Bacon Hotpot

I first encountered this lovely dish on holiday in Newquay many years ago and had completely forgotten all about it until our recent trip to my old family homeland of Cardiganshire! 

It’s one of those lovely dishes that sits quietly in the oven taking care of itself, after some very basic preparation – and it’s a very frugal dish too.  It really sums up the best of traditional Welsh cooking, like the Italian Cucina Povera.  You can make it with some rashers of bacon, or use up the last ends of a bacon, gammon or ham joint.

 For one person I used :

 1 small onion

4 rashers of back bacon (I used up some cooked ham from the freezer)

2 -3 baby potatoes

Just under 250ml chicken stock*

 Melt a knob of butter in an oven-proof pan while you peel and slice the onion, then sauté the onion in the butter for a few minutes.

 Coarsely chop the bacon or ham and add to the cooking onions, then thinly slice the baby potatoes and add three quarters of those to the pan too.  Season and give everything a good stir before pouring over the stock, then top with the remainder of the sliced potatoes.

Simmer gently for 10 - 15 minutes, until the potato slices are cooked through and the stock is reduced.

 *  Knorr have recently introduced ham stock cubes, if you can get hold of these you could use one instead of the chicken stock.

Ham, Leek and Goat's Cheese Tart

Over the years I’ve made all manner of quiches, but this one really is my absolute favourite.  Leeks are a real feature in Welsh cooking, and a firm standby in my kitchen – they put an appearance in dishes often. 

This quiche really is a winner.  The buttery sweetness of the leeks, the subtle tang of the goat’s cheese and the creamy unctuousness of the cheesy duck egg custard were a perfect combination.  Do look out for Welsh goat’s cheese if you can, it has a much better flavour; ditto good Welsh Cheddar cheese.  Collier’s is my favourite.

 For an 8” (20cm) tart I used :

 ½ a 500g pack of ready-made pastry

 3 thick rashers of bacon, cooked and then chopped (or use cooked ham)

1 baby leek
4 slices of Welsh goat’s cheese
2 – 3oz (60 – 90g) cheddar cheese
½ pint (250ml) milk
2 eggs (duck if you can find them, they make a much better quiche)
Salt and Pepper to taste

 Roll out the pastry and line a greased flan tin.  You can part-bake the pastry case, but I’ve never had any success doing it so have long abandoned this step!

 Halve the leek and wash carefully, then dry as best you can before slicing up and sweating gently in a little butter for 5 minutes.  You just want the leek to soften, not brown.

 

Scatter the chopped cooked bacon or ham into the bottom of the pastry case, then add the cooked leek.  Slice the goat’s cheese and then add that and finally scatter over the grated cheddar.

 Combine the eggs and milk together with the seasoning and then pour over the contents of the flan tin. 

 Cook at 180^oC / 350^oF / gas mark 4 for 35 to 40 minutes, until the quiche is golden and set.

Sprouts and Bacon with Stilton

I came up with this lovely 'recipe' last Christmas as a way of using up the last of the Brussels sprouts and cooked ham. 

Using a tub of cheese sauce makes this a real convenience.  You could make it as a side dish to a roast dinner too - a sort of cauliflower cheese meets sprouts and bacon!  If you can find the purple sprouts as well as the green, this would make a real showstopper.

You could make the cheese sauce from scratch, or open a tub of supermarket cheese sauce - the Tesco Finest cheese sauce gets top marks from me.

Then simply slice the sprouts, chop the bacon or ham and combine with the cheese sauce, season to taste and fork in some crumbed Stilton before turning into a baking dish. Pop in a hot oven and cook until, bubbling.

Sausage, Bacon and Black Pudding Terrine

I came up with this idea for those of us who love an occasional treat of a Full English breakfast, but who just can’t face all the cooking and frying on a Sunday morning, not to mention all the washing up afterwards! 

Just prepare and cook this terrine on a Saturday afternoon, leave to cool and slice up ready for the morning.  Leftovers can be frozen and simply need defrosting before reheating on a griddle when you want a good breakfast. 

All you need with this are some grilled tomatoes, maybe a fried or scrambled egg and a piece of toast. 

I used : 

1 ½ x 450g packs of Cumberland sausages

250g whole black sausage (cut to fit your tin)

10 medium thickness rashers of bacon 

2lb loaf tin

 

Firstly line your loaf tin with the rashers (slices) of bacon, overlapping one another and overhanging the sides of the loaf tin. 

Skin the sausages and place in a basin, season to taste with a little salt and black pepper (and some fresh sage if you have some to hand), and then mix to form a large ball of sausage meat. 

Take half of the sausage meat and layer in the bottom of the loaf tin, on top of the bacon.  Cut the black pudding to fit your loaf tin and place that on top of the bottom layer of sausage meat.  Take the remainder of the sausage meat and form it around, and on top of the black pudding, encasing it completely. 

Finally, fold over the overhanging bacon to cover the sausage meat. 

Bake at 190^oC  / 375^oF  /  gas mark 5 for 45 minutes.  Turn out of the loaf tin and place on an oven proof plate or tray and pop back into the oven to brown the sides and (now) top of the terrine.

 

You can eat it straight away, or you can leave to cool and slice up, reheating in a griddle pan, under the grill or in the oven when you are ready.

 

Linguine with Bacon, Parsley and Garlic Oil

I cannot claim any authenticity for this recipe, it must be in almost every cookbook ever written.  Nonetheless, I thought it was worth sharing with you all because it is simply so quick and easy to put together, and absolutely delicious! 

Hubby is off playing cricket today so I was looking for something low effort.  It is much too sunny and warm to be spending time in the kitchen! 

 

 

 

 

 

For two people you need : 

200g linguine or spaghetti

6 rashers of bacon (smoked preferably)

1 tb or so of chopped flatleaf parsley

1tsp garlic olive oil 

Cook the pasta according to packet directions. 

While the pasta is cooking, slice up the bacon into strips and brown gently in the olive oil.  Wash and chop the parsley. 

When the pasta is cooked, drain and return to the pan, then add the contents of the bacon pan.  Add another drizzle of garlic oil if needed.  Add the parsley and mix everything together. 

Season with ground black pepper and an avalanche of grated parmesan cheese.

Egg & Bacon Flan

Over the years I have made many, many quiches with all sorts of ingredients and a quiche remains one of my favourite comfort foods.  In recent years I have re-discovered the classic quiche Lorraine, or egg and bacon flan as my Grandmother used to call it!

It’s a very simple dish, using refrigerator staples – bacon, eggs and cheese and really quite a frugal dish.  But such a classic combination and it can be taken to all new levels of tastiness by using really good quality ingredients.  Make it with best quality, oak or applewood smoked bacon, really strong cheddar and what I call proper eggs (from properly free-range hens) and you have yourself a real treat.  Nothing, but nothing can bring cheer to the weary soul like a very good, very simple quiche. 

The method below is pretty much the basic one I’ve been using for umpty tumpty years and will never let you down.  The only adaption I’ve made is to incorporate Delia’s tip of using a little parmesan cheese just before it goes into the oven.   

Like all my recipes, this is far from set in stone.  You can, of course, vary the basic recipe with whatever assortment of meat, fish or veggies takes your fancy. 

A small flan for two people : 

Grease and line a small flan dish with pastry.  The one I used was 7" in diameter and produced a nice deep quiche.

2 eggs

½ pint of milk (you can use a mixture of milk and cream for very best results!)

2 or 3 oz of good cheddar cheese (Welsh by preference please!!)

Salt and pepper to taste

4 slices of bacon, cooked and cut into strips

1oz or so of parmesan cheese 

Simply grate the cheddar and add to the bottom of your lined flan dish.  Add the cooked and chopped bacon.  Beat the eggs and add the milk (or milk and cream mixture), seasoning to taste.  Gently pour the egg and milk mixture onto the bacon and cheese and add a final grating of parmesan cheese. 

Cook at 180^oC / 350^oF / gas mark 4 for 35 to 40 minutes, until the quiche is golden and set.

Courgette, Bacon and Tomato Pasta Bake

This is really little more than a play on the bacon and tomato pasta bake I made earlier this year.  It’s not quite as frugal, but the cost of a courgette is never going to break the bank!   

Pasta bakes are always a bit of a faff if you are making them for immediate consumption. However, they are a really handy standby for making ahead of time, either for later in the day or the evening before you want them. 

For the sake of 15 minutes work of an evening, you have a really tasty dinner waiting for you when you come home from work the following day. Just pop it in the oven and go away until it’s ready!

For two people I used : 

3 thick rashers of bacon, cut into strips

1 courgette (zucchini) quartered lengthways and cut into small pieces similar in size to the penne

1 450g tin of tomatoes

Salt and pepper to taste

180g penne pasta

Freshly grated cheddar or parmesan cheese 

Dry-fry the bacon in a small frying pan until it starts to brown, season with a little black pepper and stir around.  Add the courgette pieces and then add the tinned tomatoes, stir and leave to simmer gently for 10 to 12 minutes. 

At the same time, cook the pasta according to packet directions, drain, return to the pan and add the sauce and combine the two together. 

Decant into an oven-proof dish and add a grating of parmesan cheese.  

Bake at 190^oC / 375^oF / Gas mark for 25 minutes, until the cheese and top pasta is browned.

This just needs a little bread to mop up the delicious tomato juices and a nice salad on the side.   

Fried cabbage with leeks and bacon

This is what the Italians would call Cucina Povera – poor cooking.  A very frugal lunch indeed; it takes next to no time to put together and uses only one pan! 

I based this on a dish from my very favourite cookbook, Delia Smith’s Complete Cookery Course but adapted it to use one of the leeks I had in the fridge – baby leeks are selling for coppers here at the moment so I always have a couple in the fridge! 

The quantity given below served one person, with bread and butter on the side.  Although you could, as Delia suggests, serve it with sausages and/or a jacket potato. 

For one person I used : 

½ a cabbage (I had Savoy in the fridge so used that but any cabbage would work)

1 baby leek

1 knob of butter (approx ½ oz or thereabouts)

3 rashers of bacon 

Firstly halve the leek lengthways and wash it thoroughly under running water.   Slice the halves of the leek up, then snip the bacon into pieces approximately the same size as the leek. 

Melt the butter, add the leek and soften for a few minutes before adding the bacon.  Cook for 5 or 6 minutes until the bacon is browning a little. 

While the bacon and leek are cooking, shred the cabbage and rinse well under running water.  When the bacon is starting to brown add the drained cabbage to the pan (don’t worry if it is a little wet) and season with salt and pepper.  Pop a lid on the pan and give it 5 minutes cooking time.  Remove the lid and give everything a good stir and let it cook for a further 5 or 6 minutes until the cabbage is cooked. 

The original recipe can be found here if anyone would like to try that one too http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/type-of-dish/party-food/accompaniment/fried-cabbage-with-bacon.html

Bacon, Leek, Potato and Cheese Omelette

This little baby contains three of my favourite ingredients – bacon, eggs and cheese – how could it fail!  It’s more akin to an Italian frittata than it is a traditional omelette, but I like it thick and substantial as a main meal rather than a light supper.  It’s another one of those convenient one-pot wonders that I love so much and if you have leftover cooked potatoes even more convenient; not that it’s a lot of work if you don’t! 

I’ve been feeling out of sorts and really quite fragile for a few days but had a craving for this yesterday!  This is really not hubby’s cup of tea, frankly he’d rather chew his own arm off than eat cheese or eggs so I made it for myself while he was out playing cricket!  The recipe (such as it is!) below served one person but can easily be doubled, or more depending on how many people you are cooking for. 

As always in my kitchen, this is a very adaptable little dish. I treat a frittata as a fridge clearing exercise a lot of the time; anything and everything that needs using up can be tossed in! 

Today I used : 

2 small new potatoes

The green part of a medium leek

3 rashers of bacon

2 eggs

½ tsp English mustard powder (or ½ tsp of made-mustard)

Pinch of cayenne pepper

Salt and pepper to taste

1 or 2oz of grated cheddar cheese

Small knob of butter 

·         Firstly, cut the rashers of bacon into strips and cook over a low heat until browned.

·         At the same time, cut the potatoes into chunks and pop in a bowl with a little boiling water and microwave for a few minutes until cooked.

·         Remove the bacon to a dish and add a small knob of butter to the pan and melt.

·         Cut the leek in half lengthways and then slice widthways, add to the melted butter and cook gently for a few minutes.  Add the cooked potato pieces and cook gently together. 

·         While the leeks and potato are cooking together, beat the two eggs with ½ tsp of mustard powder, a pinch of cayenne pepper, salt and pepper to taste.

·         Add the bacon to the pan and combine everything together.

·         Add the beaten egg to the bacon, leek and potato mixture and stir in, swirling around the pan until the egg is evenly distributed.  Add the grated cheese to the top of the mixture.

·         Cook gently on the hob until the egg is set and then pop under the grill to finish cooking and brown the cheese. 

A dusting of cayenne pepper after it comes out from under the grill finishes this off a treat! 

You could serve a nice light salad alongside this but I usually just go with the traditional Welsh Valleys accompaniment of good bread and butter!   

This is the sort of dish that always reminds me of my grandparents.  It’s the sort of thing that the old ladies would prepare for a late supper for the menfolk – not that they ever called it anything as fancy as a frittata in those days!

Bacon and Tomato Pasta Bake

January is always a lean month in our house!  Partly as a means of tightening the purse-strings after the excesses of December; partly as a calorie control measure but mostly because after all the rich food during the run-up and over Christmas, I crave lighter meals. 

This pasta bake, when I broke down the costs worked out at less than £2, for two of us! 

As a general rule I find pasta bakes a bit of a faff to make; two pans on the hob and a further oven dish – that’s a lot of washing up!  To make it worth doing I usually batch cook and make enough to have another two meals in the freezer. 

As I had pasta leftover in the fridge from yesterday’s pasta bake, I just made enough for today (actually, I planned ahead and cooked twice as much pasta yesterday so that I could use it today!).  It took less than 15 minutes to prepare, and then 20 in a hot oven.  How convenient is that! 

For two people I used : 

3 thick rashers of bacon, cut into strips

1 x 450g tin of tomatoes

Salt and pepper to taste

180g pasta

Freshly grated parmesan cheese 

Dry-fry the bacon in a small frying pan until it starts to brown, season with a little black pepper and stir around.  Add the tinned tomatoes and stir, simmer for a minute or two. 

At the same time, cook the pasta according to packet directions, drain, return to the pan and add the sauce and combine the two together. 

Decant into an oven-proof dish and add a grating of parmesan cheese.  

Bake at 200^oC for 20 minutes, until the cheese and top pasta is browned. 

This just needs a little bread to mop up the delicious tomato juices and a nice salad on the side.   

Now I think about it, a handful of black olives would make a nice addition to this – I’ll try and remember that next time I make it!  A handful of torn basil wouldn't go amiss either! 

* You could cut down on the work, and washing up if you make it with cooked ham.  In that case you’d only need to cook and drain the pasta, add the tinned chopped tomatoes and the ham, season, combine and tip into your oven dish.  Even less work again if you have leftover pasta in the fridge.  It’s worth bearing this in mind if you know you have a busy day coming up and still want something easy to come home to. 

Spaghetti Carbonara

This is a bowl of comfort food at its absolute best for me!  Bacon, egg and cheese – what’s not to like!  It takes less than 5 minutes to prepare, including boiling the kettle to cook the pasta, and takes only 10 minutes to cook.  What could be simpler than that. 

I feel faintly embarrassed giving a recipe for this, but it’s such an easy and tasty little number that it’s a shame not to. 

For two people : 

200g spaghetti or linquine 

4 rashers of bacon

2 eggs

Grated parmesan cheese (approx 2oz or so, to taste)

Freshly grated nutmeg

Freshly ground black pepper

Small bunch of flatleaf parsley 

Cook the spaghetti or linquine in salted boiling water according to packet directions, usually 10 minutes. 

At the same time, cut the bacon rashers into strips and brown gently in a small pan. 

Break the eggs into a bowl and beat together lightly, season with a little ground black pepper and freshly grated nutmeg.  Add a generous handful of parmesan cheese and mix together with a fork. 

Wash and roughly chop the parsley. 

Drain the pasta and return to the pan, add the eggy cheesy mix and stir around and then add the bacon and parsley.  Toss everything together until the egg has cooked in the heat of the pasta and the residual heat of the pan. 

Instead of cooking bacon you can, as I have this time, use cooked ham.  The dish pictured above was made using cubed leftover cooked Christmas ham.  The green parsley gave it a lovely festive finish!

You can, if you wish, make a little extra and keep it aside in the fridge to make a delicious frittata in a day or two.  If you do that, simply chop up the spaghetti with two knives, beat a further two eggs together and mix well through the pasta mixture, adding a little more grated parmesan cheese if you wish.  Then simply tip into a small frying pan and cook until the egg has set, popping under the grill for a few minutes to cook the top of the frittata.  I have made that a number of times, it’s particularly nice with a fresh goose egg!

Butternut Squash and Bacon - pasta and risotto : two for one!

I have been home alone for a couple of days this week so had an opportunity to re-visit this old favourite! 

It came about when I was single and used to find that a butternut squash, even a small one, was really too much for one person.  I absolutely hate waste so I used to cook the whole thing, with enough bacon for two people and either cook one and a half serves of pasta, with the extra reserved to make a frittata the next day, or I would just set aside half of the butternut and bacon mix to add to a risotto. 

These are my ‘recipes’, such as they are!  As they are all one serves, if you are cooking for two people then you’ll need two butternut squashes, or a large one.  Or, you could of course use pumpkin.

Peel and cut a butternut squash into cubes and add to a frying pan with a little garlic olive oil.

Chop up four or five rashers of bacon into chunks and add to the pan.  Snip/chop some fresh sage leaves and add.  

I sometimes add a little crushed dried chilli too.

Cook the whole lot gently until everything is cooked and browned nicely.

At the same time as this is cooking, boil a pan of pasta according to packet directions.  I quite like chilli penne with this.

Now depending on what you want to do with the other half of the butternut and bacon mix proceed as follows :

To set aside for a frittata – drain the pasta and add to the frying pan, stirring so that the pasta picks up the sticky bits from the pan.  Decant half to your dish and the other half to a bowl to set aside for the next day.  Add a good grating of parmesan to both bowls.

To set aside for the risotto, just remove half of the bacon and butternut mixture to a bowl and then add the pasta to the pan. 

To make the frittata : break up the pasta and butternut mix with a wooden spoon, beat two eggs, season and add to the bowl with the pasta and mix so that everything is well combined.  Melt a little butter in a frying pan and add the eggy pasta mix, grating a little fresh parmesan over the top.  Set the eggs on the hob, swirling the pan around from time to time and then finish off cooking under the grill.

To make the risotto, for one person I do as follows :

Finely chop a small shallot, half a clove of garlic and a stick of celery and soften in a little butter or olive oil.  Add 1/3 cup of risotto rice and stir around to coat with what little oil there is left in the pan, add 2/3 cup of vegetable or chicken stock and stir in.  Leave to simmer on a low heat, stirring from time to time as it cooks.  Cooking time will vary depending on the type of rice you are using, but generally takes somewhere between 15 to 20 minutes.  Keep the kettle boiled and handy and if you need to, if the risotto seems to dry before the rice has cooked, you can add more boiling water.  Add the bacon and butternut mixture 5 minutes before  the end of the cooking time.  Then add a generous grating of fresh parmesan cheese.

I know that the recipe for the risotto is an aberration to Italians, both in the quantity of butter and the all-in-one method!  But I’m not Italian, I can’t bring myself to use as much butter as you should to make a true risotto, and I like the convenience of doing the all-in-one as opposed to the pan of simmering stock being added a ladleful at a time!

Chicken Leek and Bacon Pie

I love pies!  I love the fact that they are a meal in a dish so I don’t have as much washing up to do in the evening.  Like my shepherd’s pie, they can be made in two stages to split up the work.

The recipe I used to feed two is :

1 leek (the white part for the filling and the green part for the mashed potato topping)

1 carrot

1 stick of celery

3 rashers of bacon, cooked and roughly chopped

leftover chicken torn roughly

1tb flour

12 fl oz chicken stock

Salt and pepper to taste

Generous knob of butter to cook the green part of the leek

2 medium/large potatoes (depending on the size of your dish)

Begin by chopping the stick of celery fairly finely, then dice the carrot and dice the white part of the leek, setting aside the green part for later.

Melt a little butter in a pan and sweat the vegetables for 10 minutes.

Add the tablespoon of flour and mix well in to absorb all the liquid.

Gradually add the stock, stirring it all in before adding more to eliminate any lumps.  Season the sauce and cook for 10 minutes to thicken and cook the flour.  Allow to cool and then add the leftover chicken and cooked chopped bacon (or ham).

Decant into your pie dish and set aside.

For the mashed potato topping, peel, dice and boil the potatoes, then mash. 

Dice the green part of the leek and soften in a generous knob of butter while the potatoes are boiling.

Once the potatoes are mashed, tip the whole buttery lot into the pan and stir in to combine.

Allow the potato and leek to get cold, and then dollop spoonfuls onto the pie filling and fork through.  The ridges will brown beautifully in the oven.

You can, if you wish, top the pie with some grated cheese, as I do for my shepherd’s pie.

When you are ready to eat, the pie will need around 35 to 40 minutes at 180^oC from cold.  Or 25 to 30 minutes if you’re making it to eat straight away.

Sausage and bacon stuffing roll

This recipe was a new one that had its first Christmas outing last year.  My friend Julia gave me the idea for it, and I twiddled the recipe to our particular tastes.

It couldn’t be simpler to make or assemble!!

The recipe I used is as follows:

½ loaf of bread

1 medium onion

1 medium bunch of fresh sage

6 sausages, skinned

Salt and pepper

10 rashers of bacon

Firstly, cut the bread into chunks and place in the bowl of a food processor.

Peel and cut the onion into large chunks and add to the bread in the food processor

Wash and add the sage to the onion and breadcrumbs and process until everything is chopped fairly finely.

Turn into a mixing bowl and skin and add the sausages to the bowl.  Mix together with your hands until everything is combined.

Lay a sheet of foil on your worktop and layer the bacon across it.  I used back bacon as I don’t like fatty bacon, but you could use streaky if you wish.  I layered it thick/thin alternating.

Add spoonfuls of the sausagemeat mixture to the bacon and spread out with your fingertips fairly evenly.

Begin rolling up from one end as you would a swiss roll.

Pop into a greased baking tray (it will need to be deep as the sausage and bacon will let off some fat) and bake for around 45 minutes in a medium oven.

This is such a simple and convenient accompaniment to the Christmas meat, it can be sliced onto the plate and in the days following Christmas either sliced to go into rolls with some leftover turkey, or on its own.  It’s also delicious cut into thick slices with bubble and squeak!