from Riz

I thought I'd better add the recipe, considering I posted the pic on my blog!

You'll need:
175g butter, melted
100g icing sugar (I'd run out, so used raw sugar, powdered with my kitchen whiz thingy)
100g ground almonds
75g plain flour
5 egg whites
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 cup coarsely chopped fresh strawberries
Extra chopped strawberries for garnishing

Method:
Preheat oven to 200°C, grease friand moulds or muffin cups. (You can see from the pic, that I used some of each.)

Put icing sugar, ground almonds and flour in a mixing bowl. Blend well with a wooden spoon. Add egg whites and vanilla and mix lightly.

Pour in melted butter. Mix until well-blended. (I stuffed this bit up and added the melted butter before the egg whites and vanilla - I don't think it made a difference - they were still delicious!)

Stir in strawberries and spoon mixture into moulds, up to 2/3 full. Scatter more pieces of strawberry over the top for decoration.

Bake in preheated oven for 25 minutes or until the tops are firm to the touch. Allow to stand for 5 minutes before removing from moulds to a wire rack to cool. Dust with icing sugar if desired. (I didn't.)

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I had this at a cafe once and it was so good I asked for the recipe.

What you'll need:
1 packet of pastry mix (yep - I'm lazy)
about half a small packet of sesame seeds
a pinch of nutmeg
1 large or a couple of small sweet potatos (the orange ones - also called kumera)
a bunch of fresh baby spinach (or packet of frozen spinach)
a block of fetta cheese (the Danish or Bulgarian fetta works well - use a creamy one)
1 onion
2 eggs
about a cup of light thickened cream
salt and ground black pepper to taste

What to do:
Peel the sweet potato and cut it into small chunks. Put it in the oven to bake until soft.

While the sweet potato is cooking, add the sesame seeds and nutmeg to the dry pastry mix and follow the directions on the packet. Roll out the pastry and let it sit (cos it shrinks a bit).

Chop the onion and fry in a little oil until soft and golden.

Beat the eggs, add the cream, salt and pepper and cooked onion.

Lightly grease a quiche or flan dish and line it with the pastry. Over the base, arrange a thin layer of spinach. Add the cooked sweet potato and small blocks of fetta.

Pour the egg/cream/onion mix over the top.

Bake in a hottish oven for about 20 minutes. If the crust looks done but the filling isn't set, turn the temperature down a little and let it keep cooking.

The top should be a golden-brown colour when it's done.

This is just as good cold as it is hot. The amount usually makes one large and one small quiche. It freezes well, too (although there's very rarely any left to keep!).

Enjoy :*)

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