Weekend Eats 14 - Colds, Chocolates and Quiche

*Sneeze*

That photo says a lot about the weekend, there are stinky colds afoot. The lovely Glutenite got progressively worse as the weekend went on and Lemsip didn't seem to be helping, so I took my usual natural remedy approach and added a huge tablespoon of Manuka Honey to his last mug last night. Sure enough he was vastly improved by this morning.

Though Lemsips are gluten free (all but the Lemsip Max All In One Wild Berry and Hot Orange) they don't agree with me. I caved from my natural approach last year whilst suffering from flu and it made me beyond woozy, I don't like woozy. I'll stick to my hippy dippy approach thank you very much, hence the Jakemans Honey and Lemon Menthol sweets pictured above. The cold hasn't fully got me.

Fighting off a cold which inevitably turns into flu for me is hard work. I got a pressie to help me through.

A Huge Box Of Chocolates To Aid The Fight

I love Thorntons chocolates and though not all are suitable the Classic Collection and Continental are the two that I know of to list no gluten containing ingredients. They both have a range of white, milk and dark chocolates and I haven't been a pig. Yet.

3 Days In

I wish Thorntons would make one of these the size of an apple:

It Looks Like A Planet

It's the Hazelnut Praline and my personal fave. Yes one of these the size of an apple would potentially involve a sugary come down from hell but I've had worse food aftermath experiences. Excluding the obvious, the habenero experiments. Ugh.

If you're a regular reader then you will be aware of my big plate quest. I tried everywhere, I just wanted 2 big plates to serve smoked poussins and all the trimmings. Nothing. I shopped at Asda on Friday, a supermarket that I rarely ever go to, I found substitutes!

Big Plate Trays!

They worked a treat, no gravy or anything over the side of the plate/tray, first time ever! I also got some cool Halloween stuff that I plan on using for a post a bit nearer the time. You may notice that there's a brief shopping list in the photo, those were the ingredients I needed to make the quiche that I mentioned in Thursdays post. I made it.

Quiche With Crust!

Bacon, Onion, Tomato and Emmenthal Quiche

I've made countless quiches over the years, with crust pre-gluten free and crustless of late. I make a mean quiche crust or no crust, it's one of those meals that I know will turn out fantastic with little effort on my part.

After I experimented with the rice flour and discovered that I actually could bake, we decided to have a traditional quiche with a gluten free crust. I was a little daunted about making the crust but I was pretty happy with the texture once it was a dough. Everything else, pffft, I've got it covered. Or so I thought.

Just Out Of The Oven

I Was Salivating

Nice looking quiche, right? One of the best looking ones I've made, if not the best. I was feeling pretty pleased with myself, the crust looked just how I'd hoped, the filling, well, my quiche filling is always a triumph. I thought, ah, great recipe post for sometime next week.

I served it up and immediately went for the crust, it was a great texture, firm but buttery and soft, I wouldn't have thought it was gluten free had I not made it. I was so pleased with myself! Then I went for the filling.

The filling, the one that I have down pat and have made countless times, never measuring the ingredients, always going by eye. It. Was. Vile. VILE!

The egg and cream filling was light and fluffy as always, but the flavour? There was none. It was an absolute disaster masking itself as a rather attractive meal. With hindsight, I under seasoned considerably. I've been wary of my heavy handed approach to seasoning since I served up pork belly strips that had been marinated without a key ingredient (honey), making it far too salty. It's stupid that I've taken this approach because I missed an ingredient (moving brain of sog), I didn't over season, I'm going back to being heavy handed because never once had it failed me.

So yeah, I've nailed the gluten free quiche crust (there will be a recipe at some stage when I'm over the trauma of my bad quiche) but the rest was an abomination :(

In other news, this appeared in our bath during the weekend:

Don't Mention The Tap Shadows!

And Floofy Persian might be a Werecat:

Meeeeoooooowwwwlllllllllllll

Just a another weekend at the Free From G abode!

More tomorrow...