Leek And Bacon Quiche

My leeks are ready! I love love love leeks! So, time to find some exciting new ways to cook them. Believe it or not, I’ve never made a quiche before. So I made a leek and bacon quiche tonight and it was so yummy I thought I should share it. 🙂

Some of my beets are getting pretty big so I harvested on of those as well to roast and serve with the quiche along with sweet potato, peas and carrots.

The photo doesn’t do it justice. It looked yummier than this.

Ingredients:
Frozen puff pastry
Butter
2 small leeks
6 short cut bacon rashes
parsley
1/2 cup grated tasty cheese
4 eggs
1/2 cup milk
pepper

Method:
Thaw out enough puff pastry to line your quiche tray. Pre-heat oven at 180 degrees celcius. Halve and thinly slice leeks. Chop bacon into 1cm squares. Line quiche tray with puff pastry, prick and put in the oven for 15 mins, until it starts to go golden. Melt butter in a fry pan and add leek and bacon. Cook for 10-15 mins, until leeks are soft. Once pastry is golden, allow to stand for 5-10 minutes, then transfer leek and bacon mix on top of pastry. Meanwhile, whisk eggs, milk and pepper in a jug. Sprinkle tasty cheese over leek and bacon mix, then pour egg mixture on top. Add parsley and bake at 180 degrees celcius for 30 mins. Serve with salad or vegies.

Yummy 🙂

The Next Crop (again)

I’ve just planted the next crop into vegetable box #1. I’m still amazed how quickly the soil level drops. Thankfully, after the last top up we had a couple of wheelbarrows of 5 way soil left (2 soils, 3 manures) so I didn’t have to buy more soil for this top up. From left to right: leeks, baby spinach, beetroot. I tried to plant the leeks in mounds because I’ve read that this promotes more white growth in the leek, but it didn’t really work. They just started falling over and I ended up pushing the mounds in anyway so they had a bit more solid ground to hold them up. Maybe they need to be bigger first? Or maybe I just needed to persevere a little more. I’ve never grown spinach before but I love baby spinach and use it heaps so I’m excited to see how they turn out. This is my third lot of beetroot. If you haven’t noticed from my previous posts, I love beetroot!

It’s tricky spreading pea straw over such small seedlings and not burying them with it. This layer is pretty thin so I’ll top it up when the seedlings are a bit bigger.

I’m still trying to adhere to my crop rotation. Because I seem to have to top up the soil a fair bit each time, plus I give the existing soil a good turn over, I’m not too worried about the details of which family should follow which to get the best nutrient composition of the soil (like planting legumes after brassicas to help replace the nitrogen). Plus, since I don’t have much space for my vegies, I’d prefer to plant the ones I want, rather than one that will help improve the soil. And guess what I noticed as I was turning the soil? I’ve got worms! Lots of them! Finally they came! Clever little wormy’s getting all the way to the top of the vegie boxes!

Question: when I’m turning the soil should I avoid mixing soil between areas that had different vegies in them? Will this just spread pests/diseases throughout my vegie box and defeat the purpose of crop rotation? (not that I’ve had any pests other than caterpillars this time ’round but they’re not exactly hanging out in the soil waiting for the next leafy vegetable).

Chicken, Leek And Mushroom Pies

 

Just made chicken, leek and mushroom pies with homegrown leeks, beans and carrots. It tasted soo good!

Ingredients:
4 chicken breasts
1 onion
3 leeks
3 tbs flour
8 button mushrooms
3 cups chicken stock
150ml cream
thyme
puff pastry

Preparation:

Brown chicken. Put to one side. Cook onion and leeks until soft. Add flour, stirring well. Add 2 cups of stock a little at a time. Return the chicken to the pan along with the mushrooms. Slowly add the 3rd cup of stock until desired consistency is reached. Add thyme and cream. Cook uncovered on medium heat for 10-15 mins. Spoon into ramekins (the mixture made 7 for me). Top with ready made puff pastry. Cook at 200 degrees celsius for 25 mins (190 degrees for fan forced ovens). Serve with your favourite veg. 🙂

More Leeky Goodness

My very clever partner made this leek and potato soup and it tastes amazing!! I don’t know if it’s because the leeks are home grown or if he’s just very skilled but it’s particularly special! I was worried that the leeks were still too young to make good soup as I’d read that fully grown leeks are best for soup and mine still looked quite small. I’ve still got 6 leeks growing so will see if we can make an even better soup when they’re more mature! Next year I’m going to try growing them in ‘hilled up’ soil as I have read that this helps achieve the maximum white section at the base. As always, will let you all know what works! Given this is my first year growing vegetables there’s lots of trial and error to come!

Leeks Are Ready!

After wondering if my leeks were too small to harvest, even though it’s 5 months since they were planted (see previous post), I took the plunge and harvested a couple of the bigger ones. They are delicious!

Made a leek and bacon pasta out of these 2 lovely leeks.

The sauce is just:

2 leeks (my small ones) sliced

5 rashers of short cut bacon sliced

button mushrooms sliced

garlic crushed

stir it all up with some basil pesto, milk (or cream but I’m trying to be healthy), and plain flour to thicken

top with parmesan cheese and fresh basil

I actually licked the saucepan! Yum yum yum!!

To Harvest Or Not To Harvest?

I’ve never grown leeks before and my gardening guide says to harvest them after 5 months. It’s been 5 months and this is what they look like. They still look quite small to me. Are they ready yet? I was thinking I’d just pull out a bigger one and try it but extra advice never goes astray. 🙂

Vegie box #2

From left to right: Garlic, bok choy, cos lettuce, beetroot, leeks.