin seeds, lightly toasted
1/4 cup pistachios, lightly toasted
1 packet baby spinach leaves

Dressing
40ml light olive oil
20ml soy sauce
20ml lemon juice
1 clove garlic - crushed
2 Tbsp brown sugar

Steam or microwave the pumpkin until tender, not mushy. Cool to room temperature.
Mix dressing ingredients together in a jar.
Lay spinach leaves on a large shallow platter and arrange salad ingredients on top. When ready to serve, top with the dressing. Serve at room temperature.