I love Quiche days, when a gathering of leftovers from the ‘fridge turns, with the addition of a few home-grown fresh eggs, into a gastronomic delight (or what passes for such in these ‘ere parts.) There is a Parmesan pastry chilling in the ‘fridge already and I’ll be blind baking the case shortly, before deciding just what combination of flavours to add to the custard. We shall have a jacket potato and some winter salad with the quiche and thus one of my all-time favourite lunch combinations.
Roll on 1pm – I feel peckish already! Ah, that will be because I forgot to have my breakfast yet… excuse me, I will be back.
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Today, I shall be mainly:
- staring gloomily out at the rain
- blocking my Icing
- not casting on a new project
- finishing plying the orange single that I began work on yesterday
Spinning yesterday was quite good fun. The Heritage Centre was a bit crowded with seven spinners, our host, visitors and a roaming photographer — all this, plus cake! It was good to see some faces that I had not seen in a while, and we had a new-to-me spinner too. Negativity levels were non-existent, so that was a relief, but I still find coping with that many people and so much chatter to be a stress. I was weary yesterday afternoon.
The cake was a bit iffy – absolutely delicious but not a good texture; it had failed to rise and turned out dense and claggy. I shall work on it. It should have been OK – I have made similar cakes many times with success. It was based on Nigella’s Store Cupboard Chocolate and Orange Cake (see the Domestic Goddess book), which deploys a jar of marmalade in its manufacture. She has a muffin recipe that uses fruit jam and that works well too. I have to deduce that my change of tin size/shape was at fault. Anyway, this time I used a jar of my favourite Mackay’s Spiced Ginger Preserve – fantastic on toast, fabulous spread with Philadelphia cream cheese, and now – deeeelicious in chocolate cake! There was a secret added ingredient too, but I doubt that it caused the failure – I added a tablespoon of Brandy cooking gel.
Whatever – so fab was the taste sensation that it must surely be tried again, and this time in the recommended tin size methinks.
While I was out to breakfast I got on with the ‘fridge-delving and made a filling for my quiche – red pepper (slightly wrinkled), onion and mushroom (beginning to fade) – made creamy with the bottom end of a tub of creme fraiche and some Port Salut (drying at the edges) and sharpened by some Wensleydale (green parts removed.)
I feel both frugal and creative 🙂
Yum…that sound delicious. And you’d better be glad for the time difference (and, you know, that pesky ocean) or else you’d have someone lingering on the doorstep around lunch time!