Quiche. With tons of leeks.

In winter in Germany, you often get to buy leeks in 1 kg bundles. It was cheap, but I only needed one leek for a stir-fry. Every time I opened the fridge I was wondering: "What the hell should I do with all those leeks?!?" Then I remembered the Swiss cheesecake my mom used to make - it has tons of onions in it and I thought I should try and substitute the onions with leeks. It was a full success!

Though I really liked the dense leek flavor, but somehow missed the sweetness of the onions. I guess I will make it 50/50 the next time.

By the way, this is NOT suitable for people trying to loose weight! There's tons of cheese, eggs and bacon... On the other hand, it's quite low on carbs, if that is your thing.

The cake is easiest to cut on the next day (like any cheesecake), but I like it piping hot and straight from the oven.

Favorite kitchen helpers

Hi there,

been a while. Today I wanted to show you my favorite kitchen helpers:

From left to right:

• Blender: 25 years old Osterizer, but still works like new. I just ordered a new blade and can't wait to test it out. Basically, I use it for smoothies and chopping nuts etc.


• Kitchen Aid: brand new and I love it! Was my dream for many years... I had several other machines, but it's no fun if the thing starts to smell like burnt plastic if you run it for more than 10 minutes. But this one: runs forever. I also got several attachments as gifts from my parents, of which the ice cream maker is my favorite.


• Pestle and mortar: nothing beats homemade pesto! The thing weighs 6kg and is made of granite. And the pestle is a great ersatz ice crusher.


• Microwave: nothing beats the fast heat. Great to melt chocolate or to sauté onions if you can't be bothered with heating up a pan. Just chop the onion, but it in a bowl with a generous amount of butter and nuke it on high for 2 min.


• Henry: he's my cat, always there and always watching what I'm doing - he really is into cooking! He even stays when I cut onions, poor thing blinks because of the tears building up in his eyes. One crazy cat...

Mel