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!

Time for a fridge clear out - Random Cheese Tart

I opened the fridge to have a root around for lunch. My Husband wandered in, took one look at me and said ‘phwoar!' (not in the good way) 'What’s that smell!?’. Delightful. ‘It’s the cheese!’ I insisted, ‘It’s starting to pong and there is so much of it!’ 

I love cheese, but I get very over-excited once I enter a cheese shop, it’s quite embarrassing. I always tend to buy more, so much more than I actually need and then it goes pongy, then furry before I can eat it all. I love the pongy nature of cheese, but it’s when it starts to pong out the fridge that, when I'm out, hubs goes in and chucks the lot away.

To stop this amount of crazy (and ridiculous waste) in my house I took action. I pulled out of the fridge:

A few wodges of cheese of varying types in various states
A few slices of ham going a bit curly at the edges and a couple of prosciutto
Half a jar of sundried tomatoes

After a further root around, I found some cream that was about to start to pong too – and not in the good way that cheese does.

So I came up with this cheese and ham tart. It’s a proper fridge clearer of a recipe (which is exactly what inspired this in the first place). The next time you buy cheese for a dinner party and only one person nibbles on the corner of the cheddar, try this baby for lunch the next day.

Random Cheese, Ham and Tomato Tart

• 250g Plain Flour
• 125g Cold unsalted butter, cubed
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 4 tbsp Cold water
• 280 - 300ml double cream*
• 2 eggs
• 250g (roughly) of mixed cheeses
• 4 slices of smoked ham 
• 6-8 sun dried tomatoes

Please note - the eggs, ham and tomatoes are just a guide. If you have other hams, cheeses, fresh tomatoes, a bag of spinach etc, use these instead! For the cheeses, I used a herby boursin, a strong cheddar and edam. I'd have loved a blue but didn't have any in.

*300ml is ideal, but if you have less, that's fine, but try not to go lower than 280ml. If you do your filling will poke over the top cream mixture.

1. To make the pastry, tip the flour and butter into a food processor and blitz to fine breadcrumbs. Add most of the water, and blitz again until it forms a dough (do not over mix). Add a little more water if necessary. Turn the dough onto a floured surface, shape into a disk and leace to chill in the fridge, wrapped in clingfilm, for 30 minutes.

2. Preheat the oven to 180.

3. When chilled, remove the pastry from the fridge and roll out on a floured surface until your pastry is about the thickness of a pound coin. Take an 8" loose bottom flan tin and lift your pastry into the tin. Immediately place the edges inside the tin and then edge and mould to the sides. The alternative is to place the pastry on top of the tin and push inside with your fingers. If you do it this way, you will stretch the pastry and it will shrink whilst cooking.

4. Line the base with a circle of baking paper and baking beans, and bake blind for 15 minutes. Remove from the oven, remove the beans and paper, and return to the over for another 10 minutes.

5. To make the filling, lightly beat the eggs and the cream. Tear or chop the cheeses into small-ish pieces (I do this by hand - if you have rough chunks of the harder cheeses you get pockets of gooey goodness when you bite through the tart) and tear the ham into lengths.

6. Throw the ham, cheese and sundried tomatoes into the tart case and pour over the egg and cream mix. Give it a shake to make sure the egg and cream are evenly distributed.

7. Bake for 40 minutes until set (but a little wobbly in the middle) and golden.

Enjoy!

Cheesy Courgette Breakfast Muffins

For the first time, I have decided to take part in Fuss Free Flavours Breakfast Club, mainly because this is the first time I've come across it.  This month, #11, has a theme of 'Vegetarian and Savoury', as set by Green Gourmet Giraffe. An interesting one for me as my ideal breakfasts are either a stonking great big bacon buttie smothered in butter and tomato ketchup, or blueberry pancakes covered, drenched in fact, in maple syrup. But I do like a challenge.

So I got to thinking.  I've found my self pondering veggie and savoury breakfasts at all hours of the day (obsessive?  Moi?), but finding a problem with each idea. I thought about (and tried - oh the things we do for our blogs!) soft boiled eggs with early British asparagus dippers - but that's hardly a recipe; cheesy french toast with vine roasted tomatoes - but I couldn't have this without parma ham; Sweet potato rosti with roasted tomatoes - likewise, but bacon; Baked eggs with spicy tomato - but Green Gourmet Giraffe isn't keen on eggs so it didnt seem fair.

If I'm on the move, a croissant or blueberry muffin is my weapon of choice for breakfast, so I started thinking about savoury muffins. If I'm going to think about and create a new recipe, it has to be something my family will also want to eat, and they are fully fledged carnivores.  With this in mind, it had to suit both sides of the fence. I had a route around in my fridge and, to my delight found the right ingredients for these light yet filling muffins, that I'm sure contain one of your 5-a-day (wishful thinking?) and would be delicious on their own, with smoked salmon, with bacon or, in the case of the Breakfast Club Theme, a swipe of cream cheese and a sprinkling of black pepper.


Enough to turn me veggie?  Well, it's turned me savoury in the mornings and that's no mean feat.

Cheesy Courgette Breakfast Scones

• 220g plain flour
• 1.1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 60g butter, melted
• 1 egg
• 250ml milk
• 1 medium courgette, about 200g, grated
• 80g grated cheddar cheese
• 30g grated parmesan cheese
• 1 tbsp chopped parsley
• 1 tbsp chopped thyme leaves

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180 and wipe a none stick muffin tray with a slick of oil. (I tried this recipe lining the muffin tin with paper cases, as per the picture, and without. The mixture sticks to the paper so don't do it now!)

2. Mix the flour, baking powder, bicarbinate of soda and salt in a bowl.

3. In a separate, larger bowl, lightly whisk the egg then mix in the melted butter, milk, and courgette until combined.

4. Stir in the flour and mix until just combined but still lumpy and finally stir in the cheeses and herbs.

5. Spoon into the cake tin and bake for 30-35 minutes until golden and springy to the touch. Leave to cool slightly and eat warm. These can be warmed through another day and can be refrigerated.

I've frozen a few and will let you know how they are once defrosted and warmed through.

Enjoy!