Bacon Gratin Pie...

Sometimes you need to branch out at dinner time and try something different. In this case, dream up something different. It was far from perfect and needs some development to make it really work but a general success and pretty tasty. Anyway, it's something you can work with as an idea. It's just a puff pastry sheet with a tasty filling topped with sliced potato and cheese. In this one I fried up onions, garlic, leeks and smoked bacon to make a filling, topped it with sliced boiled potatoes and cheese and carefully poured over a little beaten egg and milk mixture then baked it for about 30 minutes at 200°C.

The result is something of a cross between a pie, a gratin and a fritata. A welcome break from the norm.

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Mini Cheese & Leek Quiches...

When you make the quiche from a few posts back you might have some pastry left over. I did, so I popped it in the fridge and a couple of days later we had these mini cheese & leek quiches for lunch. We had cheese and leek because that's what was in the fridge needing to be eaten up. I reckon cheese is a quiche essential, along with a little onion, but you should be able to add just about anything else and end up with a tasty egg tart of sorts.

• Veg fried lightly for a few minutes whilst pastry cases had 5 minutes in the oven
• Egg beaten with a dash of milk, poured into cases filled with a little cheese and vegetables
• Baked for 10-15 minutes in oven at 200°C

(made 9)

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Chicken & Leek Pasties...

I was looking for something different to make for lunch and came across a Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall recipe for these pasties. I didn't follow the recipe as such, but went along with the idea of it and was pleased with the results.

Pastry:
• Blend the flour and butter until they resemble breadcrumbs and bind together with cold water to form a dough.
• Roll the dough out to 5mm thick, fold back into a square, re-roll and repeat for or 5 times. This gives you a slightly flaky pastry.
• Chill the dough for an hour or so and meanwhile make the filling.

Filling:
• Chop the leek and onion and fry gently in some oil.
• Meanwhile, trim and chop the chicken into fairly small pieces that will cook relatively qucikly (1cm cubes); add to the frying pan and cook until beginning to brown.
• Whilst this is going on dice the potatoes and boil separately, until quite soft.
• When both are ready combine in the pan and mix together quite roughly to break up the potatoes and combine all the flavours. Season with salt & pepper.
• Set aside to cool.

Assembly:
• Rollout the pastry to 3-4mm thick and cut out 20-22cm diameter rounds
• Place a heap of the filling on one half of each. Brush some milk or egg around the edge of the circle then fold over and crimp together with your fingers.
• Place on a baking tray, brush with beaten egg and cook at 190°C for 20-25 minutes until golden brown.

Notes:
• Add some chopped smoked bacon to improve flavours.

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Cabbage Soup...

We rarely buy soup, it seems there’s always some vegetables that have passed their best to create one from for a tasty Saturday lunch. I came up with this purely to use up a very limp cabbage and was pleasantly surprised at its tastiness! I also threw in the green top of a leek which was lying around, and attribute this to lifting the cabbage’s flavour.

Like most soup, there’s not really a definitive way of making it, it’s a bit of an art and you style it to your own tastes/preferences. What is essential is that you serve it with some crusty fresh bread’n’butter.

Ingredients:
Half a Savoy cabbage
Green end of a leek
1 clove of garlic
1 onion
Veg stock cube
Salt & pepper

• Slice the onion and garlic then sweat in butter/olive oil until softened, not browned, in a large saucepan.
• Add chopped leek and cabbage and briefly fry for a couple of minutes.
• Dissolve a stock cube in about 1-1½ litres of water and add to pan.
• Bring to the boil and leave to simmer for about 10-15 minutes. Not too long though, or the cabbage will not be tasty; the liquid should have slightly reduced.
• Lightly blitz with hand blender to break up cabbage, but leave plenty of chunky bits for the bottom of the bowl.
• Season to taste before serving.

Notes:
• Makes 2-3 portions. Just increase quantities for a larger amount.

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