Bacon, Leek, Potato and cheese pie

Thought I had better give you the recipe for this as I had raved about it the other night, so here you go.  As usual I haven't stuck rigidly to the recipe (I never do!).

4oz Pastry - I used shortcrust, the recipe says use Flaky, but I don't see that it matters.  You can use frozen for this or homemade

Filling -
1 medium leek - I used two smaller ones and found that four of this size would be better
2 medium potatoes
7oz smoked bacon
1oz butter - the recipe says to use clarified, but I couldn't be bothered so used it straight from the pack
4 fl oz Milk
3 fl oz Single cream - I used double cream as I didn't have any single and it was fine
2 beaten eggs
2 tsps dried mixed herbs - I left out as I didn't have any
2 oz grated Double Gloucester cheese - I just used strong Cheddar instead, but used about 4oz
Salt and Pepper to taste

• Preheat oven to 190C / 375F / Gas 5
• Slice leeks into approx 1cm rounds and wash thoroughly
• Peel and thinly slice the potatoes
• Trim off the bacon rind and roughly chop
• Roll out the pastry and line a 20cm flan dish, trimming the edges
• Fry the bacon under the fat starts to render and it starts to go crispy.  Set aside on kitchen paper
• Cook the leeks in the same pan and set aside with the bacon once soft
• Add the butter and fry the potatoes until just coloured - you may have to do several batches
• Spoon the leeks and bacon into the flan dish
• I then added a generous layer of grated cheese and sliced a couple of tomatoes over the top
• Arrange the potato slices over the top, overlapping to cover the other ingredients
• Beat together the milk, cream, eggs, herbs and season well
• Pour over the potatoes and top with more grated cheese
• Bake for 30 - 45 minutes, covering with foil if it starts to brown too much

This is great served with a simple salad or with whatever veg you have available like we did.

Enjoy!

Stats today -

Eggs produced = 7

Sales -

1 dozen eggs £1.80

1 x 1Kg Onions £1.00

Expenses -

Nil

My easy bread recipe

Now this is a simple recipe that you can adjust/adapt to suit your needs - add cheese, herbs, fruit, veg etc. It's the one I use all the time.  If it doesn't turn out quite how you want the first time, just keep at it, it gets easier the more you do it.

This basic mix makes one small loaf or six rolls -
1/2 tsp Salt
300g Bread flour - white, wholemeal, granary or a mixture of the three
300ml Warm water
1 tsp Dried yeast - I tend to buy the resealable 125g tubs of dried yeast, because I don't use the whole sachet if buying boxes of sachets; it's also cheaper.

Place the salt in the bottom of a large mixing bowl, tip the flour on top, scatter yeast over the flour and pour in the water.

All the ingredients in.  This is a double, i.e. 600g flour, 600ml water etc, and a mixture of wholemeal and granary - I was using up bags of flour

All the ingredients added - white flour

Mix all the ingredients together well to incorporate all the flour, a fair amount can get left at the bottom of the bowl.  At this stage it will be sticky, but don't worry, this results in a softer loaf, I find.

Brown mix

White mix

Put plenty of flour onto your work-surface and on your hands then tip out the mixture onto the work-surface, scraping out as much of the dough as possible.

Now for the kneading!  Don't hold back, you can use them muscles.  Start pushing, pulling and stretching the dough, after each stretch give the dough a quarter turn.

Add more flour as it gets sticky, the flour will become incorporated into the dough as you knead.

Keep kneading until the dough becomes stiff, usually takes between 5 - 10 minutes.

The kneading finished

Place the dough back in the same bowl you mixed it in, cover it with cling film and leave it aside, to rest and rise in a warm room for a couple of hours at least; even better, leave it overnight in the fridge.

Four and a half hours later, mine looked like this -

Brown flour dough

White flour dough

Notice all the bubbles - that's normal.

Give the bowl a bang on the work-surface, watch the dough as it should sink quickly.

Tip the dough out onto a well floured surface and divide with a blunt knife into six for rolls or leave whole for a loaf.  Shape the dough.  If making a loaf, shape into an elongated shape and drop into a greased loaf tin.  If making rolls, shape each roll and place on a greased baking sheet.

White rolls

Brown rolls

Leave them for about an hour, or until they have doubled in size, this is the second rising.  Preheat your oven to 180 Degrees centigrade / Gas mark 4.

Once they had doubled in size,  

bake in the oven for between 20 - 30 minutes (loaves take nearer the 30 minutes), until crisp on top and sound hollow when tapped on the bottom.  I tend to take them out of their tins and put them back in the oven for about five minutes to crisp up the bottoms.  Once cooked transfer them to a wire rack to cool. Once cool they can be frozen.

The finished rolls, top pic shows the crumb

They are rustic, but better for you than that stuff they sell in the supermarkets without all the preservatives in them.  They make fab toast, with lashings of butter and jam!

TIP - 

When washing up the dough bowl and utensils, rinse everything in cold water first, using your fingers to dislodge the dough remnants , then wash as normal.  Otherwise the hot water starts to cook the dough and it sticks to EVERYTHING!  

Stats today - 

Eggs produced = 12

Sales - 

1 dozen eggs £1.80

1 x Geranium plant £1.50

1 x Cucumber £0.60

Expenses - 

Nil

My Tomato sauce recipe

Don't know about you, but I love tomato sauce, it goes with loads of things.

This recipe is dead easy and I use it on pizza's, as a sauce for pasta, the basis of a spaghetti bolognese, lasagne and even as a starter for a stew.

You can use home grown tomatoes and I do when I have loads of them in the polytunnel, but at other times of the year tinned are brilliant.

1 x tin of tomatoes - chopped or whole, it doesn't matter
1 shallot or small onion
Large handful of fresh basil, I use green and purple basil or dried will do at a push
Freshly ground pepper and salt
Good olive oil

• Chop onion finely.
• Heat up a good splash of olive oil, and then fry onion gently until soft
• Add a few generous twists of freshly ground pepper and a pinch of salt, keep stirring
• Add the tin of tomatoes and chop up with wooden spoon if not already chopped, bring it up to a boil, then turn down the heat to a simmer, don't forget to taste it occasionally for seasoning.
• Rip the basil from the stalks and stir into the sauce, it will wilt down further as it cooks.
• Leave it to simmer away for at least twenty minutes until a lot of the liquid has evaporated and you are left with a good thick sauce.

At this point you can use it, or freeze it, or blitz it down further to a smooth paste to use on pizza bases.  It does taste better the day after making as the flavour develops.  I also like to add a good splash of extra virgin olive oil at the end to stir through, just to give it a little more 'italian' flavour!

Enjoy!

Stats today - 

Eggs produced = 13

Sales - 

2 dozen eggs - £3.90

Expenses -

Nil