It is again that time of the year when, no matter where you are looking, all you can see are hearts! Chocolate hearts, gift boxes, cakes, cookies...everything shouts out loud I LOVE YOU!
Isn't that sweet???
Personally I am not too much into Valentine's day, but I do like to receive a small gift just as a small reminder.
I also like to make a nice dinner for my better half on Valentine's day, generally I cook something slightly fancy, special. However recently I have received many requests from people asking for easy/quick recipes to whip up for Valentine's, without braking the bank!
So here I came up with the idea of making 2 different starters (both shaped like a heart), using pretty much the same ingredients. A smart way to save some money but still impress your guests!
So let's make mini-heart-shaped quiche and vol-au-vents, shall we?
Ingredients:
For the mini- quiche!
Grab your puff pastry and let it sit on your kitchen counter until completely thawed
Take the mushrooms
wash them and slice them up
In a skillet heat up one clove of garlic with 2 tbsp of oil
add the mushrooms, season with salt and pour in the red wine
Cook uncovered on medium-high for about 15 min. Add the chopped parsley and set aside.
Now take the fresh spinach
Wash them and cut them up
In a skillet heat up 1 tbsp of oil with 1 tbsp of butter
Add the spinach and stir well, season with salt, pepper and minced garlic
Set aside
then chop them up finely
In a bowl combine the egg, salt, pepper, 1 tbsp of parmesan cheese and the heavy cream. Beat up all the ingredients together for 1-2 minutes
Grab one of this cute heart shape pan
Roll out the puff pastry sheet, and cut it out into 2 big hearts. Place one into the pan, pressing well around the edges
then place the chopped emmental cheese, mushrooms, spinach
then pour in half of the egg mixture, fold the edges
and bake at 180 C for about 20 min
Repeat one more time to make the second quiche.
Here you can see that one of my quich has a green color while the other does not, Why? I have deliberately done it to show you what are the differences you can get based on which order you lay the ingredients into your quiche. IN the first one I place:
1. cheese
2. mushrooms
3. spinach
4. egg mixture
thus the green color on top
In the second one I put:
1. cheese
2. spinach
3. mushrooms
4. egg mixture
thus the whitish color
Now on to the heart-shaped vol-au-vents! Roll out the second disc of puff pastry and using cookie cutters, cut out hearts.
Now take 3 of the hearts brush one with the egg-milk wash, then using a smaller cookie cutter, cut off the center of the other 2 hearts, brush them with the wash and place them on top of the first heart.
Bake at 200 C for about 15-20 min or until the hearts are nice and buff and got a nice golden color. Remove from the oven and let them cool down.
Meanwhile prepare the filling. In your blender put the sauteed spinach with the mascarpone cheese and a tbsp of grated Parmesan cheese
and blend until you get a nice, smooth cream
Place the cream into a pasty bag and fill up the center of your vol-au-vents then decorate with a few slices of mushrooms.
Serve immediately!
There you go you have 2 starters using exactly the same ingredients!
Love
- LittleDani