Yen Can Cook

Curry Puff Pastries

2014-11-17T16:16:00.000+08:00

Curry puffs are traditionally deep fried but I'm not a fan of deep frying so these are baked, it's alot healthier

Makes 12

Ingredients

2 medium potatoes

1 small onion

2 cloves of garlic

250g mince meat, I used pork

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 tablespoons oyster sauce

2 tablespoons curry powder

1 tablespoon chilli powder

1/4 cup hot water

3 sheets of puff pastry

Preheat oven to 200 degrees C

Line a baking tray with baking paper

Dice garlic and onion

Peel and cut potatoes into small pieces

Heat oil in a frypan and cook garlic, onion and mince.

Once mince is cooked add potatoes, oyster sauce, curry powder, chilli powder and water.

Mix and let cook until potatoes are soft and mixture is dry.

Let cool.

Cut each sheet of pastry into 4

Spoon mince mixture into centre of a square and fold pastry over to form a triangle

Press the edges together with your fingers or use a fork to press down to seal the edges. If the pastry is very dry add abit of water and press together.

Repeat another 11 times :)

Bake in the oven for 25 mins (fan forced)

My oven ISN'T fan forced so I have to take them out at 15 mins and rotate the tray. Then bake for further 10 mins.

So good when eaten HOT!

Pizza scrolls

2014-11-13T11:55:00.002+08:00

Ingredients

2 cups self raising sponge flour

45g butter (not margarine!)

3/4 cup milk

tomato paste or pizza paste

grated tasty cheese

diced ham

Preheat oven to 200 degrees

Line baking tray with baking paper

Sift flour and add butter, use fingers to rub butter into the flour until combined

Add milk and mix together

Knead dough on a floured surface

Roll out into a square

Add tomato paste, ham and cheese

Roll up and cut into scrolls

Arrange scrolls close together ensuring joins are turned inwards so they don't unravel.

Bake for 18 mins, take out and add more cheese on top.

Bake for another 2 minutes

Xoi Vo - Steamed Glutinous rice with yellow mung beans

2013-07-02T15:32:00.000+08:00

Xoi
1 cup split mung beans
2 cups glutinous rice
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons coconut milk

Peanut sugar
1 cup raw peanuts
1/2 cup white sugar

1) Wash the mung beans by rubbing between fingers and your palm. Discard that water then soak in new water overnight.
2) Do the same with the glutinous rice
3) Next day - Drain the mung beans and glutinous rice in separate colanders
4) Steam the mung beans for 30 minutes. Allow to cool on a plate then using a fork mash the beans.

5) Mix the glutinous rice, mashed mung beans and salt. Steam for 30 minutes

6) Lift the lid, run chopsticks or fork through the rice to mix and separate. Steam for a further 10 minutes.
7) Take off the steamer and add coconut milk and mix through. Let cool
8) To make the peanut sugar -roast, dry fry peanuts in a small frypan until brown. Let peanuts cool then crush with a mortar and pestle and add sugar.

9) To serve, spoon xoi into bowls, press down then turn over onto plates to recreate a dome shape. Add peanut sugar on top. I got 7 serves, but it all depends on the size of your bowls :)

Baked Snapper

2013-03-23T23:28:00.002+08:00

I actually forgot to take a photo of the finished product - silly me!

Ingredients
Snapper approx 500g scaled and cleaned
3 stalks of spring onion
one piece of ginger (add as much as you like!)
bunch of coriander (again as much as you like)

Sauce
1/3 cup water
1/3 cup light soy sauce
1.5 tablespoons shaoxing wine ( can be found in asian grocery store)
2 tablespoons caster sugar
Chilli (optional)

Preheat oven to 200 degrees
1) Chop up spring onion, coriander and ginger
2) Cut slits in the fish and put ginger into each slit. Fill inside of the fish with as much spring onion and ginger as will fit (shown in photo)
3) Bake in oven for 25 mins
4) Mix all the sauce ingredients in a saucepan and bring to the boil. I actually added all the left over spring onion and ginger that didn't fit in the fish into the sauce as well.
5) Once fish is cooked take out of oven, add coriander on top and pour boiling sauce over the top.
Serve with rice!

Peach & Custard Tart

2013-03-18T09:43:00.001+08:00

I'm addicted to reality cooking shows and they are always making tarts for desserts so I wanted to give it a go. My main challenge for myself was to bake a short crust tart from scratch.I got the pastry recipe from MKR website for a Pistachio and Almond Tart but I wanted a custard filling for my tart. So here is my recipe

INGREDIENTS
Pastry
225g plain flour
50g caster sugar
1/2 tsp salt
180g butter (at room temperature - so take out 30 minutes beforehand) I microwaved mine - not good!
1 egg yolk

1 egg white to brush pastry

Custard filling
8 tbsp custard powder
3 tbsp caster sugar
750mls whole milk

2 x 410g canned of sliced peaches

Pastry
1. Preheat oven to 180C. Grease a 23cm round tart tin with removable base.
2. To make pastry, process flour, sugar, salt and butter to form crumbs. Add egg yolk. Process to combine. Form pastry into a disc and cover in cling film. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
3. Roll out pastry between two sheets of baking paper to line base and side of prepared tin. Ease pastry into tin. Refrigerate for 30 minutes. Prick base all over (don't pierce through the pastry -only lightly on top)
Line with baking paper and fill with pastry weights.

4. Bake for 20 minutes. Remover paper and weights. Bake for a further 10 minutes. Turn off oven

5. Take out and brush with egg white to seal the pastry (so filling won't make it soggy later)

6. Place back in oven for 5 minutes to seal the egg white onto the pastry. Take out and let cool

Like I said, this was my first attempt at making a tart. When it came out of the oven I was so disappointed, it was too brown (but not quite burnt) around the edges and it was cracked abit on the bottom and actually I wasn't even sure if the bottom was cooked properly! But I soldiered on with the rest of it.

Custart filling
I found a recipe for custard from scratch but after reading it I decided to just buy custard powder haha
I bought Foster Clarks vanilla custard powder (I'm sure all other brands would be just as good). I wanted my custard very thick and needed it to fill my tart case so I used 8 tbs custard powder, 3 tbs sugar & 750mls milk. Follow directions on the packet to make the custard.

I made the tart case and custard the night before (it was for my birthday the next day)

Once the custard was cooled down abit (not boiling) I put it into a container and placed a piece of cling film/glad wrap directly on top of the custard to prevent a crust forming on the top. I let it cool down completely then put the lid on the container and put it in the fridge.
I covered the tart case with glad wrap and left in out on the kitchen counter.

The next day, I was still worried the custard would soak through the bottom pastry so I warmed up some apricot jam in the microwave ( 2 tablespoons) and then brushed the jam on top of the pastry to form another layer (the first being the eggwhite). I then let it sit for for an hour for the jam to dry

Assemble the tart
Fill the tart case with the custard and smooth the top

Open the cans of peach, strain the juices and assemble the peach slices on top! It looks pretty in the shape of a flower but when you cut it you have to cut through several slices of peaches and it falls apart. So next time I will assemble the peach slices the other way.

How did it taste? I thought it was great! The short crust pastry was cooked and crumbly and the custard and peach went well together.
I put the leftovers in the fridge and ate it the next day. The custard had NOT made the pastry bottom soggy, woohoo! So the eggwhite and jam had done it's job yay!

So actually I can make this and assemble it and leave it in the fridge to eat the next day!

Mini Ham & Corn Muffins

2013-03-13T13:21:00.001+08:00

With 2 toddlers I'm always looking for kid friendly recipes.
I based my recipe on this recipe Ham and Corn mini muffin
but I pretty much changed it all because I wanted more ham, cheese and corn in my muffins haha

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups self raising sponge flour
1/4 cup milk
1 egg , lightly beaten
200g diced ham
2 cups grated tasty cheese
1 can creamed corn 400g

1) Preheat oven to 190degrees
2) Grease muffin trays. This recipe made 24 mini and 6 large muffins
3) Sift flour, add egg, milk and creamed corn. Mix
4) Add ham and cheese. Mix
5) Spoon out into muffin trays
6) Bake for 20 minutes

Vietnamese Banana Cake

2013-02-22T21:50:00.001+08:00

Ingredients

400mls coconut milk
10 slices of white bread
4 tablespoons condensed milk
6 medium ripe bananas
2 tablespoons white sugar
pinch of salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 eggs

Method
1) Preheat oven to 200 degrees C
2) Cut up bananas and mix with white sugar - set aside
3) Beat eggs, add coconut milk, vanilla essence, condensed milk and the pinch of salt
4) Cut crust off bread and tear into small pieces
5) Mix bread with coconut mix and banana
6) Line baking dish with baking paper and spray sides with cooking oil
6) Put mixture into baking dish
7) Bake for 40 mins - not a minute longer as the sides will burn
8) Brush the top of the cake with butter and grill top to make golden brown.Set the grill on medium heat!
9) Let cool in the tin, remove once cooled but not before!
10) Refrigerate

Salmon Quiche

2013-02-22T19:16:00.000+08:00

Ingredients
1 sheet of puff pastry
5 eggs
2 stalks spring onion
1 cup of frozen peas,corn and carrot mix
2 cups light tasty cheese (grated)
1 can pink salmon 415g
some coriander - depending on your taste
1/2 cup hi-lo milk

Method
1) Preheat oven to 200 degrees C
2) Cut up spring onion and coriander.
3) Boil frozen peas, corn and carrot and drain
4) Beat eggs, add spring onion, coriander, peas, corn and carrot, cheese, salmon and milk. Mix thoroughly.
5) Line baking dish with puff pasty. I used a round 19cm diameter 5cm deep dish
6)Pour in quiche mixture and bake for 45 mins

Nem Nuong, Makes 34 skewers

2012-01-27T00:21:00.006+08:00

Ingredients
1.5kg pork mince
2 large onions
4 tablespoons fried red onion
1 packet bot nem nuong
1/2 cup of grounded roasted rice

1)Dice the onions
2)Use the food processer to mince the fresh onions and fried onions into the meat, do it in 2 batches.
3)Add the bot nem nuong and roasted rice and mix through using your hands
4)Use a teaspoon to measure and roll out balls.
5)Place in a container and put them in the freezer for an hour. This will make it easier to skewer them. Once they are slightly frozen, take it out of the freezer and skewer them...put back into the freezer

Or skewer the meat and grill immediately

Spicy Vinegar Chicken Drumsticks

2012-01-25T16:31:00.008+08:00

14 chicken drumsticks

Marinate chicken with following-
1 tbs brown sugar
1 tbs salt
1 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp dried oregano leaves
½ brown onion, finely chopped
1 tbs minced garlic

Put these ingredients in a saucepan and bring to the boil
1 cup brown sugar
250ml malt vinegar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp chilli powder - omit if serving kids because it makes it quite hot
2 tbs tomato sauce
2 tbs mustard
3 stalks of spring onion
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp mustard powder
1 orange, peeled rind
1 diced tomato

Marinate the chicken for afew hours.
Preheat oven to 200 degrees
Boil up the sauce ingredients
Line a baking tray with baking paper and bake the chicken for 10 minutes, then take it out, remove the baking paper and pour the sauce on top.
Bake for 20 minutes
Turn off the oven, turn the chicken pieces over and put back in the oven for a further 10 minutes

Sultana Scones

2011-09-01T23:00:00.002+08:00

I made some scones tonight, I used the recipe from Master Chef for
Date and Lemon Scones however I changed it to make sultana ones :)

Ingredients
300mls hi-lo milk
300mls Bulla thickened cream
2 eggs
6 cups self raising sponge flour
2 tablespoons brown sugar
3 cups sultanas

Makes 24
1) Preheat oven to 200 degrees
2) Beat eggs, add milk and cream
3) Sift in flour, add sugar and sultanas
4) Press dough out to 2cm-thick. Cut scones from dough and place onto tray. Press dough together gently and repeat using the remaining dough. Brush the tops with milk
5) Bake for 20 mins

Yen's Easy Quiche

2011-08-26T14:57:00.008+08:00

I just bought a 25cm/10 inche quiche pan and wanted to test it out so I decided to make quiche today.
I googled many quiche recipes.I didn't want to dice, chop or grate anything so I bought everything already diced, chopped and grated! It's always abit more expensive but the time saved is well worth it.
And again, I took a recipe from Taste.com called Impossible Quiche and changed it to suit me.
It doesn't look that great but it tastes good. I didn't add salt because I thought the cheese and ham would be salty enough and I was making it for my toddler to eat too :)

Ingredients-
Heinz chopped spinach 250g( frozen)
4 eggs
1 1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup self raising wholemeal flour
250 diced dorsogna ham from deli department at Woolworths
2 cups of grated tasty cheese

1) Preheat oven to 220 degrees celcius for electric non-fan forced oven or 200 degrees for gas fan forced oven.
2) Defrost spinach in the microwave and then strain spinach through a sieve to get rid of all the excess water.
3) Beat the eggs, add the milk and sift the flour into the mixture and mix through thoroughly.
4) Microwave the ham on medium for a minute to heat it up and add to mixture.
5) Add spinach and cheese
6)Pour into the quiche tin and bake for 50 minutes.

Note: This mixture filled the quiche tin exactly right to the brim...keep this in mind if changing or adding other ingredients.
I might add red capsicum next time to add colour.
Might try adding another vegetable and taking out 1/2 cup milk ie only using 1 cup of milk

Chicken and Mushroom Casserole

2011-07-15T21:49:00.002+08:00

I was googling 30 minute meals on www.taste.com.au and came across a recipe for Speedy Chicken and Mushroom casserole.
And my verdict, it took much longer than 30 minutes! I think they don't count cleaning, chopping and cutting up time in these type of recipes!
But it was delicious! I changed it as I always do with recipes I find so here's my recipe.

Ingredients
400g chicken thigh
1 medium onion
4 rashers of bacon
400g whole champignons (next time buy the sliced ones to save time)
handful of fresh mushrooms
1/4 bunch of brocolli
1/4 cup wholemeal flour
1 tablespoon mustard
1.5 cup chicken stock
1/2 cup bulla thickened cream

1) Cut up chicken, brocolli, mushrooms, onion and bacon.
2) Heat up some oil in a frypan and add chicken, onion and bacon. Stir until all is cooked
3)Add mushroom (fresh and canned) and brocolli, stir until both are soft. Turn down to a low heat
4)Add mustard and sift in flour
5)Stir in stock gradually
6)Add cream and stir, increase heat (but not boiling) and stir so everything is heated through and hot
7)Serve! I had mine tonight with bread, my husband had it with rice...and I think it would go wonderfully with pasta too!

My husband said it tastes like carbonara...it does! Call it a casserole or a carbonara, either way, I'm making it again for sure!

Chicken Burgers

2011-04-30T22:32:00.004+08:00

This isn't a recipe...just a reminder I can buy this from Woolworths and I can make this when I'm too busy to cook anything else! :)

Satay Chicken

2011-04-30T20:07:00.003+08:00

I could have sworn that I already posted about this satay sauce before but I couldn't find my post so here it is again.
Sometimes it's just too hard to cook from scratch, who's got the time these days? With a demanding toddler, I definately don't!
Hence the reason for my lack of blogging these days.
But I really must get back to it, simply to remind myself of the different things I can make for dinner.

Anyways...

Ingredients
250 ml can of Ayam Satay Sauce - it says hot but actually it's NOT hot at all but rather it's SWEET!
165 mls of coconut milk
1 medium capsium
1 chicken breast
1 medium carrot
300mls water
1 tablespoon fishsauce

1) Cut up ingredients
2) Boil the water in a frypan, throw in the carrots and chicken and let boil until chicken is cooked
3) Add capsicum, satay sauce, coconut milk and fishsauce

Next time, add some peanut butter for a more ''satay'' taste.
This sauce is sweet and that's why I added the fish sauce. It's not really ''authentic'' but good enough for a quick satay meal :)

Japanese Tofu with Pork

2011-03-23T22:33:00.002+08:00

Ingredients
400g pork mince
2 rolls of Japanese tofu
1 small diced onion
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons kecap manis
2 teaspoons chicken stock powder
1 teaspoon minced garlic
3 tablespoons cornflour + 50mls cold water

1) Fry pork mince with onion until pork is brown and cooked in a large frypan
2) Add boiling water to cover the mince then add garlic, soy sauce, kecap manis and chicken stock powder. Bring to the boil.
3) Mix cornflour and cold water then add to the mince, this will make the sauce thick. Turn heat to lowest heat
4) Remove tofu from packaging and boil in water in a saucepan for 10 minutes..the tofu is very soft and may break so turn heat down if it does.
5) Remove tofu from water, slice and then add to the mince sauce. Don't mix through as the tofu will break...just spoon the mince sauce over it.
Serve with rice!

Agar Dessert

2011-01-14T21:41:00.000+08:00

This jelly dessert is so easy to make.
You can buy a variety of different agar jelly mix packets from any asian grocery store. I used this packet and just followed the instructions on the back

1) Empty the entire contents of packet in 3 cups water in a saucepan and bring to the boil.

2) Pour into a shallow container and let it set. This agar jelly sets at room temperature ie no need to set in fridge, however it's best eaten cold so after it sets I put it into the fridge to cool

3) Once cold, cut around the edge and remove from container

4) Cut into small cubes

5) Serve with tinned fruit salad mix..it's really delicious and super easy!

Taco Rice

2010-09-23T22:33:00.006+08:00

When I was in Japan I had taco rice, at the time I thought it was a strange dish to have in a Japanese restaurant.I thought maybe a Mexican person had gone to Japan and was dying for tacos but couldn't find taco shells so ate his taco mince with rice instead haha
And actually it's kind of what happened, I wikipedia-ed it hahaha

Anyways, I did actually make tacos the other night but didn't have time to take photos of it (the tacos)
I had HEAPS of left over taco mince, but no taco shells left, so I decided to make taco rice the next day.
I don't really have a recipe as such. The taco mince was made with seasoning from an Old El Paso Taco pack. I'm sure you can find it in any supermarket.
So here's how I made Taco Rice
1) Rice!

2) Lettuce

3) Diced Tomatoes

4) Cucumber

5) Pork taco mince made with taco seasoning

My plate was absolutely MASSIVE! I couldn't finish it, but it was delicious..and something different :)

Cooking On Saturday

2010-09-11T12:22:00.009+08:00

I spent most of my day cooking, I had run out of home made baby food so I spent all morning making baby food for my little one. But before I started...I made bacon and eggs with soy & linseed toast for breakfast, washed down with a decaf coffee :)

My equipment of choice for making baby food is the Avent combined Steamer/Blender. It steams the food (as below) and then you flip it upside down to puree the food. Love it! My only complaint is that it's small so I did 3 batches this morning.

Ingredients
1 diced carrot
1/4 diced cauliflower

Steam for 15 mins and then puree.

Freeze or serve immediately :)
Note : it makes approx 18 tablespoons...measured by my baby food freezer tray cubes

And then for dinner I made Bun Bo Xao

Honey Soy Chicken Wings

2010-09-09T20:29:00.000+08:00

My fridge was completely bare this morning and I was wondering what to cook. So I opened the freezer and found 1kg of chicken wings. Time to bake some wings!
Honey soy chicken wings..hmmmm wonder what the ingredients are haha

Ingredients
1kg chicken wings
1/4 cup dark soy sauce
1/4 cup honey

1) I marinated the wings for an hour but the longer the better!

2) Bake in oven at 200 degrees celsius for 40 minutes turning once...but please check your wings at 30 mins..cos my oven is electric and OLD, I think it always takes longer in my oven!

Satay Beef

2010-08-23T23:06:00.004+08:00

I LURVE satay but could never find a good satay recipe. I flicked through some of my cookbooks and combined afew ingredients here and there and came up with this one. It was quite good..please try and let me know if you agree :)

Ingredients

350g beef

1/2 onion

1 stalk celery

1 medium red capsicum

2 small hot chillies

1 teaspoon tumeric

1 teaspoon cummin

1/4 cup crunchy peanut butter

1/4 cup sweet chilli sauce

270mls coconut milk

1 tablespoon fish sauce

1 tablespoon cornflour + water

1) Cut up beef and vegetables
2) Stir fry beef and onions until cooked and add celery and capsicum.
3) Add coconut milk, chillies, tumeric, cummin, peanut butter, fish sauce and chilli sauce.
4) Bring to the boil and then lower heat to a simmer
5) Combine cornflour and abit of water in a small bowl and then add to the satay stirring constantly, this will heap thicken the sauce.
6) Serve with rice

Afternoon Tea for 8 Adults & 3 Children

2010-08-08T18:13:00.008+08:00

Wow it's been a LONG time since I've blogged. That's what happens when you have a baby. No time to cook!
But it was Hubby's birthday this week so I organised afternoon tea with his bestfriends. I chose afternoon tea because I wouldn't have to actually "cook'' anything.

I made 5 ham, cheese & tomato toasted sandwiches which I cut into halves.

7 chicken, avocado and mayonaise sandwiches on white bread. I bought a roast chicken and shredded it.

I bought crackers and smoked salmon dip

I bought these awesome petite cakes from The Cake Factory. Assortment of 25 for $27.50

I bought 18 mini quiche lorraines

I bought 12 chicken and corn party pies..these were yum

And one of our friends brought strawberries

There were leftovers but it's always best to have too much food than not enough food. I would make the same quantities again for 8 guests

Vietnamese Meatballs Si Mai

2009-12-29T22:34:00.013+08:00

Vietnamese meatballs eaten with crusty bread is the best!
I remembered that I hadn't eaten these in AGES and so I asked mum for the recipe today. I changed it slightly and I must say it tasted really good hehe

Meatballs (makes 34)
1kg lean pork mince
1/2 cup diced spring onion
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
2 beaten eggs
2 tablespoons sift cornflour
afew drizzles of sesame oil (approx 6)

Sauce
1 diced medium onion
1 diced tomato
2 cups water
2/3 cups tomato sauce
2 teaspoons hoisin sauce
2 teaspoons sweet chilli sauce
2 tablespoons cornflour and some water to mix

1) Make the meatballs by combining all the ingredients. Roll into balls, I used a tablespoon measure to measure out the amount of each meatball-so they are all about the same size.

2) Steam meatballs for 30 minutes

3) Heat some olive oil and brown onions, add tomato and stirfry til soft. Add water, tomato sauce, hoisin sauce and chilli sauce. Bring to the boil and then add the meatballs. Simmer on a low heat for 10 minutes.

4) Mix the cornflour with some cold water and add to the sauce, this will thicken it and make it even more yum! :)

5) Serve with bread, you can dip or make a meatball roll...either way its deeelicious!

Ok..I made these again and here's an update. I couldn't be bothered taking the steamer out so I decided to roll the balls and boil them instead, so the ingredients and quantities of the ingredients have changed

Meatballs (makes 35)
1kg lean pork mince
1/2 cup diced spring onion
1/4 cup fish sauce
1 teaspoon pepper
2 beaten eggs
2 tablespoons sifted cornflour
afew drizzles of sesame oil (approx 6)
1/2 cup baby peas

Sauce
2 diced medium onion
2 diced tomato
1.7L boiling water
1 cup tomato sauce
1/4 cup hoisin sauce
1/4 cup chilli sauce
1/4cup fish sauce
4 tablespoons cornflour and some water to mix

Prepare meatballs as per above but then put them straight into a large pot, pour boiling water into the pot and bring to the boil, wait until you can see the meatballs are cooked before stiring them up. Takes about 10-15 minutes for them to fully cook
Add ''sauce'' ingredients, stir and simmer for a further 10 mins.

Yummo

For Family dinner I made 36 (1.5kg) pork meatballs and 26 (1kg) chicken meatballs. It was more than enough for dinner plus leftovers. Served with 1 packet of vermicelli noodles and 12 round breadrolls. I think majority liked eating with the noodles :)

Apple & Sultana Mini Pies

2009-12-12T22:12:00.008+08:00

Ingredients
3 large Granny Smith apples (approx 6 cups diced)
1 cup sultanas
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/3 cup sugar
1 cup water
3 sheets of puff pastry (25% reduced fat)
2 tablespoons of icing sugar

1) Dice apples into small pieces. The photo below shows one diced apple.

2) Throw all the ingredients (except pastry & icing sugar!) into a saucepan and bring to the boil, reduce heat to medium and stir ingredients together until apples are cooked.

3) Let mixture cool and refrigerate overnight.

4) Preheat oven to 190 degrees celcius (fan forced oven)
Use olive oil to grease the muffin moulds. Cut up circles out of the puff pastry and press into the moulds.

5) Spoon apple and sultana mixture into the pies.

6) Roll the remainder of pastry out (wastage from cutting out the circles) and cut into small strips. Layer across the top of each pie.

7) Bake for 30 minutes. Take them out and let cool on a rack

8) Dust with icing sugar

ENJOY!

Little Bacon and Mushroom Quiches

2009-11-26T12:07:00.020+08:00

I love quiches and wanted to make my own low fat ones. ..you certainly can't find low fat quiches anywhere at the supermarket!
I googled mini quiches but all the recipes were for the tiny ones that use the mini-muffin trays..I wanted to make ones that use the normal muffin tray.
So I bought a whole bunch of ingredients and experimented with amounts of ingredients..as you can see I started with 1/2 cup milk and 3 eggs..this wasn't enough and hence I added more.
You can see the size of mushrooms I used..I cut up all 4 and it was way too much..so 2 was enough..but you can see what I mean by medium sized mushrooms. And again the spring onion in the photo was way too much..so I only needed 2 stalks

So here is the recipe that I came up with to make 12 muffin sized quiches..not mini but 'little quiches'

Ingredients
5 eggs
1 cup Hi-Lo Milk
1 cup grated low fat cheese (approx 100grams)
1/2 cup diced mushrooms (2 medium sized mushrooms)
2 stalks of diced spring onion (use the green part only)
2 rashers of bacon
3 sheets of puff pastry (25% reduced fat)

I'm pregnant, so to make sure all germs/listeria is killed off completely I microwaved the bacon for 2 minutes on high -put bacon in between 2 paper towels to absorb fat.
For non-pregnant people - you don't have to do this :)

Preheat Oven to 200 degrees celsius

1) Cut up the bacon, mushrooms and spring onions, and grate the cheese (pls don't cut the cheese hahaha)

2) We use 25% less fat pastry

I had to experiment with the size of the circles to cut out and finally found a small bowl that was the perfect size for my muffin tray. Each sheet of pastry should give you 4 circles of pastry as per below.

3) Lightly grease each mould with olive oil so the pastry doesn't stick. I just used a brush but you can use a spray if you have it.
Gently press the pastry circles into the moulds. Don't press down too hard, we don't want them sticking to the tray (even though it's non-stick and greased - you never know what could happen)

4) Fill with spring onion

and mushroom

and bacon

and cheese

5) Beat the eggs, add the milk and beat some more til the eggs and milk is mixed thoroughly. Spoon egg/milk mixture into each mould evenly. I used a round soup spoon to do this, each quiche had 5 spoonfuls.
Tip: To make them look pretty, add afew pieces of bacon and spring onion on top
I took the photo below before doing this...

6) I baked for 30 minutes on 200 degrees, then reduced the heat to 180 degrees for a further 15 minutes. So total baking time is 45 minutes...
But please note, my oven is electric and not fan forced. I would suggest if you have gas and fan forced, bake for 30 minutes and check them before baking them further..my oven isn't so good :)
7) Take out of the oven, let them cool for 10 minutes in the tray then remove from tray and let cool on a rack...
This recipe does make 12...I ate one before I took the photo below hahaha

It is alot of effort to make these, next time I'll make 24 in one go. I'll freeze half of them :)

Because I'm an accountant I like to know how much it cost me...here's the cost for 12

Bacon $1.60, Cheese $1.38, Spring Onion $0.20, Mushroom $0.60, Eggs $1.50, Pastry $2.50, Milk $0.40. Total Cost = $8.18

Each Little Quiche costs 70 cents!!! That's pretty good for home made low fat quiches ;)

I'm happy with that hehe