Bacon & Mushroom Risotto

BACON & MUSHROOM RISOTTO   (serves 3)

Ingredients :

1 tbsp rapeseed oil

300g smoked back bacon, fat chopped finely, remainder diced

1 medium onion, chopped finely

quarter tsp of ground black pepper

20g unsalted butter

250g mixed white and chestnut mushrooms, sliced

1.5 tsp dried tarragon

0.5 tsp dried thyme

1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

300g Arborio rice

175ml (miniature bottle) of Sauvignon Blanc white wine

1.5 litres of simmering mixed chicken & vegetable stock

finely grated Parmesan or Grana Padano cheese for garnish

1 tbsp finely chopped parsley for garnish.

Method :

Heat the rapeseed oil in a deep saucepan or wok over a high heat and add the bacon pieces.  Cook until the moisture has all burned off and the bacon is just beginning to turn golden.

Reduce the heat and add the onion and black pepper.  Stir and fry until the onion is softened and transparent, but don't let it brown.

Add the unsalted butter and mushroom slices.  Stir regularly until the butter has melted and the mushrooms have softened.  Add the tarragon, thyme and Worcestershire sauce and stir through.

Increase the heat and while the pan contents are heating up, add the rice and stir to ensure it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan but becomes coated in the flavoured oil.

Once the rice is well coated and the temperature is up, add the white wine.  This should sizzle as it hits the pan and the rice gives what is known as a "sigh" as it begins to absorb the liquid.  From this moment on, you should be - pretty much - stirring non-stop (20 mins approx) to gently encourage the rice to release its starch.

Once the wine is all absorbed, add a ladleful of the stock and stir until it is absorbed by the rice.  Continue on this way - a ladleful of stock, stir, stir until it is absorbed - until the rice is tender but retains a tiny bit of al dente bite.

Finish by continuing to cook and stir until the consistency is unctuous and saucy, but not running with liquid.  Check for seasoning - you won't need salt because of the bacon and the salty cheese you're about to garnish it with.

Serve into warmed bowls and garnish with a sprinkle of grated cheese and a sprinkle of chopped parsley.

Tuck in!

Printable version

Bacon, blueberry, Cheshire cheese & maple syrup American style blueberry pancakes

Yes, it's a bit of a mouthful of a name, but I couldn't bear to leave anything out.  Our favourite pancakes for today's pancake day and hubby even requested them for his birthday last year, which demonstrates how good they are!  The pancakes themselves are really light and fluffy and as the melted butter is included in the batter mix, this means you can use the lightest smear of oil (or even a low calorie oil spray, which I used) in the pan to cook them - and the butter makes them taste fab.

Hubby's birthday pancakes!

With harmonious flavours throughout, the white, crumbly Cheshire cheese lends that slightly sour, tangy but also creamy note that works so well with both the bacon and the blueberries and of course, maple syrup goes with everything.

So why spend time debating whether to serve savoury or sweet pancakes? Serve these babies and you've combined main course and dessert in one fell swoop. Plus, your family will thank you - and no messy clearing up from lemon & sugar or jam!

My Cook's Tips are as follows :

Make sure to put your bacon in the oven before you start cooking the pancakes, so that it is rendered lovely and crispy in time to be broken up over the finished pancakes. You don't want to be waiting, with pancakes ready, for the bacon to finish cooking.

Also, make sure to crumble up the cheese before you start cooking the pancakes. It's so much quicker to just grab a handful of cheesy bits and sprinkle, rather than taking time with crumbling. More to the point, your pancakes will stay hotter and fluffier!

The recipe is incredibly simple and will make six pancakes of approximately six inches each. I use a pan that is the perfect size for each pancake. It takes slightly longer doing them one at a time, but it's easier to measure out the batter and ensures one isn't burning while your attention is on another. Right then, to the recipe!

BACON, BLUEBERRY, CHESHIRE CHEESE & MAPLE SYRUP AMERICAN STYLE BLUEBERRY PANCAKES (Serves 3 : makes 6 individual pancakes)

Ingredients :

250g streaky bacon
200g Cheshire cheese (or any white crumbly cheese)
300g self-raising flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
a pinch of salt
2 small eggs (discard half the white of the second egg if using medium or large eggs)
450ml milk
10-15g melted butter
200g blueberries
light vegetable oil or a low calorie cooking spray
maple syrup to taste.

Method :

Begin by lining the inside of a large baking tray and the outside (or reverse) of a slightly smaller baking tray, with silver foil. Lay each rasher of streaky bacon onto the large baking tray until the tray is covered or the bacon runs out! Place the foil covered side of the smaller baking tray on top, to sandwich the bacon between the trays. Place into a 180degF/350degC/Gas 4 oven for 20-25 minutes.

Crumble the cheese into a bowl, making sure to have both larger chunks and smaller pieces.

Next, for the pancakes, place the flour, baking powder and salt into a large bowl and stir together.

In another bowl, add the egg(s) to the milk and beat until combined.

Melt the butter in the pancake pan.

Make a well in the flour mixture and pour in half the egg/milk mixture. Stir with a hand whisk until combined, then add the remains of the egg/milk mixture. Again, stir in until combined and the batter is lump free.

Add the melted butter to the pancake batter and whisk it in until well combined.

Stir in 150g of the blueberries.

Heat the pancake pan (which should still be buttery) over a moderate heat and add a ladleful of the pancake batter, making sure to catch a good helping of the blueberries.

Wait - without poking, stirring or otherwise bothering your pancake - until bubbles have formed on the surface and you can see the edges have pulled away from the pan slightly. Insert a fish slice under the pancake and quickly flip it over. The pancake will rise as it cooks and you can slip the slice underneath and lift it slightly to check the colour. Make sure that the pan doesn't become too hot - you may need to turn it down slightly from time to time - or the pancake will colour on the outside but still be wet on the inside.

Each pancake will only take a couple of minutes on each side, depending on how hot the pan is.

Place each pancake onto a warmed plate and cover with a sheet of kitchen paper, adding the next one on top and repeat until all the pancake batter is used up.

When all the pancakes are cooked, serve two to each plate and sprinkle with Cheshire cheese, then bacon pieces, then extra blueberries from the remaining 50g.

For the final flourish, tip a good swishing of maple syrup over the lot and get stuck in!

Printable version

Tomato & Bacon Bruschetta - majorly epic flavourness

Is there such a word as "flavourness"?  If not, then there needs to be, if only to describe truly epic loveliness in the epicurean department such as this tomato and bacon bruschetta.  Oxford English Dictionary - in the words of the inestimable Captain Picard, "make it so!".

There now, having dealt with that, let's have a closer look at this Italianised bacon & tomatoes on toast.  Because that's what it is, really.

It all came about from our weekly staff meeting (that is, hubby, myself and the dogs) when I posed the question "what would you LIKE to eat, if you could".  Having got around the "lark's tongues in aspic" and "T-bone steak", not to mention "a Pavlova as big as my head", we came down to things that were rather more achievable.  Hubby mentioned the griddled sourdough that we had a little while ago, (that time with Coronation chicken on board) and we promptly had a bit of a brainstorm as to what you could put on griddled sourdough.

Well, the end result of pan fried, chopped bacon rashers with roughly chopped raspberry tomatoes and cherry tomatoes, all cooked in olive oil, just made my mouth water.

Now, if you're tempted to give this a go (and why wouldn't you be - it's beyond fab!), don't be put off by the fact that you can't source any raspberry tomatoes.  Just find the best flavoured tomatoes you can - any combination thereof will work.  Raspberry tomatoes are approximately the same size as a big old beefsteak tomato, but with 100% more flavour.  I reckon three or four normal sized vine ripened tomatoes would equal one raspberry tomato, if that helps.  If your tomatoes wind up being a tad acidic, never fear, just add a teaspoonful of honey to the pan and they'll taste like they were picked in the middle of summer.

It is important to drizzle the sourdough bread with a tasty extra virgin olive oil and rub it with garlic, but don't worry if you don't have a griddle pan.  Just toast it under the grill and it'll do the same job.  I adore my cast iron griddle pan and grab any excuse to use it, but I do appreciate that not everybody has one.

I paired our bruschetta up with an avocado based salad because it was served as a dinner.  However, this bruschetta recipe is perfectly adequate as a lunch without the salad.  A glass of something refreshing alongside is all you're likely to require for a fabulous lunch.

My favourite thing, apart from the gorgeous bacony, tomatoey, garlicky olive oil flavours, is the relationship between the sourdough and the tomato juice.  The toasted sides along with the chewy crust maintain the integrity of the bread whilst the gorgeous tomato juice just soaks, willy nilly, into the centre and shuffles around causing the bread and garlic to instantly fall in love with it.  Chunky salty bacon and sweet tomatoes on juice soaked garlicky toast with flakes of parmesan cheese on top.  Serious, extra large deliciousness.

TOMATO & BACON BRUSCHETTA  (serves 3)

Ingredients :

1 tbsp olive oil
345g smoked back bacon, chopped into chunks
2 extra large raspberry tomatoes (6-8 vine ripened tomatoes would do), chopped into chunks
6 sweet cherry tomatoes, quartered
1 small garlic clove, sliced finely and 1 large garlic clove, left whole
half a tsp of freshly ground black pepper
half a tsp of dried basil (oregano is good, if you don't have basil)
1 tbsp tomato ketchup
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp runny honey (just in case your tomatoes need help in the sweetening department)
3 good, thick, slices of sourdough bread
extra virgin olive oil
shards of Parmesan cheese
finely chopped fresh parsley
a mixed salad, to serve.

Method :

If you are serving salad alongside, prepare said salad before you begin to cook the bruschetta, as it really doesn't take long.

Heat the olive oil (not the extra virgin olive oil) in a frying pan and, once hot, add the chopped bacon.  Fry on a moderate to hot heat, so evaporate any water and begin to caramelise the bacon.  Once the pieces have begun to take on a golden colour, add all the tomatoes, the sliced garlic (not the whole garlic), black pepper, dried basil, tomato ketchup and Worcestershire sauce and stir from time to time as the mixture cooks.

The juice will escape from the tomatoes, which is good.  However, you want this liquid to reduce so as to intensify the flavour so keep the heat fairly high and stir regularly.  You are aiming for a fairly thick, chunky tomato sauce kind of texture.  When the tomato liquid has reduced by at least half, taste for acidity and add the teaspoonful of honey if necessary.

Once the consistency of the bacon & tomatoes is to your liking, reduce the heat to a tickover and turn your attention to the toast.

Taking the whole garlic clove, rub both sides of each slice of bread liberally with the clove.  Make sure to rub around the edge as the crust will help to shred the garlic.

Next, drizzle generously with the extra virgin olive oil on both sides.

Heat your griddle pan (or grill) and toast each slice on both sides to your own taste.

Place each slice of toast onto the plate you're going to serve them on and pile the bacon & tomatoes on top.  Make sure to catch the juice as you're piling as that's where a lot of the flavour is.

To finish, sprinkle the top with shards of Parmesan cheese and finally with the chopped parsley.

Serve with your pre-prepared salad and a glass of something refreshing.  Be happy!

Printable version

Bacon with Red Pepper Pesto Pasta - done in a twinkling!

What a success this one proved to be!  Mind you, I don't know why I'm sounding surprised because it uses three of my favourite things - bacon, mushrooms and Asda's ricotta & red pepper pesto.  To my way of thinking, it was a winner before I even took my knife to the bacon.  However, sometimes what seems like the perfect combination of ingredients turns out to leave a little to be desired in one way or another - but happily, not so here.  Plus, of course, it has the added bonus of being simplicity itself to prepare.

Oh and as a little aside, have you noticed how often my food seems to turn out to be orange coloured? I don't try to make it that way, honest I don't, it seems as though my choice of ingredients has a marked lean towards the orange.  But then, the menfolk grumble if there's too much green on the plate, grumble again if I serve them "brown food" and would justifiably grumble at being served black food, so aside from white I guess that just leaves the red/yellow/orange palette as there's not too many blue foods out there!  So this one is following along in the tradition of being the seemingly man-friendly colour of orange. 

Now, let me recommend to you Asda's little pot of Ricotta & Red Pepper pesto.  This seemingly unassuming little jar contains one of the most delicious substances that I have used in everything from sandwiches to pasta.  Along with the rich ricotta and flavoursome red pepper, it also has a sneaky little bite from red chilli that just makes it glorious.  I would be very happy if you were all to rush out and buy some, love it and continue buying it, as that would mean it will stay around on the shelves for ever!

The pesto marries up with bacon perfectly, of course.  The celery adds a welcome freshness that prevents the dish from becoming too heavy on the palate and the addition of the small amount of sour cream helps to loosen the pesto into a sauce without impinging on the flavour at all.

I call this one a very definite win.  The empty bowls and enquiries as to whether there was any left, gave proof to that belief, too.  As a mid-week, easy, relatively cheap dinner, you can't go wrong.

BACON WITH RED PEPPER PESTO PASTA   (serves 3)

Ingredients :

1 tbsp olive oil
350g smoked back bacon, trimmed of fat and diced
1 large onion, diced finely
1 clove garlic, chopped finely
2 sticks of celery, diced finely
black pepper
half a tsp dried oregano
200g quartered mushrooms 
190g jar red pepper & ricotta pesto
1 tbsp sour cream
200ml water
250g dried pasta shapes - tubes are good.

Method :

Heat the olive oil in a large deep sided frying pan and add the bacon.  Fry over a high heat until all the moisture has evaporated and the bacon is cooked through.

Reduce the heat to moderate and add the onion, garlic and celery, along with a pinch of black pepper and the oregano.  Fry until the onion is transparent and the celery is beginning to soften.

Add the mushrooms and continue to fry until they are beginning to soften.

Three quarters fill a large saucepan with water and add a pinch of salt.  Bring to the boil and once boiling, add the dried pasta.  Remember to give the pasta a stir every so often to ensure it's not sticking to the bottom of the pan.  Cook for 10-12 minutes, or to manufacturer's instructions.

Add the contents of the pesto jar to the bacon mix, along with 100ml of water (you can use it to rinse out the pesto jar, so as to get every last little bit!) and stir to combine.

Once the ingredients are looking mixed, stir in the sour cream.  Simmer on a very low heat until the pasta is ready.  You may need to add a little more water from time to time to keep the mixture saucy.

Once the pasta is cooked, drain it well and return it to the hot saucepan.  Take the bacon mixture and decant it on top of the pasta and stir gently, but thoroughly, through.

Serve in warmed bowls with some garlic bread to accompany.

Printable version

Egg & Bacon Croissant breakfast

Does bacon ever get old on a breakfast menu?

No, of course it doesn't!  What a silly suggestion.  Even if you're watching your weight, bacon for breakfast is a good, relatively low calorie protein to utilise, believe it or not.

Until this morning, I really thought that the egg and bacon sandwich was the best weekday use of bacon for breakfast.  Now of course, the Full English Breakfast takes the overall title, but you can't eat one of those every day.  Not these days, at these prices and with a relatively sedentary lifestyle of office work, anyway.  No, the egg and bacon sandwich was it.

Or so I thought, right up until today.  We went grocery shopping early and I missed breakfast to achieve that.  So I bought myself a croissant to have with a cuppa once I got home.  Except, hubby bought some bacon to have in sandwiches once we got home.  Now as I am sure you understand, once offered bacon it is impossible to reject.  Can't be done.  It's the law.  But I wanted my croissant.  Hence, the egg and bacon croissant was born.  (Well, it might have been born elsewhere at another time, but not in my kitchen).

So listen up, one and all!  Forget your bacon & egg sandwiches, that's so yesterday.  Today, the bacon & egg croissant is the contemporary, hip and happenin' breakfast.  400 calories?  Aaah, just have a salad for lunch - it'll be worth it, I promise.  This was SO good. I thought that perhaps it would be nice - but hadn't reckoned on just HOW nice.

The recipe is simple - slice your croissant across lengthwise, grill two slices of smoked back bacon and fry an egg in olive oil.  Lay the bacon across the croissant, lovingly lay the egg on top, add sea salt and black pepper and enclose it with the other half of your croissant.  Take it somewhere quiet and enjoy your breakfast whilst holding the plate closely under your chin, to catch the golden, delicious drips.  Happy sighs will ensue.

Beer & bacon pasta cheese - don't look if you're calorie counting!

Well now, that was a great brainwave, if ever I tasted one.

We were due to have "macaroni cheese" at some point during the week, but although the intent was good, the body was weak and we wound up having pizza instead.  I know, what can you do, eh?  So, inevitably, this gave me time in which to think "Goodness, but this is dull.  What can I do to liven up our standard macaroni cheese recipe?" - which as we all know is sometimes the beginning of the end.

However, in this instance, it worked out brilliantly.

Do you remember my making some beef, ale & cheese soup, way back last year some time?  Well I suddenly remembered this recipe and how well the beer combined with the melted cheese - and it was a short hop from there to combining beer into the cheese sauce for the pasta.

Now I always add bacon to my cheese sauce for a macaroni or pasta cheese, as we're confirmed carnivores who feel a bit short changed if a meal doesn't include meat somewhere along the line.  Plus, bacon goes so well with cheese.  Now, I can confirm that bacon goes very well with an India Pale Ale and cheese, in a sauce.  Oh yes.

Ordinarily, I'd have sweated off an onion and included that, but we had run out of onions owing to the last two having turned to slush when I wasn't looking, so that was a non-starter.  So to include the onion flavour, I rummaged around in the herb cupboard and added a half a teaspoonful of the onion granules that I normally use in barbecue sauces.

As for the healthiness of this dinner, I can quite categorically deny any element of healthiness.  However, as to flavour, well yes it has that in spades.  It also has that soft, warming, filling, comforting thing that anything involving cheese and pasta will deliver - especially on a cold, damp day like today.  Add to all that the bacon - and we all know that a bit of bacon makes everything better - and the crisp, crunchy herby breadcrumbs sprinkled on top and you've got a sure fire winner.

Just don't make this for dinner if you're counting your calories.  Like I am.  ~koff~  Oops.

BEER & BACON PASTA CHEESE   (serves 3)

Ingredients :

1 tsp & 1 tbsp olive oil
12 rashers thick cut smoked back bacon, diced
10g & 20g salted butter
50g dry breadcrumbs
half a tsp dried parsley
half a tsp dried thyme
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
3 tbsp plain flour
350ml India Pale Ale
450ml semi skimmed milk
1 tsp Dijon mustard
half a tsp onion granules
quarter of a tsp freshly grated nutmeg
300g mature cheddar cheese, grated
50g parmesan cheese, grated
40g Leerdammer (or similar) cheese, grated
15g Philadelphia cream cheese
200g pasta - small tubes work well.

Method :

1.  Heat a large frying pan and add the diced bacon.  Fry until the fat has rendered, any water has burned off and the bacon is beginning to turn golden.  Remove the pieces from the pan with a slotted spoon, so as to drain the fat back into the pan and reserve.

2.  Add the breadcrumbs to a bowl and mix in the parsley, thyme and a small pinch of sea salt, along with a good quantity of black pepper.

3.  Melt the 10g of salted butter into the bacon fat and, once melted, add the breadcrumb mixture.  Fry on a moderate heat until the breadcrumbs have taken on the fat and are turning golden.  Do not allow them to burn, so keep them moving.  As soon as they begin to sound sandy and crisp, remove them from the pan.

4.  Take a large saucepan and fill two thirds full with water, which should be brought to a boil and the pasta cooked according to packet instructions.

5.  In a medium non-stick pan, melt the 20g of butter and add the tbsp of olive oil.

6.  Once the butter is melted, add the flour and stir well for 2-3 minutes.

7.  Take the pan off the heat and gradually add the beer, stirring constantly, until you have achieved a smooth textured thick sauce.  Reserve any beer that may be left over.

8.  Swap to adding the milk gradually, returning the pan to a gentle heat to retain the temperature of the contents and stirring very well to prevent the sauce becoming lumpy, until you have a thick coating consistency.  You may not need all the milk, or you may need a little more.

9.  Add a tiny pinch of sea salt, a good quantity of black pepper, the Dijon mustard, onion granules and nutmeg and stir through.

10.  Add all the cheeses and warm through on a gentle heat until they are all melted and combined thoroughly.

11.  Add the cooked bacon and stir through.

11.  Taste and if necessary add a little more pepper - you can add cayenne if you like the heat that it brings.  Add a little of the remaining beer, just to freshen up that beery flavour.

12.  When the pasta is done, drain well and return to the pan.  Pour two thirds of the sauce onto the pasta and quickly stir through.  Serve swiftly into warmed bowls and add a drizzle more sauce over the top.

13.  Sprinkle with the seasoned crispy breadcrumbs.

Serve with garlic bread or a side salad, or just as it is!

Printable version

Knock your socks off Bacon & Herb Stuffing

Why - on earth - haven't I made my own stuffing before now?

I reckon it's a combination of stuffing being one of those things that just floats around as an "also", an "add on" to a roast dinner and also my own bad experience with it as a youngster.  You see, my Mum would often stuff (good old Paxo, the stuffing of choice for the millions) our Sunday chicken, which I remember vividly because I would be vaguely revolted by the colour of the stuffing that had sat in the (apologies) blood while the chicken was roasting.  As a consequence, when the recommendation came out that you didn't stuff your chicken any longer owing to E-coli scares - and my Mum stopped - I wasn't unhappy about it.

So we got out of the habit of eating stuffing.  It became something that we had at Christmas with the turkey - and only in the shape of stuffing balls that were baked in the oven.

When it came to making my own roast dinners, to include stuffing on the menu was just one step too many for a long time.  Well, making a roast dinner is quite an undertaking one way and another.  There's the timings, the vegetables, the roast potatoes, the gravy - everything has to be ready on time and it's a whole lot more complicated than making a spaghetti bolognese!

In fact, I didn't really bother with stuffing (the associations between sage & onion stuffing and hideous discoloured soggy breadcrumbs being too much to bear) until hubby came along and professed an undying love for the dish.  By then, I'd managed to get a small grip on the mechanics of making a roast dinner - particularly a roast chicken - and it wasn't too difficult to mix up a packet of stuffing and bung it in the oven to cook alongside the rest.  I didn't waste any love or attention on it though - and didn't particularly enjoy it on my dinner, either.  Well - sage and onion again, you see.

It wasn't until I joined a couple of Facebook groups and saw other people were making home made stuffings, that I began to foster an interest in doing it myself.

This was a slow burning interest though, I have to admit.  I'm fairly sure that those early days of sage and onion were still colouring the picture of "stuffing" that I had in my memory.  I still hadn't put the idea that I could venture away from sage & onion, together with the concept of "stuffing".  Now everyone knows that home made is very often better than shop bought packet mixes, but I was particularly slow on the uptake where this was concerned.

However, once it had dawned on me - and I noticed that I had half a packet of bacon sitting doing nothing one Sunday morning - the old grey matter got to work.

It was the perfect moment - I had a gorgeously huge, fat chicken to be roasted.  I had my lovely oven dish to use.  I had bacon.  I had a good quantity of Polish Bakery bread to use for breadcrumbs and I had a profusion of both fresh and dried herbs in the house.  Never had a moment been so propitious!

I didn't use a recipe - after all, people have been stuffing things for years by using whatever they had to hand.  Yes, dear reader, I winged it.  In a BIG way - and (pretty much) got away with it.

Even having put the stuffing together and knowing a) what was in it, plus b) how they went together, I still wasn't particularly keen on the idea.  Oh I was interested in how it would come out and concerned that everyone would like it, but I wasn't anticipating liking it much myself.  Oh, how wrong I was.  I not only liked it, I loved it.  I could have eaten the stuffing and dropped the chicken from my dinner - which is truly remarkable.

However, the stuffing came into its own the following day when I put together a cold roast chicken, stuffing and sweetcorn relish sandwich.  Oh .. my .. word.  Shoot me now, I'm all over happy.

I have one cook's tip for you with regard to this stuffing, which is not to use salt unless you are absolutely convinced that the bacon does not carry any of its own.  Because the bacon becomes considerably reduced by the double cooking process, the saltiness of it is intensified.  Additional salt just isn't necessary - particularly if you are using smoked bacon.

So, on the reckoning that where I came from others might follow and if you're one of those who was put off stuffing by - well, let's not go into it again, eh? - then find some lost bacon and give this a go with your next roast chicken.  Then tell me you don't like stuffing.  *grin*

KNOCK YOUR SOCKS OFF BACON & HERB STUFFING   (serves 5-6)

Ingredients :

1-2 tbsp rapeseed or olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
freshly ground black pepper
4-5 rashers of lean back smoked bacon, finely diced
3 slices crusty bread, slightly stale, chopped into chunky breadcrumbs
2 tbsp fresh parsley, finely chopped
1 tbsp fresh chives, finely chopped
1 tsp dried oregano
half a tsp dried thyme
half a tsp dried rosemary
1 large egg.

Method :

1.  Heat the oil in a frying pan and cook the bacon and onion together until the onion is softened and beginning to turn golden.  Add a pinch of black pepper, stir to combine then leave to cool slightly.

2.  Once cooled, stir the breadcrumbs into the bacon & onion pan making sure to absorb the bacon fat.

3.  Decant the contents of the bacon pan into a large bowl and add the remainder of the ingredients, including the egg.

4.  Stir well to combine - until the egg cannot be traced.

5.  Decant into an oven proof dish, level the surface and place into a pre-heated 180degC/350degF/Gas 4 oven for 25-30 minutes or until the surface is baked crispy.

Serve with your favourite roasted meats and vegetables, or cold the following day in a sandwich.

Printable version

BBQ meatloaf - man pleasing food!

This meal was born from a desire to create a "man pleasing dinner".  The notion was that having had a healthy, vegetable inclusive fish dinner the night before - and another vegetable inclusive meal to come on Sunday (tomorrow) - the menfolk might like a man pleasing dinner to keep them interested.

In fact, this meal contained the subject of this blog entry - the meatloaf - together with a fantastic cornbread (which is dealt with in the next blog post) and baked beans.

Now I don't know about your menfolk, but my menfolk like meat.  No, in fact, they like MEAT.  *chuckle*  I can understand this, as I'm a bit of a carnivore myself and do sometimes get a terrible hankering for a big lump of roast beef in which to sink my gnashers.

Quite a long way up on their "man pleasing foodstuffs" list, but below meat, is a good barbecue sauce.   We've discovered Kraft's Bulls Eye BBQ sauce, which is currently doing a pretty good job in that connection.  If anything, I find it a tiny bit sweet - but the menfolk love it and that's the main thing.

I can't claim to have invented this form of meatloaf, as like with a lot of things, I spotted a photograph on the internet that piqued my interest.  That of a meatloaf with a coating of barbecue sauce - and it looked good.

Now I have written previously about my attempts to make a firm meatloaf that doesn't require a spoon with which to serve it.  Hubby has a term for these soggy meat loaves - that of "meat porridge".  It describes the texture quite succinctly.

Fortunately for us, I discussed the problem of meat porridge with my pal Melanie (a Brit who has been in Canada for the last mumblymumble years) and who claimed to have solved the conundrum.  She decreed her meat loaves to be firm and positively perky.  Hence, I have paid attention to Mel's tutelage and gone down my own road with the flavourings - but followed the basic recipe quite closely.

Lo and behold - what do we have here?  Only a firm, sliceable, serve with a spatula and no spoon in sight, delicious meat loaf!  Thanks, Mel!

If you also have problems with meat porridge, it is well worthwhile having a read of her treatise on the subject at her blog, Rutabaga Dreams.

I had been pondering on what to use as flavourings and couldn't really come to any firm conclusions.  I knew I had to be aware of how much salt was being included - as additional sauces can often bring quite a slug of salt with them.  So salt wasn't a problem unless I overdid it.  The basic meats were two thirds beef, one third pork and a lone rasher of bacon (that had no other home to go to).  Now onion was a given - but in fact, I used two shallots for their sweetness.  The breadcrumbs were made from a combination of white and brown Polish Bakery bread - which can only be surpassed by home made bread, in my view.  I also added a little tomato ketchup, some Worcestershire sauce, some Mic's Chilli Inferno hot sauce, a teaspoonful or so of freshly ground black pepper, some dried parsley and something that you may not have at home - a teaspoonful of Essential Cuisine's mushroom stock powder.  Add an egg, mush it all together and into a loaf tin it goes!

Baking the meat loaf (at 180degC) is a simple matter of making sure it is inside another roasting tin, to catch any drips that may escape the loaf tin, then fishing it back out after 30 minutes.  Very carefully, tip the liquid away then coat the top of the meat loaf generously with your favourite barbecue sauce.  Back into the oven it goes for another 30 minutes and you're done.

The flavourings really are up to you.  You can go Italian with sun dried tomatoes, oregano and garlic, or Mexican with chillies and beans, Indian with curry spices - really, so long as you follow the "no ingredients that will leach liquid" (like tomatoes, mushrooms, courgette etc.) and include the breadcrumbs and an egg, I see no reason why your meat loaf shouldn't be as sliceable as mine turned out to be!

The menfolk both gave the meat loaf - in fact, the whole dinner - a big thumbs up, so I'd say that's job done!

BBQ MEAT LOAF   (serves 3-4)

Ingredients :

3-4 slices of dry bread, blitzed into crumbs
pinch of sea salt
half a tsp of freshly ground black pepper
half a tsp of dried parsley
500g minced lean beef
250g minced lean pork
1-2 rashers of bacon, chopped fine
1 dessertspoonful of tomato ketchup
1 tsp of hot sauce (to taste - use more if you like more)
2 tsp of Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp of stock powder of your choice (most, but not all, of a stock cube will do)
1 egg
3-4 tbsp BBQ sauce.

Method :

1.  Place all the ingredients barring the BBQ sauce into a large bowl.  Using your hand, scrunch and mix the ingredients until they are all evenly spread throughout the mix.

2.  Take a one pound loaf tin and line it with silver foil (non-stick silver foil, if you can get it, is wonderful for this!).

3.  Pack the meat mixture into the loaf tin, pressing it down firmly.

4.  Place the loaf tin inside a bigger roasting tin and into a pre-heated 180degC/350degF/Gas 4 oven for 30 minutes.

5.  At the end of the time, remove the meat loaf from the oven and carefully drain the liquid away.  (Be very careful not to let your meat loaf fall into the sink, as happened to me on one stellar occasion).

6.  Coat the surface of the meat loaf in BBQ sauce and replace into the oven for another 30 minutes.

7.  When the time is up, remove from the oven and from the loaf tin.  Carefully peel the silver foil back all around the meat loaf, but be careful of the hot liquid that will be contained therein.  Let the loaf rest for a couple of minutes - no longer than 3-4 - then slice and serve.

Printable version

Bacon & Orzo Stuffed Mushrooms and Peppers

Pepper on the left, mushroom on the right.

I've not had a very good track record with successful "stuffed" things in the past.  I've tried stuffed marrow several times, some have been good, some pretty poor.  I've tried stuffed peppers in the past, again to mixed reactions.  So when I saw the Hairy Bikers stuffing mushrooms, it got my "I can do that!" indignation fired up again.

I came to the conclusion that it was simply a matter of not stuffing things with the correct stuffing for my family's taste.  You see, I like "juicy" stuffings such as a bolognese style mince concoction for marrow, which as the marrow cooks inevitably becomes all watered down.  Now I'm fine with that, but the rest of the family aren't.  It's taken me a while to get to grips with that, as I thought the objection was in the flavour of the stuffing, not the texture.  I know, sometimes I can be really dense.

Now I wanted to stuff peppers and tomatoes, but hubby correctly pointed out that tomatoes stood a very good chance of going the same way as the marrow (i.e. watery) and anyway, son & heir isn't keen on cooked tomato.  He suggested Portobello mushrooms instead and as I'm ALWAYS in the market for a mushroom, that made a lot of sense to me.

So what would go well with long red peppers and mushrooms?  Well, bacon immediately sprang to mind, with shallot to help the savouriness and sweetness along.  I didn't want to use breadcrumbs, as I was very wary of the sogginess that can sometimes accompany a breadcrumb stuffing.  Thinking of things that hubby likes, brought to mind orzo.  It is very rice-like (although is actually a tiny pasta) and rice is another good stuffing ingredient.  I hadn't seen orzo used in too many stuffing mixes (and there may have been a reason for that) but it seemed like a good idea.

Now what could I use to provide some cohesiveness in this stuffing?  I didn't want to use egg but I did want something that would stick everything together a bit.  Thinking along the lines of what does son & heir like, produced mozzarella cheese.  If I dice a ball of mozzarella, it would melt and do that "sticking it all together" thing in an unobtrusively cheesy fashion.  Perfect.  Add a few herbs and seasoning and we're in business.

Ah, but what about the tops?  You need something to make a crunchy top, without cooking the heck out of the orzo and making it inedible.   Hmmn.  A slice of mozzarella would do that, but it doesn't carry much flavour.  What about if I grate some cheddar on top, then top that with the mozzarella slice?  Yes!  That'd do it.

In this way, the recipe was born.

I decided to leave the peppers without the mozzarella slice, just to see whether the cheddar would have been sufficient.  However, in the tasting, I think the addition of the mozzarella was a very good thing as it melted over the lot and provided a great "cap" that kept the moisture in the stuffing while the stuffed vegetable cooked.  The peppers weren't dry, but the cheese would have kept them from being that little bit less "cooked" if you get my drift.

The orzo was great as stuffing ammunition and I'll definitely use that again.  The mushrooms were by far the best end result as the mushroom itself provided enough body to support the stuffing.  The peppers were a bit thin - could have done with being a bit meatier - and cooked up to being a little bit papery.  Still, the flavour was great!

I served the stuffed mushrooms and peppers with a simple sweet potato mash (into which I added a little nutmeg and lots of butter) and some peas.  Apart from the paperiness of the peppers (I'd use round peppers instead of long ones next time), everyone really liked this dinner.  Just goes to show that life isn't too short to stuff a mushroom - you just have to get the stuffing right!

BACON & ORZO STUFFED MUSHROOMS AND PEPPERS  (serves 3)

Ingredients :

6 rashers of smoked back bacon, finely chopped
1 tbsp rapeseed oil
2 small shallots, finely chopped
1 tbsp fresh parsley, finely chopped
half a tsp dried basil
freshly ground black pepper
50g orzo
2 balls mozzarella cheese, 1 finely diced, 1 sliced thickly
2 red peppers
3 Portobello mushrooms
a handful of mature cheddar, grated.

Method :

1.  Place the bacon into a dry frying pan that has been heated to a moderate heat and fry the bacon until the moisture has totally evaporated and the fat has begun to render out.  Once the bacon begins to caramelise and turn golden, remove to a bowl using a slotted spoon, to retain as much of the bacon fat as possible in the pan.

2.  Add the shallots to the pan and reduce the heat slightly.  Cook, stirring regularly, until softened and beginning to take on colour.  Add them to the bacon in the bowl and allow to cool while you cook the orzo, according to the manufacturer's instructions.  Once cooked, spread evenly out on a plate, to cool. 

3.   Once everything has cooled but is not cold, add the parsley, basil and a good pinch of freshly ground black pepper to the bacon/shallot mixture and stir to combine.

4.  Add the orzo, taking care not to "drown" the bacon mixture with orzo.  You need to have a 50:50 sort of mix, which may result in your having some orzo left over, which you can make into a little pasta salad for your lunch.  

5.  Add the one ball of mozzarella that has been finely cubed to the bowl and make sure to give the stuffing a good stir so that all the flavours have as good a chance to combine as possible.

6.  Slice the pepper in half so that it will lay flat on a baking tray.  Remove the seeds and pith from the inside of the pepper, but keep the stalk base intact or your stuffing will all fall out.

7.  Remove the stalk from the mushroom by carefully cutting it free.  You don't want a huge hole in the middle of your mushroom!  Turn the mushroom over and cut a cross into the crown, which should go right through.  This will allow any excess liquid to escape.  Place it, frill side up, onto the baking tray.

8.  Now divide the stuffing mix between all the mushrooms and pepper halves, pressing it firmly into each.

9.  Place a sprinkle of cheddar cheese onto each - a little more on the peppers than on the mushrooms.

10.  Place a round of mozzarella cheese on top of the cheddar on the mushrooms - you can add mozzarella to the peppers too, if you like.

11.  Place into a pre-heated oven at 180degC/350degF/Gas 4 for 40 minutes.

Serve with sweet potato mash and peas.

Printable version  


 

Tonight's Dinner : An oldie - Slow Cooker Split Pea & Ham Soup

Well.  I don't think that was half bad.  We bought the gammon join for Sunday's dinner (remember?  Gammon with Piedmontese Peppers?) then we had Ham Egg & Chips last night and this evening, we finished off the £7.50 piece of gammon with a home made Split Pea and Ham Soup.  Roughly £2.50 per meal over the three days for the meat content.  Very nice too.

 

The soup was an absolute dream to make, it was so easy.  I didn't follow anyone's recipe in particular, but read several different recipes (not all of which were for Pea and Ham soup!) for inspiration and just winged it after that.  What made it so easy was the use of my slow cooker (or crockpot) - although if you don't have one of these paragons, you can easily make the same soup on the cooker top in less time with a little more stirring and watching of liquid levels.

I used my favourite Essential Cuisine stock - 1 tsp vegetable stock powder and 1.5 tsp veal stock powder in 1 litre of water.  Now Essential Cuisine stock is naturally low in salt, but if you decide to use stock cubes - do beware of the salt content and definitely use a low salt version.

Hubby declared it to be "proper gorgeous, proper delicious", which I take to be high praise.  Son and heir decided it was a little too salty for his taste (which was odd, as I hadn't used any salt at all!).  I thought it was quite the nicest pea and ham soup I'd had in a very long while.  We ate it with some nice Cheese & Pickle crusty bread from Asda.

SLOW COOKER SPLIT PEA & HAM SOUP  (serves 3)

Ingredients :

1 onion, chopped finely
2 sticks of celery and a few celery leaves, chopped finely
2 medium carrots, peeled, halved lengthways and sliced thinly
1 medium potato, diced finely
2 rashers of back bacon, diced finely
1 tbsp of finely chopped fresh parsley
2-3 bay leaves
1 litre very hot stock of your choice (see note above)
250g dried, unsoaked, yellow split peas
freshly ground black pepper
a large knob of butter
6 slices of ham leftover from a gammon joint, cut into fine shreds.

Method : 

1.  Place all the ingredients except the pepper and the butter into the slow cooker and stir to combine.

2.  Turn the slow cooker to High and cook for 5 hours, or Medium and cook for 6-7 hours.

3.  Half way through the cooking time, remove the lid and give the contents a stir.

4.  Add a good pinch of black pepper and stir through, then replace the lid.

5.  At the end of the cooking time, mash the contents roughly with a potato masher.  Do not use a blender, as it will turn your soup into a puree.

6.  Add the shredded ham and stir through.

7.  Remove any bay leaves you can find and add the butter.  Allow it to melt and stir it through, then taste for seasoning and add more freshly ground black pepper if necessary.

Serve, with a little of the shredded ham and some freshly ground black pepper on top for garnish and crusty bread for dipping.

Printable version