Wow, what a Summer! Minimum 30 degrees C heat waves, sun, sun and SUN. Even though I normally love the warm time of the year, I guess this last heat wave just made me realise that I am not made for this kind of weather. I was staying more inside the house than out and dearly wished we would have included some Brazilian standards when building our house: air condition! Well, we did not. However, on the upside: I came to appreciate an area of our house that so far was treated as the “step child” – the cellar. What a paradise! Cooling tiles underneath your feet, reviving chilled air around you. I even didn’t mind the occasional spider crawling by ;–) If it hadn’t been such a big deal to disassemble our bed, carry it down 2 floors and set it back up in the cellar, I suppose I would have even slept there ;–)

It didn’t really come as a surprise then, that I was over the moon last Sunday morning, when I opened the window: a refreshing breeze was blowing sleep out of my face and all I could see were thick, fluffy towers of white and grey clouds covering the sky and mountain tops. And beautiful big drops of RAIN, rain, rain :–D Never expected that one day it would be pouring rain giving me a happy morning, rather than sunshine ;–)

My 2-year-old boy seemed to think along the same lines, as I opened the door to the patio a little while later. He ran out barefoot in his pyjamas, hands held up high to catch the rain, turning in circles with a big grin on his face. Once he saw the puddle, there was no holding back: jumping up and down with a mighty shout of joy! Only then did he realise that the rain actually made him wet. Which is something completely undesirable in his opinion. That, and the call for breakfast finally persuaded him to come back inside, somewhat slowed down by trying to take off his soaking pyjamas while simultaneously walking and complaining. So funny! So cute! Those are the moments to remember… :–)

As we finally had less than 29 degrees inside the house, I thought I would even feel ok again to cook something nice for my family. Because now, with “normal” room temperature I imagined that I could easily survive the heat added to the kitchen by a turned on stove or oven ;–) That was sheer impossible before, which meant a week of salads, sandwiches and eating out. Now back to kitchen business :–D

This time I have a version of a French classic for you: Quiche.

As you know that healthy food is goal here, my version includes somewhat different ingredients than your average quiche. Nevertheless it does taste amazing :–D The crust is based on curd cheese, virgin olive oil and whole spelt flour contrary to butter and white flour. The filling is free of heavy cream and instead contains white beans, cottage cheese and a bit of milk. Spinach (or Swiss chard) fits wonderfully in this recipe along with garlic and spring onions. A little feta, herbs and almond flakes turn it all into a moment of delight :–)

I imagine that buckwheat flour would work well as a glutenfree sub, however I haven’t tried it yet. Let me know the result, if you do! :–)

There we go – happy baking!

Ingredients:

Crust:

• 150 g curd cheese
• 30 g virgin olive oil
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 180 g whole spelt flour

Filling:

• 200 g fresh spinach or Swiss chard greens
• 1 clove garlic (or more to taste) minced or finely chopped
• 240 g white beans cooked
• 1 spring onion
• 155 g cottage cheese
• 60 g milk
• 80 g feta
• 1 tbsp fresh chopped (lemon-) thyme (plus some extra springs for decoration)
• handful flaked almonds (use sunflower seeds instead if nuts are an issue)
• 1/8 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Starting with the crust, grab a medium sized bowl and add curd cheese, olive oil and salt. Mix it well until smooth.
2. Mix in the flour. At some point now, you will want to use your hands in order to knead it all into a smooth round piece of dough. Back in the bowl, cover it and let it rest approx. 15 minutes in the fridge.
3. In the meantime, prepare your baking tin. This recipe is meant for a 25 cm diameter tin. Lightly grease it and set aside. Preheat your oven to 190°C top-bottom heat.
4. With a rolling pin, on a floured surface (or between 2 sheets of baking paper) roll dough into a circular shape big enough to cover bottom and sides of your baking tin. Carefully transfer the dough to your tin and press it in gently. Trim off protruding sides if necessary. Pierce with a fork in several places (to enable release of expanding air thereby keeping the dough bubble free.
5. In the oven it goes to pre-bake for approx. 15 minutes.
6. Wash and spin-dry your spinach/Swiss chard greens (or leave to drain in a sieve) and roughly chop them. Clean and cut the spring onion into slices.
7. In a medium sized bowl (or your kitchen processor) add milk, beans, garlic, nutmeg, salt and pepper. Using an immersion blender (or your kitchen processor) blend in a few spots, for about half of the beans to become creamy, while the rest should stay intact.
8. Stir in cottage cheese, (lemon) thyme and your greens and check if you might need to adjust the seasoning.
9. Once the crust came out of the oven, add the filling and distribute the spring onion slices on top, as well as the almond flakes. Finally crumble the feta all over and transfer it back to the oven for approx. 40 minutes, until the feta and almonds on top have browned. Enjoy!