My First Homemade Quiche

The other day I made my first ever homemade quiche, as I wanted to try something new and I've been making and eating a lot of meaty dishes lately, such as pie and fajitas etc, so I decided to do something vegetarian. There are so many different kinds of quiches you can make: Quiche Lorraine, spinach, cheese and onion etc. I decided to do one with tomato and broccoli since that's what I had in the fridge and I didn't want to spend money on meat. It was really delicious and turned out pretty well for the first time I've done a quiche. As with the previous pies I've made, I used ready made pastry for the base, but you can make your own of course. One day I'll try a recipe with homemade pastry, but that's for another time.

Most quiche recipes call for blind baking the pastry before adding the filling (baking the pasty by itself weighed down with baking beans). I didn't do this and it still turned out delicious and just like a normal quiche. The crust was cooked through, both at the sides and the bottom. It was a little softer on the bottom  but still fully cooked, and I prefer the pastry to be a little soft anyway so it was perfect. If you'd prefer to blind bake it, go right ahead and do it for about 20 minutes before adding the filling. You can use this recipe to make any kind of quiche, just replace the tomatoes and broccoli with your desired toppings.

Ingredients:

500 g puff pastry
5 eggs
100 ml milk
200 ml double cream
250 g of cheese grated (you can use any cheese you like, I used Swedish Herrgård)
100 g tomatoes chopped
200 g broccoli chopped

1. Mix together the eggs, milk, cream and about half of the cheese in a bowl.
2. Grease a 9 inch tray and spread the pastry over it, pressing it onto the bottom and the sides to form a crust. Use a fork and prick the bottom of the pastry all over. This helps it to cook. Sprinkle half of the remaining cheese into the bottom of the crust and spread it out.
3. Add the tomatoes and broccoli (or whatever filling you want) to the bottom of the crust and spread it out. Now pour in the milk, cream and egg mixture.

4. Put the pie in the oven at around 160 C for 30-40 minutes until the crust is browned and the filling has solidified but is still soft in the middle.
5. Leave it to cool for a few minutes and then enjoy!

There you go. Its nutritious, filling and should feed at least 4 people. What are your favourite quiche recipes? Comment below if you have any suggestions. Thanks for reading :)

Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

So I thought I'd share with you a chocolate chip cookie recipe that I've been using quite a lot lately. Its the first cookie recipe that I've used that's actually worked really well, which I'm very happy about. Often when you make cookies they turn out too cakey or too hard, but these ones always turn out perfect. I've made this recipe three times now and each time the cookies have turned out slightly different, I'm not sure why, but the last time I made them was definitely the best so I'll use the same exact measurements I used then. They turned out nice and thick and soft but still cookie tasting.

Ingredients:

225 grams plain flour
170 grams sugar
200 grams unsalted butter
2 tablespoons vanilla sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 large egg
Roughly 50 grams of dark chocolate broken up into small pieces

1. Mix together the flour, sugar, vanilla sugar and baking powder together in a large bowl. Then add the butter and egg and mix well with a whisk or with your hands. I don't have a whisk so I use my hands (it's great to lick the dough off your fingers!) Finally, add the chocolate pieces and mix them in.

2. You can now chill the dough if you want, but I'm too impatient so I bake them straight away. Preheat the oven to 200 C and then spoon the cookie dough into small blobs onto a baking tray. Make sure to leave enough space as they will spread quite a lot. Then bake them for roughly 10 minutes. If you want them to be hard leave them in for longer, but I like them soft and chewy on the inside so the less time the better. The first time I left them in for around 14 minutes and they spread a lot more and became thin and looked more like cookies, however they were quite hard.

There you go. This recipe doesn't take very long, the cookies are delicious, and it's so easy, the only challenge will be not eating them all at once! Comment if you have any cookie recipes or cookie making tips you want to share. Now I have to go for a run, since I've eaten way too many of these today. Thanks for reading!

Bacon and Avocado Sandwich (Heaven)

Another week and more new food to try :) The other day I made bacon and avocado sandwiches as an after workout snack and it tastes so good! First I toasted some bread and lightly buttered it. Then I fried streaky bacon until very crispy and added 4 slices to the sandwich. Then I added half an avocado, mashed up, to each sandwich. Add a bit of ketchup if you want and then enjoy. The avocado and bacon really complement each other very well. Very simple and perfect for breakfast, lunch or just for a snack to keep you going :)

Thanks for reading and comment below if you have any other good ideas for bacon sandwiches, or good ideas for avocado recipes!

PS. I promise I'll post some fitness related posts soon. I've just been relaxing a lot lately since term finished recently, but I will get back into working out soon to get some inspiration.

Peppers Stuffed with Couscous Recipe

So the other day my girlfriend and I decided to make some peppers stuffed with couscous for dinner. We had it with salmon, but you can really have it with whatever you want. It's great for a starter or main course, it doesn't take long and it's pretty healthy too, so I can really recommend it. 

Ingredients:

2 large peppers (we used red peppers but you can use green or yellow if you prefer)

100 g of couscous

Handful of sundried tomatoes, chopped

Handful of black olives, chopped

2 large mushrooms, chopped into small pieces

200 ml of vegetable stock

1. Put the couscous into a bowl and add 150 ml of water. Stir it and then cover and leave for about 5 minutes until the couscous has absorbed all the water. 

2. Cut off the tops of the peppers and cut out all the white bits inside so its nicely hollowed out.

3. Fry the mushroom pieces for a few minutes until they're nice and soft.

4. Add the stock the to the couscous and stir it well.

5. Add the sundried tomatoes, olives and mushrooms to the couscous and stir.

6. Spoon the couscous mixture into the peppers until they are full and bake in the oven for about 15 minutes, until the peppers have cooked through.

7. Enjoy!

The couscous mixture turned out really well, but when we did it the peppers weren't so cooked, so if you want them really soft I would recommend microwaving them before adding the couscous. We prefer them a bit less cooked so we didn't bother. It was kinda awkward eating because the peppers were quite tall so cutting into them was a challenge. To get around this you can cut the peppers in half lengthways and fill them up this way. Nevertheless, it was a really nice dish that I'll definitely try again sometime. Comment if you have any suggestions for recipes for me to try! Thanks for reading.

Welcome to my Food and Fitness Frenzy Blog!

Welcome to my First Blog!

Hi there! Welcome to my Food and Fitness Frenzy. My name is Loic and this is my first ever blog. I don't have much experience with this stuff but I thought I'd give it a go, as it seems like it could be fun. I was motivated to start this blog by my girlfriend who also blogs. You can check her out here Mlle KarenAnne. This blog will feature recipes and tasty food stuff, as well as fitness info, workouts etc since these are two things that I am passionate about. I'm not an amazing cook, nor am I in amazing shape, but hopefully this blog will chronicle my journey to master chef and fitness god! Just kidding, but this should be fun :)

Before I start, a little background on myself. I'm from Kent, England, but I'm currently living in Stockholm, Sweden as I am studying for a masters in general management. I'm half French on my mother's side and my name is French in case you were wondering. 

Enough about me. Let's get straight into this! Here's a kickass recipe for steak pie that I tried out yesterday. It turned out really well so I'd recommend it. I've never made any kind of pie before so this was totally new to me. Here's the recipe:  

Ingredients:

Approx 1 kg of beef chopped

500 g puff pastry (you can make your own if you want but I used ready made pastry)

250 g carrots

2 onions (I used red onions)

2 garlic cloves

500 g of mushrooms

3 tbspoons of flour

A pinch of salt and pepper

3 tbspoons of olive oil

A knob of butter

300 ml beef stock

1 tbspoon of tomato puree

1 tbspoon of balsamic vinegar

Thyme

1. Put the chopped beef into a bag with the flour and a pinch of salt and pepper. Shake well.

2. Put half of the beef into a casserole with 1 tbspoon of olive oil and fry it on medium heat for about 10 minutes until its golden brown. Put the meat in a bowl and use some cold water to rinse out any remaining bits from the casserole and add to the meat.

3. Repeat this for the rest of the beef. If you want to make a small pie you can do it all in one go, but for a large pie you can't really cook the meat properly if you shove it all in together.

4. Chop the carrots, onions and garlic and add them to the casserole with 1 tbspoon of oil. Fry them for a few minutes until they start to soften. Then add all the beef to the casserole.

5. Add the stock, the puree, the balsamic vinegar and the thyme to the bowl. If necessary, add more water if the beef is not fully covered, as this keeps it from going dry. Now bring the stew to the boil and then cover and simmer on a low heat for about 45-60 minutes.

6. While this is cooking, chop the mushrooms and fry them with butter, salt and pepper for a few minutes until they turn golden brown. Add them to the stew when its done simmering.

7. Now for the pastry. First dust a large pie dish with some flour and then stretch out the pastry over the dish. Add the pie filling and then wrap the pastry over the top so it is completely covered.

8. Cut some holes in the top of the pie to let out steam and brush it over with a beaten egg.

9. Bake in the oven for 20-30 minutes until its golden brown.

There you have it! You can also add ale to this recipe if you want to make it a steak and ale pie. It was very tasty and I'll have to try it again with homemade pastry, but I thought I'd play it safe on my first go making pie. The only downside to this recipe is it takes several hours to make, so start early.

Comment if you have any pie making tips or any recipes of your own you wanna share. Hope you enjoyed reading!