This week, I am doing a mini celebratory dance. I am now officially the sole owner of my house. The place I have raised my son, the place I have most of my memories of my daughter and the place I have made into our home. I made our home a home. Myself and Alexander fill it with laughter, joy and love. A place that welcomes everyone with warm hearts and open arms. This home is now officially mine!

I had a LOT of help from my family, my very generous mother helped me secure my home and my incredible sister has gone guarantor on the house with me, so I do still need to sort a few things in order to be completely independant but this is a huge stepping stone and feel good moment.

For the last three years, this has been my goal. To be finacially independant of my ex husband and have security that being tied to him, did not offer. And now that I am here, I have kinda hit a wall and run out of steam. I thought I would be popping the champagne and celebrating but all I honestly feel like doing is sleeping. Isn’t it funny how things work out?

Anyway, in celebration of me feeling pretty incredible, I named my last savoury bake in honour of the three women in this family, myself, my mother and my sister. We are all pretty amazing, strong, independant and goddess like women in my opinion.

This quiche is packed with goodness and looks pretty too. And I half feel like a mighty goddess for getting this far so here is my Green Goddess Quiche.

 

GREEN GODDESS QUICHE

Quiche is such a versatile dish. You can make it in any shape of tin and with an unlimited combination of ingredients. But I find when I need a boost of green vegetables, this works a gem in making me feel healthy and the whole family are happy. I used a larger tin measuring 12 inches x 8 inches and 1 inch deep, but you can use a deeper smaller loose bottomed tin if you have that too.

• 1 quantity of shortcrust pastry
• 10 g butter and 1 tbsp plain flour for preparing the tin
• 1 tbsp olive oil, for frying
• 4 large spring onions, finely sliced
• 1 large garlic clove, crushed
• 2 large bunches of asparagus, about 250 g, 1 bunch for the filling, 1 for the topping
• 80 g fresh spinach leaves, sliced
• a large handful of fresh herbs, I used coriander, basil and thyme from my garden
• 6 large eggs
• 150 ml double cream
• 1 heavily heaped tsp Dijon mustard
• 50 g grated parmesan
• 150 g crumbly goats cheese
• salt and pepper

THE HOW

Pre heat the oven to 200 C (fan oven) and prepare your tin, by buttering or using non stick spray on the tin base and sides and using a tbsp of plain flour to dust it so the pastry doesn’t stick.

Roll the pastry out and line the tin, making sure the pastry is pushed into all the corners and edges.

On top of the pastry, line with baking paper and use baking beans to weigh it down. This is for the baking  blind.

Turn the oven down to 180 C and pop the tin into the hot oven for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, fry the garlic and spring onion in a pan. Chop 3 quarters of the asparagus into large pieces, saving some stalks for the top of the quiche. Add the asparagus to the frying pan, stir and cook for 2 minutes. Take off the heat and cool.

Remove the pastry from the oven and allow to cool.

In a large bowl, beat the eggs, cream, dijon mustard, salt and pepper.

Add the sliced spinach, chopped herbs and the contents of the frying pan. And mix well.

Pour the mix into the pastry case and top with the asparagus spears and dot the goats cheese over the top.

Pop back into the oven for 30-40 minutes. When the quiche has puffed up/risen all the way to the center and nicely browned on the top, it is then ready to remove from the oven. Allow to cool to room temp before use. If you slice it too soon when it is hot, it won’t have settled enough and will crumble.

Hope you guys love this dish as much as I do. It is perfet for a garden picnic at this time of year. We have it with a side of potatoes and green salad (for me) and for my son, I always have to bribe him with a big fat organic sausage. Some battles just aren’t worth it. If giving him a sausage means he eats the quiche, I will gladly do it.