Cheese and bacon muffins

Busy week-end ahead around here! The Baltimore Wooden Boats festival is on, as is the Fastnet Corona Short Film festival in Schull, and then there is the plant sale event in   Inish Beg…

And best of all the sun has been shining steadily since Sunday!!!!

I am baking sweet and savory goods for the event at Inish Beg, and these are just out of the oven:

It’s from a Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (from now onwards HFW)  recipe, with a couple of changes as I am completely unable to follow a recipe as it is…

1 tsp olive oil
100g smoked streaky bacon
1 red onion
1 tsp balsamic vinegar***

250g  flour

2 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

2 eggs

80g  butter

200 gr yoghurt – full fat

150g mature cheddar

Preheat the oven : 200C˚

Prepare 18 muffin cups either by greasing and sprinkling with flour or lining with paper cups

Cut the bacon in thin strips, about 1 cm and fry in one teaspoon of oil until crispy. Remove with a slotted spoon, leaving the oil and rendered fat in the saucepan.

Slice the red onion very thinly and sweat in the leftover fat on a  low heat. After one minute or two add a teaspoon of balsamic vinegar and cook for a further 5 minutes. It’s perfectly all right to slightly brown the onions – as long as they’re not charred…

Melt the butter and let cool a little.

Grate the cheese.

In a bowl mix the flour with baking powder and bread soda, add the grated cheese.

Make a well in the center and break in the two eggs, add the yoghurt and melted butter and stir, incorporating the flour without over mixing, then add the onions and bacon, mix just enough to distribute evenly in the dough and fill the muffin cups – I use an ice-cream scoop, medium sized, and got 18 out of the mix (the original recipe said 12, but I reckon the cups were bigger)

Bake for 18 minutes but this depends on the size – regular size (probably 1 1/2 scoop) will take 20-25 minutes.

I’ve tried one still hot – really good, will add some chill the next time!

*** NOTE ON BALSAMIC VINEGAR

When I came to Ireland 17 years ago it was hard to find, now even Lidl sells it…  but the real thing is not in every supermarket. Look at the ingredients – and it is true in this case, the more expensive are much better and go a long way. Most cheap balsamic are not aged at all, and full of caramel and additives, read the label before buying  and check this website by clicking on it P.D.O. Traditional Balsamic Vinegar of Modena P.D.O.

 

 

Some variations:

Greek Salad muffins:

instead of the onion bacon mix I have chopped 100 gr of sun dried tomatoes in oil, 100 gr of feta cheese and a few black olives

Herbs and cheese:

omit bacon, onions and replace with 1 cup of mixed chopped herbs: parsley, coriander, chives and a spoon or two of basil pesto

Dura la vita!!!

Life is tough in West Cork…

Rhubarb yoghurt cake

 

This is from Nigella Lawson’s How to be a domestic goddess, with a couple of slight modifications.

Makes 1 loaf

250 gr Rhubarb (it is good with apples too – use Bramleys in that case)

50 gr caster sugar

75 gr demerara sugar

1/2 teaspoon bread soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

150 gr plain flour (or half plain flour, half fine cornmeal)

1 large egg

60 gr butter – possibly unsalted

125 gr natural yoghurt (greek style works well too)

a mix made with 1 teaspoon cinnamon and 3 teaspoon demerara sugar

Preheat the oven to 180˚C

Trim and wash the rhubarb, slice into 2 cm pieces, put it in a bowl and mix it with the caster sugar. Let to rest for about 15-20 minutes.

In another bowl mix the flour, bread soda, cinnamon and sugar.

On a very low heat melt the butter. Beat together the egg and yoghurt, add the melted butter and add to the flour/sugar mixture.

Mix in the rhubarb with any juice that has formed, pour onto the tin and sprinkle the cinnamon/sugar mix on top.

Bake for about 45 minutes.

Check with a skewer, this will still be moist but no batter should be sticking to it.

 

 

 

 

 

New background….

Apple blossoms in Liss Ard

Tulips

Wild green soup!

Here in Ireland spring is supposed to be almost over – for some mysterious reasons summer starts on the 1st of May. But Nature does not stick to human parameters so the wind is still chilly  - 1˚C last night – and the wild herbs are really just right for this late spring soup.

Originally cooked for me by Philippe, a french couch surfer, is a traditional peasant soup, with lots of garlic and any green available.

This version is light on garlic – but you can add as much as you like!

Most of the greens are wild – the rocket is a wild variety, I sowed some in 2006, planted it in the polytunnel, let it go to seed and… I have a constant supply of it, all year round! The same self seeding habit applies to the Claytonia perfoliata (also known as miners lettuce, winter purslane…) , which goes to seed around this time of the year and then sprouts in November – honestly, I have to weed it out at times.

According to Philippe this soup is great if you feel under the weather: garlic, thyme, oats – plus all those barely cooked greens!

It is also really quick to cook, most of the time needed to prepare it is gathering the herbs.

A note on nettles:

Obviously you have to wear rubber gloves when picking nettles

Only use the young tips of the plant.

Once cooked they do not sting.

Three cornered leek (wild garlic)

Ingredients for the Wild green spring soup:

makes 2 portions

2-3 cloves of garlic – can go up to 1 full head if you feel like it

4 sprigs fresh thyme (or 1 tsp dry)

4 packed cups of wild edible greens: nettles, sorrel, pennywort (Umbilicus rupestri), wild rocket, Claytonia, and the non wild leaf beet, parsley

1/2 cup oats

salt, pepper

olive oil

stock or water

Trim, wash and chop the greens. Wear gloves if using nettles….

wild greens

Chop or crush the garlic and fry in 1 tbsp of oil without burning it. Add the thyme and the herbs. Cover and let wilt – this will take about 1 minute.

Pour the water or stock onto the greens, add salt if using, bring to the boil, boil for 1 minute and then remove the pot from the stove.

Add the oat flakes, cover with a lid and let soak 3 or 4 minutes.

Enjoy!

Garden

6th April

Planted potatoes (at last) – no dig: compost, cardboard, grass clippings, covered with landscaping fabric until they come out.

Where:

Pink Fie Apple and Juliette along the raspberry bed

Nicola and Sharpe between blueberry and quince – plan to plant more fruit bushes there next year.

Planted onion sets – late but will see, weather is still very cold.

12 April 2013

Planted more spuds: Maris peer in future herb bed.

Potted one blueberry, planted cranberries in the corner of herb bed

Planted blueberry next to chicken run

The tomatoes look dreadful – it took one month to germinate and they are growing really slowly.

Scattered saved calendula and california poppy seeds along SW side of chicken run

And the gift of the day….

Fritillaria

I planted the bulbs 4 years ago – this is the first year that they seem finally established – hopefully they’ll spread.

Retreat recipes part one!

The weather has been so good that it would have been a pity to spend time typing on a keyboard…

I went to Wicklow to cook for a Vipassana/Mindfulness and Loving Kindness retreat taught by Marjo Oosterhoff of Passaddhi . When at the end participants could speak again (it was a silent retreat) some asked for the seed and nut bread recipe – and it is about time to post it!

Spring flowers in the gardens at Magheramore

The recipe is a slightly modified version of Sarah Britton’s  The Life-Changing Loaf of Bread  - please click and go to the original website.  My New Roots is one of my favourite and inspirational food blog/sites, and I honestly think everyone should cook something from it at least once a week!

My version of the bread came to life because I wanted to try a gluten and oat free version of it. So I replaced the oats with millet flakes.

And I found out that millet flakes absorb much more water than oats, so I had to add about 100 ml more. The other  differences are that I do not use anything to sweeten the bread and use olive oil instead of the coconut or ghee.

Here are the ingredients for one loaf:

100 gr sunflower seeds

35 gr pumpkin seeds

90 gr linseed

65 gr almonds (I use whole unpeeled almonds)

145 gr millet flakes

2 tbs Chia seeds

4 tablespoons psyllium Husk

1 1/12 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoon olive oil

450 ml water

For the method follow the original recipe: I also add seaweed sometimes, or sesame seeds.

Mix everything together, in a bowl or you can try in the tin, and let rest for at least 4 hours or overnight. Preheat the oven at 170˚C and bake for about 30 minutes, remove from the tin and bake for another 20 minutes.

A note on the tin: I tried to grease the tin but the bread – probably because of the wet mix, really stuck to it. I line the tins with parchment now.

Again, thanks to Sarah for publishing this amazing recipe, and if you want to see pictures of it have a look at her website.

Garden 16 March ’13

Sowings:

In the heated propagator:

Tomatoes : Sungold, Alisa Craig, Tigerella, Chadwick, Cherry, Gardener’s delight, Moneymaker – I am not mad about his one but had some seeds .

Chilli peppers: Hotscotch and Ring of Fire

Aubergine: Bellezza nera

Sweet peas: a mixture of old seeds

In the polytunnel

Coriander, direct in soil

Kohlrabi: seed tray

Outside

Parsley

planted out sage and feverfew

Longing for a warm spring…

May in County Clare