I'm alive! And living the dream with the Ultimate Chicken Sarnie

It's been a good couple of weeks, maybe more, since I lasted posted - very unlike me. I've been a bit poorly with a kidney infection and feeling well and truly sorry for myself and, frankly, just not in the mood for food (shock, horror I hear fellow foodies exclaim!).

I'm still quite poorly but am missing my blog, so I'm taking advantage of the fact that I'm actually fancying something to eat rather than eating to basically to survive, and writing about it.

I was quite dissapointed with myself to realise that what I really, really, really wanted was a simple chicken sandwich. Not only would I not be able to write something decent about a humble sarnie, but it wouldn't satiate my desire to ramble on about the food I dream up and cook. So I got creative. What if I make the ULTIMATE chicken sandwich?

With an idea forming, I reached for the yeast and made a basic sandwich dough, made to the adapted recipe of Michel Roux Jr. that can be found here, but instead of plonking it in a loaf tin once risen and knocked back, I made a large round... what!? Now this is where the arguments start.

Is it a Muffin? Bun? Cob? Barm Cake? For arguments sake, I'm going with bread roll, but do let me know your regions variation in the comments below.

This Ultimate Sandwich was made for Sunday tea time using left over roast chicken and served four, but the possibilities are endless. Imagine this - You’re hung over. The bread is fresh and stuffed with bacon, sausage, friend egg, tomatoes, mushrooms…. Mmmm… A perfect hangover cure.

This sandwich does mean you end up with a hunk of bread from the middle of the roll that could potentially go to waste. I either make breadcrumbs and freeze, bake it to make croutons, dunk it in soup or make Nigella’s bread salad.

I know you don’t need a recipe for a sandwich, but please, indulge me. Traditional, wholesome, fresh, English. What’s not to love? Read it and weep my friends. And could you ask for more when trying to get your appetite back?

Bea’s Best Bap – My Ultimate Sandwich

Ultimate Chicken Sarnie - perfect for a pick me up or a picnic

• Half of Michel Roux Jrs Bread recipe, shaped into a large roll, baked and cooled
• Half a bag of spinach, rocket and water cress salad
• 250 ml tub of crème fraiche
• Leftover roast chicken (Mine has lemon, garlic and herbs up its bum before being covered in butter and roasted at 180 for 1 hour 20 mins for a 1.5kg bird).
• 2 tomatoes, sliced
• Avocado, sliced (only if you are serving immediately)
• 4 slices cooked smoked bacon

1. Cut the top off of the large bread roll off and dig the bread from the inside to leave you with a bowl.

2. In a food processor, whizz the salad with the crème fraiche (adding lemon juice to taste if you have some to hand). Spread a third of the mixture over the bottom of the bread.

3. Layer the chicken and tomatoes, season with salt and pepper, spread another third of the crème fraiche mixture over the tomatoes and finish by layering the avocado and finally, the bacon.

4. Place the ‘lid’ back on the bread bowl and carve into wedges.

Enjoy!

A Berry Happy Breakfast - Part 2 - Berry Bread.

Bread. Berries. Breakfast.

Need I say more?

No, but I will - this is me after all and I don't think I've ever written a short post. 

This is the second recipe from my berry haul at the weekend, of course not including the not insubstantial amount of blueberries I ate on the way home.... ahem.  And my second entry to the Breakfast Club, ran by FussFreeFlavours and hosted by Simply Food.  Told you I like berries!

When I look at this recipe I think it's more of a cake than a bread, but to eat bread for breakfast makes me feel better than if I scoff cake first thing (mentally that is, not necessarily physically!). It doesn't have much sugar in it, the berries are sweet enough - and it's perfect for those berries that have seen better days. In fact, my major berry haul went bad quite quickly (well the strawberries and blackberries did, raspberries are still perfection in a punnet) which I guess is why they were so cheap - another reason to not feel guilty for eating cake bread for breakfast! I feel a list coming on.

There is no yeast in this recipe either, but I don't believe you need yeast to make a cake bread (See bacon and cheese bread here). What do you think?

To be fair, it's irrelevant; it was gorgeous for breakfast with a cup of string tea and yes, I'll admit it, I dunked. Who wouldn't? It was still warm and slathered with salted butter, which ended up creating a little film on my tea. Sounds gross. It wasn't. I guess the guilt factor evens out the health factor of A Berry Happy Breakfast - Part 1. Everything in moderation I say!

So, enjoy baking this cake bread... then please, please enjoy eating, guilt free as a Sunday morning treat (or Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday....)

Look at that. A short post after all.

Berry Bread

Breakfast Berry Bread... Cake... Bread.
Whatever!

• 250g plain flour
• 150g vanilla sugar (or add the seeds of 1 pod)
• 200g chopped nuts (I used walnuts and pecans, very roughly chopped)
• 2.5 tsp baking powder
• 2 eggs
• 40g butter, melted
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 200ml milk
• 150g mixed berries, chopped to the size of a raspberry if needs be.

1. Pre heat the oven to 180 and line a loaf tin (min is approx 8" long).

2. In a bowl, mix all of the dry ingredients to combine.

3. In a separate bowl, lightly whisk all the wet ingredients with a fork before pouring into the dry ingredients and mixing until combined.

4. Stir in the berries.

5. Bake in the oven for 50 - 60 minutes until a skewer poked into the middle comes out clean

6. Eat warm


OK, I realise this second to last instruction makes it a cake. I give in.

Enjoy anyway!

Hangover Savior - Bacon Cheesy Bread

Reliving their youth in Sankeys
Champagne boys!?

I'm married to a 34 year old man desperate to re-live his youth, as are the four other friends he went out with in Manchester last night in search of their teenage years. Off to Sankey's they trundled, having had to check the dress code on the website before - none of them had been since their late teens and they realised that shell suits and glo-sticks are out, but didn't know what was in. (They actually asked for a glo-stick at the bar and got blank stares in return.  How I laughed).

So, feeling sorry for myself as I was meant to be in Berlin this weekend, I decided to be a good wife and make something yummy for when he got home, feeling middle aged and mourning his mis-spent youth. Having raided the cupboads and realising they were bare, I couldn't quite bring myself to go to the shops.

There was bacon, but it was streaky; If I tried to feed him a bacon sarnie with streaky bacon, I may as well have given him a fruit salad for his mid-night munchies. But maybe that'd have to do? Ah, no bread. Shall I make some?

Lightbulb moment - Bacon Cheesy bread! It doesn't need yeast, it's more like a cake in that way, so no need to let it rise which was a good thing - with Col being out and me feeling sorry for myself, I'd managed to sink a bottle of wine whilst watching SATC, so I couldn't guarantee not passing out before the oven timer pinged.

Anyway, I knew hubs would love, love, love me for freshly baked bread when he came home, warm with melty cheese inside, salty with bacon, stodgy to soak up the vodka (alas, they may want to relive their youth, but none of them can handle the lager of the '90's any more.  In fact, they started with champagne - would you have ordered that at 18, lads?).  It doesn't take long to make and no kneading necessary - perfect for a Saturday night.

I was wrong. As he stumbled through the front door, talking to the cats and doing elephant tiptoes up the stairs, I whiffed that distinct tangy, scraped-up-off-the-floor, garlicky-in-a-bad-way, only-attractive-when-you're-drunk kebab smell.

My husband. Had brought home. A Kebab. It was worse than if he'd brought home a random woman.  Ish.

Even worse, he slopped it into a bowl and brought it to bed. To bed! The only time I've had a kebab in bed was with my fab friend Lou at uni, drunk on Morrinov vodka (that is (was?) Morrison's own brand Vodka, for those of you not in the vodka conoiseur arena). For the record, Lou was the ultimate kebab monster. She used to eat half walking home and save the rest for the next morning . Even Lou has grown out of Kebabs now. I was never a kebab girl. Chips and gravy? Every Friday night. But never kebab. So for my husband to bring a kebab home when I hadn't had one in my home for nearly ten years was bad. The fact that he'd rejected my bread? Grounds for divorce.

So, he passed out at 4am. I lay awake for hours, eventually falling asleep to the smell of kebab, the sound of bird song and drunken snoring.

But it turns out that Bacon Cheesy Bread is the ultimate hangover cure, given that he gobbled 5 slices with a cup of tea only 6 hours after kebab-gate.

So if you want to know 'How To Feed A Man' (that was for you, Sarah at Maison Cupcake), make this bread to cure a hangover; a vodka hangover and a hangover from your youth. This bread is the new, middle aged man's kebab. No Glo-sticks necessary.

*I remember reading this recipe somewhere. I don't remember where. I searched for it and ending up based this recipe on one I saw on the back of a flour packet some years ago. So if this is something to do with you, I'm sorry I've not give you any credit!

Bacon and Cheesy Bread

• 150g smoked bacon, cut into small pieces
• 320g plain flour
• 3 tbsp Baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 100g grated cheese (I used vintage Cheshire Cheese)
• 200ml milk
• 2 eggs
• 50ml olive oil
• 1 tbsp wholegrain mustard

1. Pre-heat your over to 180 and line a loaf tin with baking paper.

2.  Cook the bacon until crispy and leave to cool

3. Sieve the flour, baking powder, salt and pepper into a large mixing bowl, add the bacon and cheese and mix together.

4. In a separate bowl, mix the milk, eggs, olive oil and mustard and add slowly to the dry ingredients, stirring all the time until combined to make a batter.

5. Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 50 minutes.  Remove from the tin and bake for a further 15 minutes to crisp up the bottom. 

6. Leave to cool on a wire rack.

Hubs munched this with butter, but for me, you could do a lot worse than dunking this in tomato soup.  Gorgeous.

Enjoy!