As I become more deeply attuned to the alchemy of Slimming World, I’m building quite a repertoire of tricks; Pizzas made with a bashed-to-stretch-it-thin chicken breast in place of dough, Ferrero Rocher recreated with a crushed up Ryvita and a dollop of nutella.
And my absolute favourite, for all the wrong reasons. The Pastryless Quiche.
Now, I like quiche as much as the next girl. We’ve come a long way in the past ten years, and the quiche world has seriously upped its game so that it’s rare now that I come across a soggy one.
And then Slimming World comes along and moves the goalposts. Takes them off the field altogether, actually.
The fact is that I like quiche because I like pastry. I love pastry. In my darkest afternoons of extreme mathematics and wrestling with quarterly returns, it’s pastry that I turn to for comfort.
But in a moment of lapsed concentration, I found myself agreeing to give it a go and report back.
So. Eggs, obviously, cottage cheese for flavour and lots of super free veg for virtue. All whisked together with a healthy extra bit of real cheese sprinkled on top. Then in the oven for half an hour or so and Voila! The Pastryless Quiche in all of its glory.
And we play this peculiar game. Like four year olds at a backyard tea party pretending that the water in the toy cups is tea.
We pretend that this weird thing we’re eating really does taste every bit as good as a Pizza Hut pizza, or a luxury chocolate worthy of the Ambassador’s Reception. Or, in this case, a crisp-bottomed, perfect snack-fix, full-of-tastiness quiche. When in fact we’re tucking into a stone cold omelette with some slightly curdled cheese trickling away from it.
And we know – surely we all know – that we’re fooling no-one. Not even ourselves.
But we share the joke, and laugh along with ourselves and each other for creating these funny little work-arounds that wouldn’t ever exist anywhere other than Slimming World.
Sometimes, the daftest bits are those that are the most charming.
Scan Bran Curly Wurly cake, anyone?
I’ve done more than a few of those weird work-arounds myself on a low carb diet. Stir Fried grated cauliflower actually makes a decent fried rice substitute. And add enough cream cheese to steamed whipped cauliflower and you can almost convince yourself that it’s better than mashed potatoes! 🙂
Beth, I’m laughing out loud at your stir fried grated cauliflower. This is just the sort of trick that we love on Slimming World!
I love quiche! I think I may even be able to do it without the pastry because, as you mentioned, it’s come a long way. The right flavors together…mmmmm!
I like the idea of the grated cauliflower and maybe using it as a mashed potato sub. Great idea!
I have always felt like a fritata was a crustless quiche. Sorry yours didn’t work out.
This was too funny, or sad? I’m def apart of the Slimming World. I don’t want to be apart of any longer than a year from now but I’m here. Stopping in from SITS and glad I did.
I have had the mashed cauliflower and it tasted nothing like potatoes, sorry to burst anyone’s bubble. It was def like a tea party .)
Thanks for stopping by! I’m trying to get Mike to try the cauliflower thing so I can review it. It sounds so funny!
I have just set up a blog where I am going to try and write about my SW dinners. I really agree with you – the word ‘yum’ cannot be used on scanbran cake – no way nop sir not in anyones universe! I try and use ordinary recipes that i love and make them more SW friendly but sometimes you just got to have the real thing! Well done for pointing it out!
Also I won’t say ‘syn’ and I hate it when people talk about being ‘good’ – mind you saying that I have lost 2.5 stone so I can be very positive about SW as well……
Hi Deb – I’ve had to take the links out of your post as they weren’t working. I’d love to see your site, so if you see this do pop them back up and we’ll give it another try.
Thanks for visiting!