Potato and Parsnip Brunch Stack

I think breakfast is quite an underrated meal in the UK. Our full English fry up pales in comparison to the French's hollandaise smothered eggs benedict, Mexico's spicey huevos rancheros or the USA's towering pancake stacks and giant mounds of potato and (insert any food stuff you can think of here) hash. It seems we just don't put as much effort in.

I do sympathise, I eat a banana or two for breakfast at work as I can't imagine cooking up and eating something substantial at 7:30am and on Saturdays I would rather have a bit of a lie in than get up early enough for the meal to be classed as breakfast. Sundays mornings though are made for pottering about in the kitchen and I feel the holidays are just the same. Maybe not on Christmas day itself as you'll be having a giant dinner later and a bit of toast will surfice until then, but on Boxing Day it's just lovely and will help to soften the blow of the big day being over.

I admit this is a bit of a labour intensive meal so may be suited more to brunch than breakfast. You will need several pans and there is a sauce involved as well as frying and poaching. You can find a nice easy hollandaise recipe here, but as it's the holidays I won't hold it against you if you use a jar or maybe even a packet!

Potato and Parsnip Brunch Stack
Serves 2

Ingredients
300g potato, preferably something waxy like a charlotte
1 medium sized parsnip
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tso garlic granules
1 egg

2 poached eggs (for a how to click here)
6 slices of bacon
hollandaise sauce

Method
Grate the potato and parsnip into a seive, squeeze out as much liquid as you can and then place into a bowl. Sprinkle over the pepper and garlic granules, then add the egg and mix until thoroughly combined.

Heat some oil in a frying pan to a medium low heat, then add the potato mixture in two halves shaping each into a flat round. Cook for about 5-6 minutes, turn over and cook for another 5-6 minutes until crispy and golden on both sides. Put the hash browns onto a plate and place under a low heated grill to keep warm.

Next cook the bacon and place under the grill with the hash browns, then poach your egg and whip up the hollandaise. Now to plate up.

Place a hash brown in the middle of the a plate, arrange 3 slices of bacon on top and then place on a poached egg. Pour over some hollandaise, season lightly and enjoy!

Fudgey Bacon and Pecan Blondies

Bacon. Bacon is great. In fact, most pork products are pretty fabulous. It's just a shame that it's one of the most fatty meats you can eat so we don't have it often, but occasionally I'll treat Pete and I to a tasty bacon sandwich for breakfast or a dinner of sausage and mash. However until now we had not tried bacon in a sweet baked recipe or dessert.

It's a pretty big thing in the USA right now - fancy a bacon, banana and peanut butter cupcake? Or maybe the famous 'Maple Glazed Bacon Apple Donut' from Dynamo Donut and Coffee in San Francisco? If you browse for some sweet treats on Etsy.com you're sure to come across chocolate covered bacon or bacon chocolate truffles.

As Pete and I are pretty addicted to Food Network we were made aware of these combos awhile ago and have always been curious as to whether it actually it good. My salted caramel cupcakes are awesome, so surely the salty bacon mixed with something sweet like chocolate would be great? Well, it is. Really really great actually. So great that I'll probably spend the next few weeks adding bacon to everything I cook - I'm now fairly sure that bacon will indeed enhance any recipe known to man.

There isn't so much bacon in these delicious slices so it's overpowering. You won't get a bit of bacon in every bite, but now and again you'll hit a chunk and be taken to heaven. The saltiness works SO well with the sweetness of the fudge and the creamy rich pecan nuts. I could indeed eat the entire tray if I didn't think that it would make me look like the very animal you get pork products from. Please try it, even if you think it sounds wrong. These blondies are so very very right.

Bacon on your creme brulee ma'am? Why yes, yes please.

Fudgey Bacon and Pecan Blondies
Makes 18 delicious squares

Ingredients
225g unsalted butter, melted
430g soft brown sugar
2 eggs, at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
280g plain flour
100g pecans, roughly chopped
100g vanilla fudge, roughly chopped
3 rashes of bacon, grilled until the fat is crispy and then chopped into little chunks

Method
Preheat the oven to 180 C / 350 F and line a 9" x 13"deep sided baking pan (or something similar) with greaseproof paper.

Whisk together the melted butter and sugar until well combined, then add the eggs and vanilla extract and mix until smooth.

Sift together the baking powder, salt and flour and then beat into the sugar mixture for 2-3 minutes. Fold in the pecans, fudge and bacon pieces.

Spread evenly into the prepared tin and bake for 30-35 minutes until the top is crisp and golden but the inside is still moist. Slide a knife into the center and if it comes out pretty much clean with perhaps a couple of crumbs it's ready.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool for 15 minutes before removing from the pan and cutting into squares. It's really good warm, and really good cooled. Store in an airtight container.

Some bacon-licious links!

Woodhouse Farm - A Leicestershire based producer of excellent home reared meats including bacon, you can order online for delivery or they have a storefront you can visit.

Bacon Salt - The stuff of legends, shake it onto anything and make it taste like bacon. Bacon chips. Bacon chicken. Bacon steak. Bacon popcorn. Bacon with extra bacon-y flavour! Buy it online in 8 different flavours including original, maple, applewood, jalapeno and more!

Baconnaise - From the people that invented bacon salt, you can now buy bacon flavour mayonnaise! Comes in regular or lite versions, I am yet to try this stuff but shall be purchasing very soon to slather onto everything I can think of.

The Bacon Explosion - A truly ridiculous recipe for teh hardcore bacon lover. I do not condone anyone ever eat this as it contains 5000 calories and 500g of fat. Heart fail.

Love Food Hate Waste's Bacon Recipes - This is a really great site showing you how to turn leftovers into delicious a new meal along with proper portion sizes, food storage tips and more. This link takes you to the bacon recipe ideas but go to the homepage here for more frugal fun.

Sunday Dinner Cornbread

Cornbread makes me think of long summer days sitting in the garden drinking cider and snuffling because my hayfever has acted up and my nose is blocked with pollen. It may sound unpleasant, but I love those days - we don't get that many of them in the UK so you really have to make the most of our short lived and confusingly spontaneous 'heatwaves'.

I think it must be this lack of warm weather that makes me yearn for a life in the South (of America people, as attractive as it seems I don't wish to become a tractor driving, moonshine swilling farmers wife in Devon). I'm thinking of the South where I could have a lovely big wooden house with a wrap around porch and spend my days drinking iced tea and grilling shrimp by the Bayou while listening to Clutch.

In my opinion, second to gumbo, cornbread is the dish that sums up the Deep South for me. It is a very humble dish using few ingredients, all of which are simple and wholesome and turned into something special with delicious spices key to Southern cuisine. Although I cannot say that this recipe is traditional, it is my reworking of a recipe which I believe is fairly authentic, taken from 'The New Orleans Cookbook' by Rima and Richard Collin. I would highly recommend it having tried several recipes, all of them being delicious, especially the Creole Jambalaya, Stuffed Artichokes and Crabmeat Ravigotte. There are also some wonderful dessert and drink recipes which would be perfect for a barbecue.

I have also made this dish for vegetarian friends replacing the bacon with fried diced onions and peppers and cooking the bread in melted vegetable shortening rather than the fat from the meat. It is just as delicious!

Sunday Dinner Cornbread
Serves 6 or more as a side dish
Adapted from 'The New Orleans Cookbook' by Rima and Richard Collin

Ingredients
120g / 1 cup yellow corn meal
120g / 1 cup plain flour
1 tbsp sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/8 tsp ground allspice
1/8 tsp ground white pepper
1/8 tsp ground cayenne pepper
1 large egg
250ml / 1 cup milk
60g / 1/4 cup vegetable shortening at room temperature (Such as Trex)
175g / 1 1/4 cups sweetcorn kernels (I used tinned)

250g / about 2 cups smoked bacon, fried in 1 tbsp oil and cut into small pieces
250g / about 2 cups grated cheddar or other firm white cheese
3-4 tbsp of the fat leftover from frying the bacon

Method
Place any size deep baking tray half filled with water on the very bottom of your oven and preheat it to 220 C/ 425 F.

Fry the bacon in 1 tablespoon of oil until crisp, remove from the pan and leave to cool, pouring 3-4 tablespoons of the fat left from the frying into an 8" baking pan. Chop the bacon into small pieces and set aside.

Combine the cornmeal, plain flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, allspice, white pepper and cayenne pepper in a large mixing bowl. Next add the egg and milk, beating with a wooden spoon until smooth, then adding the vegetable shortening and mixing again.

When the mixture is thoroughly combined add the bacon, sweetcorn and all but one handful of the grated cheese, mix and then pour into the baking tray smoothing over the top. Sprinkle over the remaining cheese and you should have something that looks like this...

Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for 25 to 30 minutes or until a knife slid into the centre comes out clean with no raw batter on it. If the top looks ready before the centre is cooked just cover it in tin foil and continue cooking for a few more minutes until done.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool for ten minutes before cutting into generous pieces. Cornbread is best served warm but is also delicious cooled to room temperature.

Notes
The tray half filled with water in the bottom of the oven is an old fashioned trick that helps to crisp the top of baked goods like breads and it really does work!

You could make all manner of additions to this recipe with different vegetables or shredded meats. I think prawns would be lovely fried off with some red and green peppers and onions.

Cornmeal can now be found in most large supermarkets, mostly in the ethnic foods aisle or in Chinese supermarkets. It is basically a medium ground polenta you are looking for.

If you removed the bacon and sweetcorn leaving the recipe a little more plain, it would be lovely used as a topping or crust over a stew or chili - place the cooked stew in an oven proof dish, then spread the cornbread mixture over the top and bake until crisp and golden. Yum!!!