Cheese, Onion and Honey Roast Gammon Quiche

The day seems to have just slipped away today and my boyfriend wanted to make an oxtail soup for tonight's dinner, as we've eaten a lot this week! It would not be ready until late this evening, so in the end we decided to have some of the quiche I was making this afternoon instead.

This recipe is not a new recipe and is just a variation of my cheese, onion and bacon quiche here. I had approximately 400 g of leftover gammon from my honey roast recipe that you can find here. This was  enough to make 2, one of which will be frozen and brought out next weekend when I have a get together for my birthday! Always good to get a bit of the preparation done in advance.

I also put some red Leicester cheese into this recipe, as we thought the mix of the 2 different cheeses together in this would be good. We didn't want to put too much in though, so only subbed 1/3 of the cheddar from the original quiche.

There is no reason why you can't put sliced tomatoes on the top and in fact I think this actually makes it look a bit prettier. I also like the taste of tomatoes, but again I didn't have any tomatoes so I left these out.

Pastry

175 g plain Doves Farm Gluten Free flour

75 g of butter, plus extra for greasing

A pinch of salt

1 egg, beaten

For the filling:

170 g of cheddar, grated (please select your cheese dependent upon your taste, I used mature)

Approximately 80 g Red Leicester Cheese, grated (you can put slightly more in if you would like)

200 g leftover gammon -chopped

5 eggs , beaten

300 ml of milk

4 slices of tomato (this is optional, I didn't use these as I din't have them available)

A pinch of salt

Freshly ground black pepper

2 sprigs of fresh thyme or 1 teaspoon of dried thyme

1/2 onion (optional)

Method:

1. Start by making the pastry; sift the flour with the salt into a large bowl. If you are using a food processor, please put in the food processor with the butter and blitz in short bursts until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs (please do not over mix). If doing this by hand, rub the butter into the bowl with the flour until you get a mixture resembling breadcrumbs.
2. Tip the mixture back into the bowl if using a food processor and put in the egg. Bring the pastry together into a ball and if it is still not coming together properly then use a little water, it should be a firm dough. Rest this in the fridge for 30 minutes.
3. Butter a flan dish, which should be 22cm / 8 1/2 inch in size, then roll the pastry out and place into the flan dish. I rolled mine out on cling film, then put the flan dish upside down on the pastry then tipped the pastry on top. Please place this back in the fridge to chill.
4. Preheat the oven to 190c / 375F / Gas 5.
5. Line the bottom of the pastry with baking parchment, then put in baking beans or if you don't have baking beans you can use rice. Bake it for 20 minutes, remove from the oven and take out the baking beans / rice. Bake for another 5 minutes before removing. Whilst the quiche is in the oven, please be frying off your bacon on a medium heat for 10 - 15 minutes. Chop / crumble the bacon into small pieces.
6. Reduce the oven to 160 c/ 325 F / Gas 3.
7. Sprinkle most of the cheese into the bottom, then place in the chopped bacon. Put the onion in if using.
8. Beat the eggs and milk and pour over the cheese and bacon, sprinkle the top with thyme. Sprinkle the remaining cheese on the top.
9. Trim the edges of your pastry and bake for 30 - 40 minutes until the egg mixture has set.
10. If you are going to freeze your quiche, please wait for the quiche to completely cool, cut into portions and pop into a freezer box and put into the freezer.

We really enjoyed this quiche and thought the addition of the Red Leicester added some extra flavour. The pastry was thin and buttery and the slight hint of the honey and mustard coming through from the gammon.

I'll be making a caramelised onion tart next week, something which I've never made before. So I assume its not much different from this, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I'll also be blogging soon about the Oxtail soup, which is currently sending gorgeous smells from the kitchen as I type this.

I'm going to be testing out some healthier recipes next week, so I hope to be able to share these with you soon.

I hope you all enjoy your weekend.

Honey Mustard Roast Gammon Joint

So this week we decided to have honey mustard roast gammon, with the idea that the leftovers can be used for sandwiches and to make a gluten free quiche. I do love using leftovers and with 2 of us, this joint was fairly big so we will have a few!

Ingredients:

1 Gammon Joint - ours was approximately 1.8 KG

2 tablespoons honey

2 tablespoons whole grain mustard

Method:

1. Place the joint in the slow cooker for approximately 8 hours, cover to 3/4 up the joint in stock (GF vegetable, chicken or ham)
2. Preheat the oven to 180 C
3. Take the joint out of the slow cooker, mix the mustard and honey together (it should be in equal parts) and smother the joint. 
4. Put into the oven and roast for approximately 30 minutes.
5. Serve with whatever sides you would like.

We served slices of gammon with fried eggs, but you can serve with whatever side or vegetable you would like. 

Like me if you have plenty of leftovers, they can be used for:

• Pizza toppings
• Used in a quiche, you can substitute the bacon in my quiche recipe for some of the cooked gammon
• Use gluten free tortillas and some salad for a nice lunch recipe
• Ham Hock and Cabbage Hash, this is a great recipe, just ensure you use gluten free stock cubes. The link to the recipe is here.

Chocolate Millet Porridge

Always one for trying something new, when I went shopping at the weekend I decided to buy some millet flakes. I've previously eaten this as part of some of the gluten free cereals which are currently on the market, but I've never tried tried them on their own.

The texture of the porridge is slightly different to normal porridge, so please don't expect this to be a like for like substitute. However, saying that I do think that the porridge took the chocolate flavour on really well. It was also really easy to make and the price wasn't much different to that of normal gluten free oats (At Asda on 07/03/13 on the website the price was £2.60). I bought my millet flakes from Holland and Barretts for a price of  £2.69 (verified on the website 07/03/13). I know there are some people out there that have trouble with oats, so this is a really good alternative that I would recommend giving a try.

I think I will try making some with apple and cinnamon next time, for a different flavour and texture. It can't hurt adding some more fruit to my diet as well!

Ingredients:

30 g millet flakes (I believe this is just over a 1/4 of a cup)

1 cup of milk or water (it should be approx 4 times the volume of liquid to the millet flakes)

1 heaped teaspoon of cocoa powder

2 teaspoons of sugar (you could substitute some maple syrup or honey instead of this)

Method:

1. Add the flakes and the water / milk to a bowl
2. Put the bowl in the microwave for 3 minutes, stirring half way through.
3. Add the cocoa and sugar to the bowl and stir until combined.

As I quite liked millet, I think I will start to experiment with some other recipes. Feel free to share your best ways of using millet if this is something you already use.

Gluten Free 5 Minute Chocolate Cake

As it's my birthday next week and I've taken the full week off work, I promised everyone at work that I would bring a cake this week instead. I was requested that it was a "proper" cake and not one of the healthier bakes that I've been experimenting with recently. So I decided to try this 5 minute chocolate cake, as it had some good feedback and the recipe seemed a little different to the usual chocolate cake.

I was pretty pleased with the outcome of this cake, it had a dark chocolatey colour like the picture. I'm a big chocolate lover so I decided to make the frosting chocolate too, you can just make a regular vanilla butter cream icing  if you're not quite as big of a fan as I am!

I must admit this is one of the stranger cake recipes that I've made, the recipe was very liquid. I even put a tray on the shelf underneath as I was afraid there would be a little leakage from the cake tin! There was a little from mine, but actually it wasn't too much.

The cake was supposed to take 30 - 35 minutes at 180 C, so after 35 minutes when I checked if the cake was ready by putting a skewer into the cake, I was a bit worried that the cake was still quite liquid in the middle. I needn't have worried though, as after another 25 minutes, the cake turned out brilliantly.

The recipe I used is here. For the all purpose flour I used Doves Farm Gluten Free flour.

The frosting recipe I used is here, I wasn't so keen on this particular frosting recipe and it only came together once I added some chocolate. I would use a different topping next time.

I'd definitely make the cake again, but think I'd use a different recipe for the frosting next time.

Chocolate cake is one of my favourites. What are your favourite bakes?

Thai Red Curry Stir Fry

Tonight we made Thai Red Curry Stir Fry, we did use Loyd Grossman Thai Red Curry Sauce. From what I've found out so far, it has not ingredients with gluten in the sauce and some of the other Loyd Grossman sauces are gluten free. I cannot find it as being certified anywhere, so I think I may request the information from them. I'll update as soon as I have more information regarding this.

We don't normally tend to use cooking sauces, but this week has been a busy week and we fancied trying something different. So we thought we would try this. 

Ingredients

4 skinless and boneless chicken thighs - cut into strips

1 pack of stir fry vegetables

1 packet of rice noodles 

Loyd Grossman Thai Red Cooking Sauce - waiting confirmation this is certified gluten free

1 clove of garlic - crushed

2 - 3 pinches of chilli flakes

Glug of gluten free soy sauce

Pepper

Method:

1. Fry off the chicken in a pan or wok for about 5 - 10 minutes, until the chicken is starting to go golden. Add the garlic and the sauce to the chicken and put on a medium to high flame to let the sauce cook out a bit. Add the Chilli flakes and pepper.
2. In a separate pan, fry off the vegetables and noodles and leave to one side until the sauce has been cooking with the c
3. After the sauce has been cooking out, add the vegetables and the noodles. Cook for a few more minutes and then it is ready to serve.

This is not something I'd cook often as I do like to come from scratch as much as possible. However the flavour in the sauce was actually pretty good.  The price on 05/03/13 from Asda was £1.98, which I do consider to be a bit more than your average sauce but I would consider buying it again for a quick fix.

Leftover Lamb Stew with Moroccan Flavours

Last week I posted about slow roasted lamb recipe here , which wasn't the best recipe that we've ever  made and didn't exactly turn out to plan. We still had a fairly large lamb roast to use up, we hadn't eaten too much as it was pretty tough. Instead of wasting it we decided to make it into a stew.

Cooking it long and slow in the slow cooker, meant that it made the meat tender and there was already plenty of flavour from the previous lamb roast recipe that we had used. We were pretty pleased with the end result and made a great mid week meal.

Ingredients:

Leftover lamb (with the bone still in)

700 g baby carrots, unpeeled but washed

1 cup of frozen sweetcorn

1 cup of frozen peas

1 can of chopped tomatoes

Approx 2 tablespoons of tomato puree

2 tablespoons of Henderson's relish

Approx 1.5 l of gluten free lamb stock (or just enough to cover meat and vegetables)

Salt and Pepper

1 tsp of ground coriander

1 tablespoon of cumin seeds

2 sprigs of rosemary

2 whole garlic cloves

1 whole chilli

1 tablespoon of smoked paprika

1 cup of rice

Method

1. Put everything apart from the rice into the slow cooker and put on high for the first hour, then turn to low.
2. Tip the rice into the slow cooked after about 3 hours and then cook on low for a further 6 hours, stirring occasionally.

I quite liked this lamb stew and it was a great way to use up the leftover lamb meat from my previous dish. There's always a way to use up your leftovers or make something out of a dish that didn't quite work out as planned. 

What are some of your ways to use up leftovers?

Steak, Chips, Coleslaw and BBQ Sauce

On a weekend we do enjoy a bit of a treat and for us enjoying a nice Sirloin Steak and Chips definitely falls into that category. You'd never guess that it wasn't me who did all of the shopping this week ;). I do appreciate it though, as I think it's just what I needed. 

We served it with French Fries, normally we would make wedges but we didn't fancy the fuss and so decided to use some frozen fries. If you're going to do this, please ensure that you check if they contain gluten, particularly if you're Celiac (I am not Celiac, so the effects aren't quite as bad on me) that they do not have gluten in them. I know McCains Oven Chips certify that they are gluten free, if you are in doubt. Some of their other fries and chips aren't though, so don't expect the whole range to be gluten free.

You can find the recipe for home made coleslaw in my Pulled Pork Recipe, we also used the BBQ Sauce from this recipe to serve alongside the steak.

If you are looking for some tips on how to cook steak, then please this site , as I think this gives some handy tips for cooking steak. We just seasoned the steaks, rubbed it in on both sides and cooked in a preheated frying pan according to how you like your steak. Please do remember to rest your steaks before serving.

What treats do you enjoy on a weekend?