Croque Madame Lunchtime Muffins

After watching the fabulous Rachel Khoo again on Sunday mornings, I wanted to give her take on the Croque Madame a go for a Saturday lunch. An alternative to eggs on toast, she adapts the ingredients for a classic Croque Madame and turns them into a crispy, béchamel/mornay stuffed treat, perfect for all the family.

I can’t compete with the beautiful photography and wonderful writing of this little gem of a blog from ‘Eat, Little Bird’, but this is where I found the recipe. It’s a simple combination and you can really add whatever you’d like. Since it was also for my toddler, I left salt and cheese out from the béchamel as there was to be cheese on top.

You’ll need:

milk, flour, butter, grated nutmeg and Dijon mustard for the béchamel.

ham/bacon, small eggs & cheese for the filling

sliced white bread and melted butter for the cases.

Method:

Cut the crusts from the bread (I shoved these in the coffee grinder to make breadcrumbs for the freezer!) then butter both sides. I melted the butter first but don’t think this really matters as it will melt in the oven anyway!

Next, push each slice into a muffin or dariole mould (1), place some torn ham or cooked bacon pieces in the bottom of each (2) and tip a small egg on top (3). If the egg is too big (I used the small ones my chickens have just begun laying again this week) tip a little of the white out into a freezer bag and freeze to use for meringue at a later date.

Make a quick béchamel: Pop a tablespoon of butter into a hot pan and quickly whisk in some plain flour until the mixture begins to form a ball. Slowly, tip some milk in and whisk quickly over a high heat. Pour a little in at a time and continue adding until you have a thick, cream sauce. Add the mustard and nutmeg. You can add grated cheese here too. Pour on top of the egg (4).

Grate a little cheese on top, sprinkle with pepper (5) and place in the oven at 180 oC for 12-15 minutes if you like the yolks runny, and 15-20 minutes if you prefer them more cooked.

The whole process is a little phaffy (especially when compared to poached eggs and ham on toast!) but the end result was lovely: A nice crispy shell, helped, I think, by the fact I used metal cases rather than silicone; and melted insides. I’d add more béchamel next time and reduce the cooking time so the yolk was runny as mine needed a little more moisture as they were quite dry. I’d also add some chopped parsley and maybe some chives for a little more flavour. If you used a smoked bacon, that would be really delicious! I’d do this again as the ingredients are those usually found in the fridge and cupboards, but probably only if I had some leftover béchamel from a lasagne or similar to reduce phaffiness!

Sunday Afternoon Project - Mary Berry’s Bakewell Tart

My Other Half mentioned the other day that his cookery exploits ‘aren’t allowed’ on my blog. Well, this post proves they are, especially when they were as tasty as the Bakewell Tart he made last weekend. In fact, this isn’t the only thing he’s put his mind to recently: Christmas Dinner was a delicious and perfectly rare Beef Wellington; This weekend saw the first attempt at Choux Pastry to make Chocolate Éclairs, although, upon finding we had no chocolate, they were quickly adapted to Coffee Éclairs. And equally delicious. I think many recipes he’s enjoyed trying have been inspired by Mary and Paul from GBBO, and so far, the Bakewell Tart has been the most impressive, both in looks and taste.

Once the ingredients are measured and combined, it’s really a case of tipping it all in, baking and eating. As I didn’t make it, I’m not sure if David made any tweaks to the original recipe which you can find here. I do know though, that our pastry tin is considerable wider than the one suggested, so he made up more of the filling to top it up. He also used shop bought ready-rolled short crust pastry because, as we know, life’s too short!

We at first thought that it could do with a few more minutes in the oven as the filling didn’t look quite set, but were, as usual, too quick for our own good. Once cooled, the filling had just set nicely. Our first slice was for dessert with custard. The next ones, hungrily guzzled cold from the tin. It was just too irresistible, and looked lovely to boot. I haven’t been let into the next Sunday Afternoon project but already, my mouth is watering!

Wholemeal Pitta Breads

After attempting the Hummus, we needed the homemade pittas to dip! Again, I followed Helen's recipe and they turned out a treat, with the OH even declaring they wee the best bread I’ve ever baked.

They were incredibly easy and the mixture proved nicely, something which I have little patience for usually. They were quite ‘bready’ and only a couple had the ‘pitta pocket’ trademark, but this was my fault, I should have rolled them out thinner, but I didn’t think they’d rise quite so much in the oven. Luckily, they were still thin enough to slice and dip. Phew!

Mini Caramel Lattes with Homemade Syrup

I’m not a latte girl. I prefer a medium strength, boring filter coffee or Americano with a splash of skimmed milk. Before Christmas, however, I noticed that one of those ‘everywhere’ high street coffee shops (we, unfortunately, have very few little independent ones near us) were selling a Salted Caramel Latte. It was cold outside, I was shattered, me and the little one needed a rest, so I stopped  and I promptly ordered one. It was delicious and soon, whenever I passed one of these shops in town, I couldn't walk past without buying. When you total the cost and, not to mention, the calories of all those lattes, I decided there must be a better way to drink your coffee. But Christmas has now come and gone, the weather has turned a little milder, and I still hanker after the sweet salted caramel fix.

It was with the thought of saving money in mind that I then trawled the net to find the perfect homemade syrup idea. I found two main ones: the first being a sugar / water caramel syrup mix; the second being a basic salted caramel using cream and butter. Now it was decision time. Did I opt for the rich and creamy salted caramel, or a more simple syrup? Deciding that the closet to what I enjoyed in the coffee shops was a syrup, I chose that version. I could always add cream on top after, although that sort of defeats the point of being able to control your calorie intake!

I chose this recipe, a simple combination of 2 US cups (450g) white sugar, 0.3 US cups (66g) brown sugar and 2 US cups (473ml) of warm tap water. Tip everything, along with some vanilla essence and the scraped inside of a pod, into a pan, mix and simmer gently for 10-15 minutes. When cool, pour into a sealable bottle.

To make the latte, tip a small amount, (1-2 tbsp) syrup into the bottom of a cup. Add a small espresso and top with milk. To make it even easier, use instant coffee in hot milk and add to the syrup. If you want a lower calorie version, make a ‘mini’ latte, use skimmed milk and don’t add whipped cream to the top, although I must say, this gives a lovely topping through which to drink.

I felt the syrup was a little thin, even after cooling, so I couldn’t use it to drizzle over the top of the cream, Next time, I’d use maybe three quarters of the water and add more if it was becoming too thick. That or rapidly boil for a short amount of time to help it thicken.

After all of that, I noticed (as you may have too) that I forget to ‘salted’ part to this drink. Well, it seemed to be one or the other – a plain syrup, or a salted caramel which would possibly be the wrong consistency to add to coffee, and doesn’t last as long in the fridge. A small sprinkle of salt over the top of the syrup would definitely do the trick though, just don’t overdo it!

Hummus New Year

Firstly, Happy New Year to everyone. Whether you’ve decided it’s going to be a better year than last, take up something new, or simply enjoy every day, I hope it proves healthy and happy. Every year, people make lists of things to accomplish in the forthcoming months. I rarely bother, mainly as I know I’ll enjoy doing the things I enjoy and if I want to do something, I’ll do it, whether its on a list or not.

So, in my head only as I cannot commit them to paper, I am hoping to continue the blog with a little more regularity (I’m sure I said this last year too, but that sort of proves my point!) and get back into the veg. plot, with a little help from Frankie now she’s old enough not to eat the soil!

The first post of the year is Hummus, or however you choose to spell it. This is something I’ve only recently got into so I thought it might be more fun to make it from scratch rather than use the shop bought variety. Especially since it’s something my little one loves and making it myself gives me more control over the quantities of things like added salt. I searched online and found a huge array of recipes based on the basics of combining chick peas with tahini, lemon, garlic and salt. Two main articles inspired me though, and I based my recipe on Helen’s version.

One of the main tricks I gleaned was to remove the skins from the chickpeas to ensure a smooth dip. Now, this seemed like a good idea until I began, whereupon the enormity of skinning 500g worth of the little suckers seemed a little overwhelming! I chose to skin them after about an hour's soaking, rather than after cooking them and this worked well when it came to the speed of boiling them to soften. After a couple of hours, however, and a quick trick of popping a few handfuls into a dry tea towel and rubbing vigorously, they were done. I returned them to soak and went to bed!

When boiling, do as suggested and after ten minutes, remove the ‘scum’ from the pan, rinse, refill with fresh water and continue boiling. I also popped in a little bicarbonate of soda to help the mushability factor. Once soft, it really is simply a case of adding everything to your desired taste and spooning in a little of the cooking water to let it down. I chose to top mine simply with olive oil and paprika.

One was with crispy onions…

…and another with roasted red pepper.

The leftover chick peas were frozen with a little of the cooking liquid to use later. Apart from the skinning of the peas, it really was easy. And the dips are remarkably tasty, but then I did add extra garlic as suggested by @joeleshark! Thanks cuz. 

Smoky Avocado Salsa topped White Fish

I was inspired to invent this salsa when Oxo sent out a blogger challenge to use their new 3 in 1 avocado slicer which splits, pits and slices the avocado. The OH is always asking to have more avocado, and I can never think of anything to do with it, except use it in a warm bacon and potato salad. So this challenge actually made me think a little harder than usual. As you can see, I’ve kept the smoky bacon aspect, but added a paprika twist.

Smoked Avocado Salsa topped White Fish

Ingredients: (feel free to alter the quantities according to taste)

1 large avocado

5 cherry tomatoes, cut into small chunks

100g smoked lardons

1/2 tsp smoked paprika

handful fresh chopped coriander

lemon juice

extra virgin olive oil

white fish

Method:

Oven-bake your white fish with a little oil and a squeeze of lemon.

Meanwhile, fry off the lardons until browned.

Sprinkle the paprika over the lardons, stir it in, remove from the heat and add the chopped tomatoes and half of the coriander. Squeeze some lemon juice over the top. Set aside.

Peel, pit and chop your avocado.

Mix into the warm lardons mixture, add a glug of extra virgin olive oil and the rest of the coriander. Season to taste.

Remove fish from oven and spoon over the smoked avocado salsa.

That’s it…simple. And made much easier by the new slicer thingumajig. It might even help me use avocados more often now I don’t get all the messiness!

Abra-ca-Debora Pancake Supper

I’m always on the look out for new ideas and quick and easy supper recipes, so was eager to get started when these pancakes arrived on my doorstep, along with a few other items to get started. I had, however, already chosen how I was going to use them.

The savoury pancakes would be used as a receptacle for Tartiflette, the sweet as a base for a Banoffee Pancake Cake! Tartiflette is one of my all time favourite cold winter recipes, so is perfect as the nights draw in. It’s simply a case of frying off lardons and sliced onions, seasoning, parboiling chopped potatoes then browning with the lardons.

Next, pour in a little cream, transfer to an ovenproof dish, top with Reblochon cheese and bake.

For exact quantities, see below. When bubbling and brown, spoon over a hot pancake.

The Banoffee cake was more of an experiment, but perfect if you’ve forgotten to make a pudding, as I had, when friends arrive for dinner. I made this in approximately 5 minutes whilst chatting! Simply stack then heat your sweet pancakes in the microwave. Meanwhile, whisk some double cream and chop a couple of bananas. If you wanted, you could even use squirty cream for ease. When the pancakes are heated through, top with half a can of Carnation Caramel (they’ve heated and caramelised it for you already, so no tin boiling required!), sliced banana, whipped cream and a sprinkle of cocoa.

The pancakes, especially since they have a delicious vanilla flavour, act as the perfect quick base for this easy pudding.

If I made the Tartiflette Pancakes again, I think I’d try an easier way. I’d fry off the onions and lardons and parboil the potatoes as before. Then, I’d use the pancakes to wrap the mixture (like making Enchiladas), including a slice of the Reblochon, and lay the rolled pancakes side by side in a dish. I’d pour over the cream, top with any leftover cheese and bake til the cream had thickened. I think this would cut out a step or two and be generally easier.

You could even layer a pancake flat, top with the mixture, include a slice of cheese and lay another pancake, mixture, etc., as with a lasagne, then pour the cream over and bake.

Although the pancakes seemed quite stiff when removed from the packet, once heated, they were a nice texture. And I particularly enjoyed the sugariness of the sweet ones, even simply melting some chocolate and pouring on top for one quick treat!

Tartiflette: Serves 3/4

1 pack Abra-ca-Debora original Dutch pancakes

200g smoked lardons

1 large onion, sliced

150mls single cream

3/4 medium sized potatoes, peeled and cubed

1 Reblochon

Banoffee Pie: Serves 6

1 pack Abra-ca-Debora sweet Dutch pancakes

150ml double / whipping cream

1/2 small tin Carnation Caramel

2 bananas

Cocoa

Disclaimer: Although I was sent products to try for the purpose of this post, all views and opinions are entirely my own, truthful and honest.