This Christmas, like every other Christmas was a time for feasting. We’ve eaten and eaten well and the fridge is full of lovely leftovers we’re slowly working our way through. A return to normality beckons and those leftovers really needed using up, so for lunch today I made a batch of these lovely mini quiches using the remnants of the cheese board, some pickled walnuts and some stale bread. The result was quite delicious, very simple and as they are made from leftovers, they cost virtually nothing to throw together.

Mini Cheese & Pickled Walnut Quiches

Makes 12

Ingredients
6 slices of bread
Small knob of butter
3 spring onions
3 eggs
50g finely grated cheese
3 or 4 pickled walnuts
Salt & pepper

Method
Using a rolling pin, roll each slice of bread until it is flat like pastry, then using a cutter, cut out two circles in the bread, continue until you have 12 bread circles. Butter a bun tray and press a circle in to form your quiche base.

Finely slice your spring onions and gently fry in butter until they’re soft, this should only take a few minutes.

Beat three eggs in a bowl and season, add 40g of your finely grated cheese – I used a mature cheddar. Stir through your cooled spring onions.

Pour a dessert spoon of the egg mixture into each of the bread bases. Slice your pickled walnuts (no more than 5mm thick), place one slice on the top of your quiche and sprinkle with a pinch of the remaining cheese.

Bake at 190° for 10-15 minutes until puffed up and browning. Leave to cool for a few minutes and then serve with a lovely fresh salad.

These little cheese and pickled walnut quiches are really quite lovely. I made a batch and the boys gobbled them up in double quick time. They’d make excellent canapés or party food, or just a very lovely lunch. The pickled walnuts add a mouth watering extra pickley edge to the mini quiche.

I know swapping out the traditional shortcrust pastry for bread might be a little controversial, but it’s a great way of using bread which is nearing the end of its usefulness and it’s so much quicker than making pastry from scratch. Though if you are a determined traditionalist, this recipe would work just as well with pastry instead of bread.

I used a nice mature cheddar, but this would work with virtually any hard cheese of your choosing. I’ve a fancy to try them with some Stilton crumbled in which I think would be particularly excellent.

We used Opies Pickled Walnuts which are soft, yielding and an excellent accompaniment to cheese, and as it turns out, pretty nifty in a quiche too. These cheese and pickled walnut mini quiches are so easy to knock up from the remains of your festive cheeseboard, I promise you won’t regret using the last of your pickled walnuts on this recipe.

How do you use up your festive leftovers?