Lactose-free ham and spinach quiche

My boyfriend is lactose intolerant. You can probably imagine that this occasionally makes cooking tricky. I'm not a big fan of food substitutes and fakes - "tofurkey" and mycoprotein dressed as lamb can go hang. Soy milk just doesn't taste right to me, and the texture always seems off when I cook with it.Fortunately, there's lactofree products. This is regular cow's milk, passed over what I assume will be lactase to remove and break down the lactose, rendering it largely safe. It works, and there's minimal impact on the taste. Their faux cheddar tastes a bit rubbery and bland, mind,  but I can't fault the milk, cream, or cream cheese.More importantly, this let me service a quiche craving and win moderate boyfriend points.It was a cobbled-together and very much from-memory recipe, but here it is. This isn't quite dairy-free, but for the intolerant rather than the outright allergic, it's probably fine. That said, I accept no responsibility, please don't sue me, and so on, and so forth.It's also surprisingly quick and easy.

A quick note on the recipe

There is a great recipe in Silver Spoon for a taleggio and rocket "pie". It uses about 500g of cream cheese, a block of taleggio, and is basically a savoury baked cheesecake. It is bloody marvelous. It is also the closest thing to a quiche recipe I could remember when out shopping. So I cribbed from it, and reduced the cream cheese.It turns out a traditional quiche would just use eggs and cream, but I'm glad I did it this way. There was about the same weight of cream cheese as you'd expect cream, so the overall volume was probably low. A splash of liquid will fx this, though you may prefer the heavier texture.

Ingredients:

• Pastry (I made my own: 1:2 lactose-free pseudo butter to flour, salt, a splash of water, and oregano)
• A pack of Lactofree cream cheese
• 2 eggs
• A little water
• Spinach
• Onions
• Pancetta

I got paranoid and used 3 eggs. It was too many, and conventional recipes would use 2.

Instructions:

First, I made pastry. You don't have to, but I can't bring myself to buy shortcrust. I buy puff and filo - I'm not that far gone.Finely slice the onion, and fry it slowly until soft. I didn't let it colour, but caramelised would also work. When it's nearly cooked, add the cubes of pancetta and fry them until they're done. Let them cool. Wilt the spinach, press out the water, and let that cool too.Beat the cream cheese together with two large eggs, and a splash of water to lighten the texture.Roll out the pastry to cover an appropriate tin, and set the oven heating to about 200c.When the other ingredients are all cool, stir them through the cheese and egg mix, pour it into the pastry case, and bake for around 30 minutes. It may need a little longer.I ended up using too large a tin, and the pastry sides collapsed a little, but it didn't matter over much. I also used too may eggs (3), so the overall taste was a little too eggy. The egg taste wasn't overpowering, just a little too foregrounded overall. The cream cheese builds richness, and the spinach keeps it moist. The onion might be redundant, but sod it - I like it.