Spicy Spinach-Red Pepper Quiche, Thai-style Green Apple Salad, Bhajis with Coriander Chutney

 Photo by Bavani D.

During my time away from this blog, I have been experimenting in the kitchen (thankfully my family and friends are willing food tasters) and had a whale of a time creating my own take on recipes I found in cookbooks and vegetarian/vegan websites. 

Today, I had my friends Bavani and Yvonne over for a late morning brunch.  I'm not a morning person, but my love of quiche got me bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 7am. For the main course, I served a spicy spinach-red pepper quiche, with a Thai-style green apple saladBBC's Good Food recipe). The second side dish was eggplant and onion bhajis with coriander chutney (my mum's creations). To wash all that rich food down, we had a cold mint drink (also my mum's recipe). For dessert, we had freshly cut mangoes. (I adapted it from

I must confess that the mangoes were a last resort (the original plan was to serve chocolate pudding cake with an orange marmalade sauce on the side, but the chocolate pudding cake didn't quite turn out *blush*). I've fixed the recipe and am giving it another go tomorrow.

I'm the sort of person who enjoys cooking for herself, I like to treat myself to a nice lunch or dinner during the weekends, with good music in the background. Cooking for friends and family is a whole different level. It's hard to beat the satisfaction of seeing their faces lighting up when they 'connect' with the food and enjoy the whole dining experience. It's the same when friends or family cook for me, it's a lot more personalised than going out to eat at a restaurant (if you don't mind the washing up afterwards!).