Party food part 1: Mini Quiche

Over the next few posts I will (finally!) be showing you some of the recipes I used for Little Miss' 1st birthday party when she had her mini friends over to play. These include mini quiches, green falafel, spinach and bean triangles and the sugar free cakes I made too.

As well as these we had houmous, cucumber, carrot, red pepper slices, mini breadsticks, mini rice cakes, melon, satsuma and dried apricots for the mini people as well as some naughty sugary cupcakes for the exhausted parents!

The feast for the little ones

Fuel for the parents (mint chocolate, caramel coconut, ginger & lemon and pistachio & rosewater)

Today's post will be about the mini quiches. The basis of the filling is tofu, non-dairy milk, nutmeg and turmeric. To this you can add the fillings you like. For me a quiche needs onion which I like to fry before it goes in the mixture. In ours we also put peas and curly kale. Previously, when we made a big quiche, we used red pepper and broccoli which resulted in a fantastic mixture of colours and tastes.

Any shortcrust savoury pastry recipe will work with this and I tried a few out. You could even buy ready made pastry if the thought of making your own scares you (but it really is not hard to do!).

Here is a pastry recipe that you could use:

225g plain flour

100g margarine

2.5 tablespoons of COLD water

(usually this would have salt added but I left this out for the sakes of the mini people)

Mix the flour an margarine together (really helps to have a machine) and then mix in the water so it comes together as a dough. If it doesn't come together, add a little more water. If it is really sticky (it should be more firm than sticky) then add a little more flour.

Grease a bun tin (what you would make fairy cakes in). Roll out the pastry on a floured surface with a floured rolling pin until it is a couple of mm thick. Cut out circles that will fit into the bun tin using pastry cutters and press into each depression. Put a little greaseproof paper onto the bottom of each one and then put a few baking beans onto this. Blind bake (i.e. without the filling) for 10 minutes in a preheated oven at 180 degrees celcius.

While these are baking you can prepare your filling.

Essential Ingredients:

400g block of firm tofu

1/3 cup soya milk

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp turmeric

Pepper to taste (salt too if you want to)

What I used as well:

1/2 large red onion, chopped

Cup of frozen peas

2 cups of curly kale

Fry any vegetables which you think need it. I did this to the onion and lightly fried the kale also. I would be inclined to fry or even roast red pepper to release that lovely flavour even more.

In a food processor, blend all the essential ingredients together. This doesn't have to be completely smooth (I like it a bit chunky). Then add the vegetables and blitz for a few seconds (but still to leave plenty of chunks).

Fill the pre-baked pastry shells with the filling (to the top). I froze some at this point. Bake for around 20 minutes until they start to brown and are piping hot all the way through.

I do think a bit of red pepper in these ones would have made them more visually appealing but they went down a storm with both the children and the parents and can be eaten hot or cold. 

JULES XOXO