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Courgette or zucchini quiche is delicious and I love a nice quiche especially during the summer, however short the British summer may be!

For this recipe you will need bottomless tart dishes.  Now in the past they were rather an expensive item but I found some good quality cheap ones from Sainsbury’s of all places, so do shop around.

Ingredients:

• 180g plain flour
• 2 large eggs beaten
• 70g margarine
• seasoning
• 2 large courgettes (aka zucchini)
• 120g hard cheese
• 60ml milk
• 30ml cream cheese (optional)
• 2 tsps oil for frying
• extra oil and flour to prepare the tart dishes
• 1small egg for egg wash

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 6 (about 200 oC) for 20 minutes.
2. Whilst the oven is heating up make up the pastry with the flour and margarine using the rubbing in method and set aside to rest in the fridge.
3. Whilst the pastry is resting prepare the courgettes; wash (and peel if necessary), and grate).
4. In a frying pan lightly fry the grated courgette with the oil. As the vegetable is grated you want to be careful it doesn’t ‘catch’ or go mushy, and then set aside.
5. Now take the pastry out of the fridge and roll it out onto a floured surface.  Cut out circles of pastry to fit the tart dishes (remember the sides of the dish too)
6. Take a piece of kitchen roll and use it to wipe on a little oil in each tart dish, and then sprinkle a little flour over.  This will help the tart not to stick.  I even do this with non-stick tart dishes!
7. Place the circles of pastry into the tart dishes.  Do not stress if the pastry breaks or you don’t have enough, just patch it up with another bit of pastry – if anyone asks say this is ‘rustic’ style!
8. Prick the pastry a few times with a fork and tightly line the dishes with tin foil.  Now bake the pastry blind in the oven for about 10 minutes.
9. After 10 minutes remove from the oven and carefully remove the foil.  Now beat the small egg and brush a little over the pastry and put back in the oven for 2-4 minutes and then remove from the oven again.  This will help to stop the pastry going soggy when the other ingredients are added.
10. Grate the cheese – you can use any hard cheese you like, I used a mix of cheddar and red Leicester.  Place the cheese in a bowl with the courgettes and the other ingredients and mix well.
11. Ladle in the mixture to the pastry dishes and put back in the oven (near the top but not right at the top) for 10-15 minutes.  After this time take them out and check to see if the mixture has set.  You want a slight wobble in the middle of the quiches.  If the quiches need more baking place some foil carefully over the top of them and bake for another 5-10 minutes or so.
12. Once the quiches are done take them out and allow to cool.  Once cool remove the quiches from the tart dishes (I just carefully place them on top of a jam jar and they just slide off)
13. You can eat your mini courgette quiches hot or cold, and they will freeze well too.  Enjoy!