Friday 27 May 2011

Fritatta with chard





My garden is being kind enough to give me a weekly bounty of chard leaves.  So today I was trying to think what else I could do with them.  I usually use them as a salad leaf but today the thought came to me to try them in a fritatta.

I love fritattas - they make great lunch box food.  You don't even need to heat them up to eat them.  It'll be one meal in the day when I don't have to cook and sometimes days get that little bit hectic that I just need a prepared lunch.



Here's the recipe:

6 rashes of bacon cut into bacon bits (lightly fried)
2 Onions (lightly fried)
Broken up bits of goat cheese
25g Chard leaves
8 eggs
Cheddar cheese for grating

1.  Fry the bacon bits and onions
2.  In a large metal wok type pan (that can be used in the oven later on)  combine the bacon, onions, 8 eggs, goats cheese, chard leaves and mix together
3.  Place on a medium heat and fry (without disturbing) to allow the egg to bond everything together
4.  Once it all looks like its started to firm up add the grated cheddar cheese on the top.
5.  Place in the oven at a temperature of 180 degrees centigrade.
6.  When the cheddar on the top is golden brown it is ready to take out of the oven

Saturday 14 May 2011

Bread Recipe with mixed flours





500g  Strong White Bread Flour / 250g Malt grain seedy flour / 250g Spelt flour
Table Spoon Yeast (and a tea spoon sugar to feed the yeast)
30g Salt (this is my taste - my cook book recommends 20g but everyone likes it a bit different)
30g Olive Oil
625ml water

This combination made the best bread I've made so far.  I let the bread rise in its bowl overnight which might have helped giving the bread plenty of time to rise.  The bread was light and fluffy and I nearly ate half of one of the loaves as soon as they came out of the oven!

What I love about baking my own bread is you can create whatever mixture of flours you like and no one else has your exact taste buds so you really can make it exactly how you like it.  Also its a fraction of the price of an artisan loaf (Around £2 for 3 or 4 loaves).  Bread also freezes really well so I only bake a batch twice a month.  Each time I bake a batch I save a quarter of the dough and freeze it so I have some spare dough when I want to make pizza.