I’ve been trying to get myself to write something fun about my first brunch tweet-up. I couldn’t.

I tried finding nice photos of that day to share instead of the writing. The ones I took weren’t good enough.

The brunch was too fun to capture in words, a couple of paragraphs and some photos.

To be honest, most of what happened that day can neither be shared publicly nor is funny when taken out of its context.

We had delicious food and lots of booze. But it was more important to be in the company of cool people and enjoy a great afternoon. We got together, laughed and shared stories. This, still, can’t be replaced by technology.

I won’t write stories about the brunch. I won’t give it justice. I’ll only say that activities with this group of tweeps will take place in the future. Drinks next week?

I guess I can talk more about the food. This is a food blog after all.
I spent the night before up till 3 am in the kitchen preparing Vegan Cupcakes with chocolate ganache on top, whipped honey, plain Peanut butter, honey Peanut butter and chocolate Peanut butter. The next morning I prepared rocca salad, my Mexican inspired salad and baked a quiche for the first time ever while Mike was making a fruity red wine Sangria that I only got to have a glass of before it was gone.

Our guests brought bread, a delicious and refreshing orange salad, mouthwatering totally non-vegan Cupcakes, and more booze.

A main attraction was Vegan labneh pies and curry soy meat pies that one of our friends made. No one believed Vegan labneh would be this good. Non-vegans bit their way through the whole amount before and after they knew it’s not animal milk based. The soy meat pies were flavorful and delicious too.

I kept in mind while preparing food to focus mainly on vegan recipes, first because it’s safer for Mike to eat, second, for our Vegan friend to share food with. Unfortunately, I haven’t heard of any Vegan quiche, but I tried making lactose free Spinach and mushrooms quiche. I know it might not sound like an authentic quiche, but when you want to make food that people with milk allergies can have you have to disregard that fact. It was pretty decent though.

Spinach and mushrooms lactose free quiche

Ingredients

For the crust (makes 2 crusts)

2 ½ cups flour
1 cup cold fat (butter, butter replacement, coconut oil..)
1 tbsp salt
6-8 tbsp cold water

For the filling

1 bag clean spinach
80 gm fresh white mushrooms (or just eyeball the amount)
1 onion
3 tbsp balsamic vinegar
5 eggs
½ cup milk of choice
Salt and pepper

Procedure

Pulse the fat, flour and salt in a food processor until you get a crumbly texture. Place in a container and with the back of a spoon (on fingers) apply pressure to get the dough together as you gradually add the tablespoons of water
When the dough comes together, shape to a ball on the counter top and cut in half
Form each half into a disk, wrap tightly with cling film and refrigerate for an hour. You’ll use one disk. Freeze the other
Remove from refrigerator and thaw at room temperature 15 min before using
In the meantime, prepare the filling. Slice the onion and mushrooms.
Cook the onion in a large skillet with some olive oil over medium low heat until they start to caramelize. Add salt, pepper and balsamic vinegar and leave for a couple more minutes
Start adding and tossing the spinach into the skillet gradually, waiting until they reduce in size. Once all is added, it’s time for the mushrooms. Cook until the mushrooms are halfway cooked and the spinach have wilted, around 10/15 min
Heat the oven to 180 degrees
Roll the thawed dough to fit a pie or spring form pan. Flip over the pan and set in place
Whisk the eggs with the milk (non-dairy) and add the liquids from the skillet and whisk well.
Arrange the filling inside the dough and pour the eggs over. Bake for 30 minutes or until the eggs set.

VARIATION: Instead of making the quiche in a pie pan, cut the dough in rounds and push them in a muffin pan and fill with the filling as mentioned above. Baking time differs.