Picnic food :)

A friend of ours made fairy bread1 She was in the photo but I wasn't sure how she'd feel about being on the net.

The weather turned out lovely for my birthday picnic yesterday. We thought it was going to rain a few times but the clouds passed and the sun came out. We sat under some bamboo.

I made mini quiches on Friday night to eat cold. I used the same recipe as I used last time. My family gave me this thing called a pie maker for my birthday - it's basically a sandwich press, but with a pie shape...it's awesome. As you can see, it makes quiches as well! I plan on making various small pies to freeze and take to work, to heat up like a regular 'four n twenties' type dealy.

They turned out brilliantly. This time I put a few blocks of frozen spinach in instead of zucchini.

We were terrorised by a water dragon...he liked Nadine best.

I made the Energising Protein Power Salad from Oh She Glows. So so good. I used pearl barley and black quinoa as my grains. I also added some baby spinach leaves for a bit of green, and some cherry tomatoes because I felt like it.

A friend brought some fairy bread and some egg mini quiches, which she and other friend ate, and other friend brought some tomato bruschetta with toasted olive bread and a green salad. We were too busy eating for me to take photos! I took these ones in the morning before we went.

It was a lovely lunch :) We walked around a bit of the gardens later, and ate cake once the rest of our meal went down.

Vegetable Quiche

Who says you can't have quiche as a vegan?

Well, not many since there are five million recipes for vegan quiche on the net, but whatever :)

I remember my mum's potato flan was a favourite, and this isn't a potato flan but it could be. I might get her recipe and give it a go. I got this recipe from Squirrel's New Vegetarian Cookbook. There used to be a restaurant (connected to the book) just up the road from my house but it apparently closed in 2006, which I am sad to discover. This 'Corn and Vegetable Flan' on page 60 of the book is the best one I've tried so far. It's definitely the closest in flavour and texture to a 'real' quiche thing made with eggs. Since I followed the recipe pretty much exactly I'd better not post the recipe :( However the ingredients are as follows: wholemeal shortcrust pastry, tofu, vegetable oil, soy sauce, onion, tomatoes (for top), 1 grated carrot and grated zucchini, frozen corn kernels. I also put in some garlic because I have trouble cooking without it!

This made a flan in a 9inch tart pan (or whatever is quite small – I couldn't find a ruler! Guessed) and served 4 (and could have served 6 if I cut the slices smaller and served potatoes or something on the side. It cost about $2.20 per serve (4) not including the side salad, which I took home after a barbecue at my dad's house.

It held together beautifully, and tasted even better the next day cold! The pastry was pretty fantastic too. I could get used to shortcrust pastry in my pies and tarts and things. I usually buy supermarket puff pastry because it well, puffs, but the white flour really gives me a belly ache. Perhaps this week I'll try a full pie with this pastry. (It's just your basic wholemeal shortcrust recipe – plain flour, salt, vegan margarine and water. I rolled it out between two sheets of baking paper because I accidentally made it too wet, but it worked fine.) Yum. Very good for summer dinners, lunches, breakfasts...:)