Quiche and tea!

So I cooked a quiche for my Boyfriend. I was wondering what to make him for the last week! He doesn't really understand why I went to so much effort, I tried to explain to him about how its like the Asian form of love, to feed someone you like, adore, care for, love. You are essentially feeding them an extension of the emotion you feel for them, in palpable form. He told me he had cooked meals for other people so he knew the pressure! He obviously didn't!

I had been thinking about this all day! I knew he loved pesto, salmon and thyme and would eat basically everything but parsnips, banana and pumpkin. How could I even combine this in ONE DISH. I could make a pesto crusted salmon, baked, fried, cooked in foil, en papillote? A pesto sauce maybe, would it be just plain pesto? A creamy drizzle of pesto in cream? A vinegarette? My creamy pesto and smoked/flaked salmon pasta? A salmon and pesto sandwich? Salmon cakes with a pesto sauce? A salmon and pesto pizza? I wanted to make him something that would make him think, holy fucking shit, my girlfriend can cook.

My life is terrible

My life is super hard though, cause the guy has like no pantry staples! What on earth was I going to do with, and this is the entire contents of his pantry; rice, white tea, tasty cheese, a loaf of white bread, full cream milk, butter, lettuce, Vegemite, pasta, a can of tuna, tomato sauce, bean sprouts, a carrot, fish sauce, soy sauce, tortilla wraps and four onions? He also had 5 eggs, SR/plain flour, brown sugar, white sugar, peanut butter and chocolate chips that I had bought him the last time I came over! No herbs! No spices! He didn't even have salt or garlic! I didn't realise this until I started cooking!

Basically what I felt like when I found out

Do you know what else he had that doesn't make any sense? He has a mini blow torch! HE HAS A MINI BLOW TORCH. THAT IS SO FUCKING SPECIFIC, YOU ONLY USE IT FOR LIKE CREME BRULEE TOPS. I DON'T EVEN UNDERSTAND. HOW CAN YOU HAVE A MINI BLOW TORCH AND NOT HAVE SALT OR GARLIC IN YOUR PANTRY. ITS MAKING ME MAD JUST THINKING ABOUT IT.

This thing, but not salt or garlic?

Anyway, I decided on making just a quiche to use up the eggs that I had made him buy for me for cookies. He told me he never eats eggs so it'd be a good way to get rid of them. We went to the Jan Power Markets that day so I picked up a bag of baby spinach and thyme, mushrooms. We also stopped by at Coles to pick up some cream, a pre-made pie/flan base since I wasn't sure if there was a pie tin in his communal kitchen, some parmesan cheese and some terrible ham chunks.

Basic Quiche.

Quichey.

Uses: centrifuge for left over kitchen scraps. Easy cool lunch/dinner option for spring. Making sure your boyfriend eats well for the next few days.

Basic quiche ingredients:
4-6 eggs
100ml thin cream
100-200g grated parmesan cheese
100-200g grated tasty cheese
Salt and pepper to taste
Short crust pastry, pre made or your own recipe

Ingredients I used:
100-200g baby spinach
200g diced ham
200g sliced mushrooms
3-4 sprigs of thyme
1 large brown onion

Other ingredient ideas:
Feta, roasted capsicum, smoked salmon, cherry tomatoes, dill, sour cream, garlic, ricotta, bacon, pancetta

Various junk:
Pie tin

Instructions:
1. Prep all your ingredients. Strip off the thyme leaves. Wash your spinach. Grate your cheeses. Slice heat your mushrooms. Dice your onions.

Everyone should know what an onion looks like

Woah baby spinach and Boyfriend's huge thumb!

GET OUT ALL THE INGREDIENTS

Poorly shredded thyme

A few mushrooms!

My Boyfriend grated some cheese for me!

2. Preheat your oven to 180C and blind bake your pastry for 10 minutes so that the pastry gets nice and crunchy. Put aside and allow to cool
3. Saute your onions until a medium golden brown. Throw in your spinach, mushrooms and thyme until wilted. Put aside and allow to cool.

You must be THIS golden to proceed.

Disgusting . . .ly delicious!

4. In a large bowl, whisk your eggs until fluffy and bubbly and throw in your cream and cheeses until well combined.

Omg its so fluffy, I'm gonna die.

5. Arrange ham on the bottom of the pastry, spread spinach, thyme and mushroom mixture on top and pour egg mixture on top of that. No picture cause it looked disgusting according to my Boyfriend. The egg will rise. If anything is leftover, make another quiche or an omelette.

Orrrrr make an omelette?

6. Bake in the oven for 30 minutes or until golden brown and set. Test with a skewer, it should come out clean like a cake. Allow to cool before serving. My Boyfriend had eaten the entire thing in two days.

At the same time we also had some . . .

WOOO TEA!

Bursting Osmanthus tea! Its a special type of tea known as a blooming/flowering tea, where tea leaves are tightly wrapped around a dried flower. When hot water is poured on top of this, they slowly unfurl and infuse into the hot water and become a normal tea. The majority of the appeal is in the visual and aroma, much like your first Spider drink where the ice cream and soda foam all over the place. I think a large part of the appeal, is that even though tea is a great finisher to meals, a flowering tea is even better as it sits centre stage and everyone slowly watches as it unfurls into a gorgeous flower.

As per the back of the packet

I bought this from the T2 chain of shops, a super cute tea shop that is a hit with every woman I've ever bought to it. From the free samples, to the tea pots, accessories and universally super friendly staff, most young women my age have been to T2 I think. It cost $5 and I bought it earlier when I went to Yum Cha with LGS, L., and NZ-A.

I decided to bring this to my Boyfriend's house when I went over there and we actually had it after dinner. He volunteered to do all the dishes in his share house including our own, as I have a bit of OCD when it comes to doing a job. This is even though he hates washing the dishes, but he did it because I cooked everything and he loves me hahahaha.

I was being a terrible girlfriend and had actually retreated into his room to play games when I realised he had an empty 1.5L iced tea bottle in his room and the box of osmanthus tea in my bag. I rushed outside just as he was finishing up rinsing all the plates and began making the tea.

Looks like an alien egg or something

These are some other pictures that I took after. I poured some cold water on top of the blossom and shook the bottle a little and it was much, much prettier. Too bad the warped plastic on the bottle distorted the image. It was really quite pretty. There was a dark greenish osmanthus flower at the bottom with three red ball like flowers attached on a silken red thread on the top. The flavour was nothing spectacular though, despite the length of time we seeped it, overnight, it was still quite mild without that terrible, cheap green astringency you sometimes get with poor quality teas.

ooooh.

Ahhhh!

Purdy.

Its been a while in posts cause I've been out with my Boyfriend so much! That just means lots more posts to catch up on :)! It was his birthday recently and pretty much ate and walked around Brisbane all day.