Easy smoked salmon and feta quiche

I’ve decided to participate in the Gourmet Garden Blog off/cook off challenge. What’s that you say? Well, Gourmet Garden sent bloggers who signed up a kit full of different herbs and spices to use in an original recipe. And then of course there are finalists, a cook off, and eventually, a winner. Obviously, I want to be the winner. But I’m sure everyone else who entered does too. Sigh.

Anyway, my recipe is smoked salmon and feta quiche. It has sun-dried tomatoes too, but I forgot to say that when I said the recipe name in the video, so I can’t really call it that in writing either. Yes, I’m awesome like that. Sigh. Even my sister in law who doesn’t like quiche likes this quiche. And she’s super picky. Don’t tell her I said that.

This is a good one for making ahead of time too as you can throw it in the oven to warm it up the next day and you’d never know it wasn’t freshly baked just then.

Ok, here is my very first cooking video. It’s a bit dark, but the lighting in our house (ahem, apartment) sucks, and the only time I can make a video without 2 rambunctious kids screaming for my attention is after they go to bed. At night. In the dark. And cold. Sigh.

SMOKED SALMON AND FETA QUICHE

-6 large eggs
-100ml milk (full cream or lite)
-1 cup grated cheese (tasty, cheddar, monterey jack or similar)
-200g feta cut in cubes (greek or danish, not the kind that smells like   sheep. Yes, some does smell like sheep. Smell some, you’ll know what I mean…)
-100-200g smoked salmon, cut up (amount depends on how salmon-ey you want it to taste. I used about 130 grams)
-8 sun-dried tomatoes, cut in quarters and drained on a paper towel (you can use semi-dried too as they are super delicious)
-Zest/rind of ½ a lemon
-Salt and pepper to taste
-1/2 to 1 tsp Gourmet Garden chunky garlic
-1 TBSP Gourmet Garden basil
-1 sheet puff pastry (if you are in the U.S. you can get puff pastry. It was hard to find when I was there, but I eventually found some at Walmart. Here is one you can get in the U.S.)

Method

1. Take puff pastry sheet out of freezer and put it on a baking paper lined pan (quiche pan, deep dish pie pan, or similar, this recipe is very forgiving!) to defrost while you prepare the quiche. Do not take the dividing sheet off, leave it on top of the pastry so it doesn’t dry out while you prepare the quiche. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius. That probably should have been it’s own step. Oh well.

2. Crack the 6 eggs into a large mixing bowl and stir with a fork until whites and yolks are incorporated together.

3. Add salt and pepper. Or not. Up to you. You know how you like stuff.

4. Add grated cheese and stir.

5. Add feta and stir. Cube size can vary, depending on how big you want it. I.E. if you really like feta, maybe you want big chunks. Maybe you prefer really small chunks, it doesn’t matter as long as it’s not one giant block.

6. Add salmon and stir.

7. Add garlic, basil, and lemon rind and stir.

8. Take dividing sheet off pastry. Press pastry sheet into dish. Fold corners towards the middle of the pie so they are not sticking up all weird. If you don’t they will burn. You’ve been warned.

9. Pour quiche mixture on top of pastry. If all the chunky bits are in the same area, distribute them as evenly as you can.

10. Put quiche pan on top of a cookie sheet (to make it easier to get in and out of the oven) and put into oven for 45 minutes to an hour until set. Cooking time depends on pan size and your particular oven. Check it after 45 minutes and if it’s still wobbly in the middle, put it back in for another 15.

That’s it! Enjoy! YYYYYYYYUUUUUUUUUMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Copyright 2012 Sheri Thomson

Portraits

In the U.S., you can hop on into Walmart or somewhere like that and pay $60 to get a whole package of kids portraits.  Not here.  Here you pay at least $70 to buy one 8×10.  But, I couldn’t resist when Little Masterpiece Studio  was in the area.  Probably because I used to work there.  I took so many portraits of little kids sitting with teddy bears, dressed as fairies, chefs, etc.  Now I want photos of my kids like that.

But as I said, the price of photos of here (in Australia…) is quite high, and we are saving for a house.  So, could you please please please click here to see the below photo on Little Masterpiece’s facebook page, and then click the ‘like’ button.  If Hannah and Daniel’s photo gets the most likes, I get a large photo for free.

And yes, that is a tie on Daniel’s shirt.  Adorable!  Thanks for making it Fiona!

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When I was a little porcupine. Wait, maybe It was a hedgehog….

People don’t really celebrate Halloween Down Under.  Ok, some do.  It’s definitely gaining popularity, but I’ve never once had any little zombies or fairies or the like come knocking on my door wanting a trick or a treat.  I will, however, be dressing Hannah up in her adorable little fairy outfit for the day.  I am American after all.  Plus I bought some candy corn from USA foods, along with 150 dum dum lollipops, so I’m all prepared.

But, I did grow up in the U.S. and I used to trick or treat every single year.  So here is a guest post by my Mom, for a little insight on me as a little tyke on Halloween.

Sheri Goes Trick-or-Treating

Yeah, that's me all right, and that readers, is the inside of a mobile home.

A long time ago in a country far away from where she lives now, Sheri went trick-or-treating for the first time.  We didn’t have a lot of money when the kids were small, so they never had store bought costumes.  Where money lacks, creativity reigns.  She was about 2 then, so one of her dad’s t-shirts pretty much covered her from neck to toe.  Add some brown material, felt feet, and a white t-shirt transformed into a pretty good hedge hog suit.

 

Her brother, Chris was always quite creative making his own costumes.  He dressed up as things most other kids never would have considered.  A bag of groceries, a TV set, and a museum all made appearances as his costumes over the years.  When he got older he made the simplest costume ever, a hooded sweatshirt, and some sunglasses – instant unibomber.

 

Sheri had some flashes of creativity of her own, though not in the same way as Chris.  Her and cousin Jennifer dressed up together as things like an enormous pair of underwear (complete with stains) or a giant pair of pants (with one girl in each leg.)

 

We lived out in the country, too far to walk from house to house.  Sure we could have gone into town like most people and walked through the neighborhoods there, but I didn’t want my kids getting their candy from random unknown strangers.  So we set out in the car and drove to the houses of people we knew in our area.

 

Many of them did not expect trick-or-treaters, especially that first year.  So they scrounged through their cupboards.  We may not have made it to as many houses as the people walking through town, but in addition to the usual fun-sized candy (and what is so fun about a half bite sized candy bar anyway?) they got full sized candy bars, hostess pies, pudding cups and that sort of thing.

 

In between houses, at least one kid had to sit in the back seat of the car, unseen in the dark by mom, who had to pay attention to the road.  Sheri’s first year trick-or-treating,  she sat in the back.  After making the rounds of all the people nearby that we knew we came home.  Chris got out of the car with a bag full of candy.  Sheri got out of the car with a bag of wrappers and a stomach ache.  Turned out she ate each thing she got between houses or on the way home.

 

Sadly she watched Chris eating candy for the next week or two while she had none.  She learned her lesson though, and never ate it all at once again.

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Dust storm

Time since birth: 12 weeks
Weight loss this week: 0, nada, zip, zilch:( (well, I gained weight last week and lost it this week bringing me back to exactly what I was last time I actually wrote the weight loss in the blog. I have started lifting weights again, so I’m going to tell myself that I gained some muscle then lost some fat…).
Total weight loss: 11.1kg

I looked at the clock. 5:56am. The baby monitor next to the bed was broadcasting Hannah’s “I’m waking up now” grunts/cries. Time to get up, baby’s hungry. There was a red glow coming from beyond the blinds. “What’s that saying? Red sky at night, sailors delight, red sky in the morning, sailors take warning. We’re in for a real storm today,” I thought to myself. I put on my pajama pants and bathrobe and went to Hannah’s room. “Mommy’s here Sweetie Pie,” I said, patting her belly. She gave me a huge good morning smile. I put her on her change mat to check her nappy. “What have you got in there this morning Bubba? Have you done a poo poo?” Cheeky grin. She has recently started doing a GIANT poo in the morning, and then either a couple of little poos through the day, or none at all (she used to do about 8 poos every day). I let her kick on her mat with her nappy off for about half an hour. She loves having her nappy off. “Ok Bubba, are you ready for your breakfast?”

7am. The eerie red glow from beyond the blinds was still there. I stuck my finger in the blinds and pulled down one of the slats (or whatever you call them). Red. Everything was red. It looked like Armageddon. Maybe there was a bushfire? No, not much bush in this area. Crazy intense sunrise? No, the sun should be up already. Cylons invasion? Probably not. End of the world? Possibly. The photographer came out in me and I grabbed my camera and went outside without a second thought. Not enough light. Better get the tripod. The smell of dirt filled the air. Even though I’d never been in a dust storm before, I knew that’s what it was as soon as I stepped outside.

After I took a few photos (not too many as I didn’t want to be breathing in all that dirt for very long), I went inside to watch the news. Turns out the dust travelled for something ridiculous like 1600km from the outback, turning Sydney into the twilight zone. By the end of the day, it had travelled all the way to far North Queensland. They said it is the worst dust storm in Sydney’s history. Aaron didn’t want to walk from the bus stop to work inhaling all that dust, so he was allowed to work from home that day.

After being cooped up inside all day, I decided I would get out and about the next day. I messaged the girls, and some of us met up for our very first Mum’s and Bub’s movie session. The cinema only charges $9 instead of $16 (or whatever ridiculous price movies are these days) for you to take your baby in a movie and disturb all the other patrons. No, the babies were all really good for the first 2 hours of the movie, they just got a bit restless for the last half hour.

I am happy to report that I have succeeded in my quest to get Hannah to drink a bottle. Well, I haven’t tried again since that fateful day, but I’m hoping it wasn’t just a one off. My boobs were so sore they woke me up at 6am, and Hannah had been asleep for nearly 11 hours. I pumped some milk, and decided this would be the perfect opportunity to get her to drink the bottle. She woke up after an 11 hour sleep (no, she doesn’t usually sleep for 11 hours straight. It’s usually 7-7.75, feed, then another 2-3) so ravenous, I don’t think she would have minded drinking milk out of toilet bowl.

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