Who doesn't love a Cadbury's Creme Egg or two at this time of year!  Does the Easter Bunny ever bring enough?  I think not.  Cadbury has teamed  up with Georgia Green of Georgia's Cakes to develop three beautiful recipes for your Easter Bakes using their fabulous Cream Eggs! 

 

  

 

One of the things I love most about the Easter Season of eating is . . .  Hot Cross Buns!   Although they are generally available all year round now it seems,  in this house we only ever eat them at Easter.  

I think when something becomes an every day thing it loses its specialness, so that is why, like Strawberries, we only ever eat Hot Cross Buns at Easter time.

The tradition of marking buns with a cross on the top goes back a very long way. Pagon Saxons baked cross buns at this time of year to mark the beginning of Spring, in honor of their god Eostre. 

The cross was representative of the four seasons along with the four quarters of the moon, the wheel of life and a rebirth of the earth after the long Winter.

 

  

Christians adapted the cross when an Anglican monk baked the buns and marked them with a cross in honor of Good Friday.  

 

As a child I used to sing this ditty, which was actually the cry of common street-vendors, back in the day . . . 

 ‘Hot cross buns, hot cross buns!
One ha’penny, two ha’penny, hot cross buns!
If you have no daughters, give them to your sons,
One ha’penny, two ha’penny, hot cross buns!’

The buns are usually served on Good Friday, marking the end of Lent and the spices are said to represent the spices used to embalm the Saviour after His crucifixion.

  

Whatever your take on their significance, one cannot deny that hot cross buns are a delicious Easter flavour.  

 They are also a tradition that helps to mark the joys and promise of this Spring holiday, much needed by many after having gotten through a long cold Winter.

 

I will admit that I am a Hot Cross Bun purist.  I like  a traditional one, a bun without all the tweaks and chocolate bits, sticky caramel bits, whatever.  Plain, spiced and studded with mixed vine fruits being my chosen poison. 

Not all are created equal.  I like a well fruited one, so I never opt for the cheapie brands, which more often than not are sadly lacking in both spice and flavour. 

 I would never settle for a few sad raisins me.  I want an abundance of fruit!

 

My husband rankles at me buying them even two weeks before Easter.  He reckons they shouldn't come out until Good Friday, and he has a point.  

However  . . . he did not turn down my offer this morning of a Hot Cross Bacon Bap!

 

Unconventional  . . .  perhaps, but so delicious, served toasted and buttered, with a spread of bitter marmalade on the bottoms and a spritz of brown sauce gilding the top of that tasty bacon.  

Every mouthful was pure delight.  Don't knock it til you try it!

  

  

Heat the oven grill  to high.  Slash the fatty edge of the bacon at 1/3 inch intervals all along the edge.  Grill the bacon beneath the hot grill until  your desired crispness, flipping it over and grilling on both sides.  Set aside and keep warm.  

Slice the hot cross buns in half horizontally.  Pop under the grill and toast on the cut sides only.  Once toasted spread with softened butter.  Spread a portion of marmalade onto the toasted bottoms of each bun. 

 Lay three rashers of bacon, folded to fit, on top of the marmalade.  Drizzle with brown sauce (if using) place the toasted top buns on top and serve. 

Note - Brown sauce is what we brits call HP sauce. 

 

I confess I was also tempted to add a layer of cheese, but I restrained myself.  Needless to say these were fabulously tasty, so much so . . .  that I might make us another one for lunch.  Bon Appetit! 

 

  

I had bought a lovely bone in pork loin roast prior to Christmas, which had been in the freezer since then as I just didn't get the chance to cook it.  I remembered it at the weekend and decided to take it out.  It was a lovely piece of meat.  Perfectly sized for four people, or just us two with some nice leftovers.

 

It was a free-range bone-in loin of pork half roasting joint, skin on, with four rib bones.  The chin bone had been removed, which makes for very easy carving.  I didn't especially want the crackling this time so I trimmed it all off with a sharp knife and discarded it, leaving a nice layer of fat on the outside.

 

To be honest, I am never really quite sure what to do with the layer of skin. Over here they roast it until it is crisp and serve it as "Cracklin"  . . .  crisp and salty.  I am not a huge fan of this.  Probably because it isn't something I grew up with.  It's also really difficult to get it as crisp as you want for eating purposes simply by roasting it.  I think a lot of places actually deep fry it. We are staying away from that kind of thing in this house.

 

How I have always done my pork loin roasts is to make deep cuts into the roast, all over it at regular intervals, right down almost to the bottom, using a really sharp knife. My boning knife does a super job.

 

Then I take peeled cloves of garlic and stuff them into the meat.  For a roast this size, I used four cloves.  You cut them into slivers and then you start stuffing them down into the roast into the holes/slits you cut with your knife.

 

I use a chopstick for this.  First I push in the chopstick, which makes the slit wider, and then I stuff in the garlic, pressing it down in with the end of the chop stick.  I try to make it so the slivers end up a different spots inside the meat.  Some I will push down all the way and others I will leave nearer the surface.  Don't worry the holes close over when the meat cooks.  You don't end up with a hole-pocked piece of meat, trust me.

 

After that I sprinkle it all over liberally with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.  And that's it.  Just put it into the roasting dish/tin and roast it.  Easy peasy.

 

I like to serve it with some mashed potatoes, cabbage, carrots, swede and gravy.  With a bit of applesauce on the side, it makes for a beautiful meal. Sometimes I will make a fruity bread stuffing to serve along side as well. Its so tasty!

   

 

Remove the meat from the refrigerator and allow it to come to room temperature.  Preheat the oven to 200*C/400*F/ gas mark 6.  

If your roast has the skin on it, using a really sharp boning knife, trim off the skin and discard, leaving a nice layer of fat.  Using the tip of your boning knife, make deep cuts down into the meat, through the fat.  Push a sliver of garlic down into each cut.  Sprinkle all over liberally with salt and black pepper.  Place into a small roasting tin/dish. 

Roast in the preheated oven for 30 minutes per 500g/1 pound plus an additional 20 minutes. My roast took approximately 1 1/2 hours. The juices should run clear. 

Serve hot cut into thick slices.  (I like to cut in between the ribs. This is very easy to do, if the chin bone has been removed.)  

Serve with applesauce and your favourite vegetables.  

  

You can make a delicious gravy with the pan drippings if you wish.  Remove and discard all of the fat, but 2 TBS of the fat. Put the the 2 TBS pork fat into a saucepan.  Add 2 cups hot stock (chicken) to the pan and scrape up all the brown bits and meat juices. Heat the fat over medium heat and whisk in 2 TBS of flour.  Cook for about a minute.  Slowly whisk in the pan juices/stock.  Cook, whisking constantly, until it bubbles and thickens.  Season to taste with salt, pepper and a bit of thyme if you desire.

 

We had some of the leftovers today in Cuban Sandwiches.  I have never been to Cuba, but this sandwich has always intrigued me. It has always looked incredibly delicious.

 

I did a search on Pinterest for a recipe. There was no end of recipes to choose from. I finally decided on one that I found on Saving Room for Dessert.  Most of the other recipes I had looked at called for a layer of Salami, which I didn't have.  This was simply layers of honey ham, roast pork, swiss cheese (I used a Dutch Maasdam), mustard and sour gerkins/pickles.  I used ciabatta rolls.  Buttered and pressed/weighted down and grilled in my iron skillet.  YUM!

 

The leftover roast pork was perfect in this, with a nice hit of garlic, thinly sliced.  My new favourite sandwich!  Bon Appetit! 

  

I don't think I have ever met a scone that I did not fall in love with. Sweet or savoury, they all hit the spot with me.  People tend to think that scones and biscuits are the same thing, which is not exactly true, although they may seem very similar in texture and taste.  And that is not to confuse British biscuits (which are cookies) with North American Biscuits (which are a type of quick bread similar to a scone!)  Are you confused yet? 

  

A biscuit is not a scone people and a scone is not a biscuit.  The two are definitely not interchangeable!  To be sure, they are composed of basically the same things  . . .  fat, leavener, dairy and flour . . .  but the very way that they are put together generally results in a somewhat different animal altogether.  Biscuits tend to be light and airy, with almost visibly defined, flaky layers.  A scone, on the other hand, whilst also light and somewhat airy, has an almost crumbly texture.  When you are making a good biscuit, the fat is "Cut" into the flour mixture with a pastry blender until the mixture has lumps of fat in it the size of small peas.  Fat in a scone is "Rubbed" in with your fingertips, in an almost snapping motion, until the mixture resembles fine bread crumbs. 

See, two different creations entirely . . . and both can have various amounts of sugar in them, or no sugar in them, and can come in  sweet and savoury versions. 

 

Now lets talk about Bacon.  Who doesn't love Bacon (barring all vegetarians.)  I don't know any meat lover that doesn't wax poetic about a lovely piece of bacon.  Before I moved here to the UK, I only knew one kind of bacon, and that was . . .  well . . . bacon.  Oh, and Canadian bacon, which was quite nice and meaty.  Since moving over here I discovered that there are all kinds of bacon.  First there is smoked and non-smoked.  Then there is dry cured and wet cured.  Bacon over here mostly looked like the kind you see in the bottom of the above photo, which is kind of like Canadian bacon with a leg of streaky bacon attached.  Streaky bacon is the type that I had grown up with for the most part, like you see in the upper right hand photo.  Fattier.  And then there was rind on and rind off.  I have never come to enjoy it with the rind on.  I don't like bacon rinds.  So I always buy it rind removed, dry cured and depending on what I am using it for either smoked or non-smoked, and they are now bringing in nitrate free cured bacon, which is good news for us who want to avoid nitrates. 

 

Cheese.  Before  moving to the UK, the most adventurous I got with cheese was having sliced Havarti on a sandwich, or treating us to a small block of marble cheese if we were having company, or, yes  . . .   a piece of  Kraft Cracker Barrel Cheese at Christmas.  We did use smelly-sock (Parmesan) from the green can (I put my hand up) on our spaghetti, but that was the whole extent of my cheese usage.  I was a cheese virgin so to speak.  Living in the UK has been a wonderful education to me of all the wonderful cheeses that are available here in the UK, and indeed Europe altogether.  It has been an education and a journey I have greatly enjoyed.  My husband will tell you (and he is a Brit through and through) that there is no cheese worth eating except for Cheddar. He is a huge fan and was very disappointed when we were on the continent and couldn't find good old cheddar cheese in the shops there.  Never mind, when I do a cheese tray, he happily helps himself to all the cheeses, but lets just say that a good strong cheddar is his favourite.  And I have to agree that a good strong cheddar, slightly crumbly and sharp flavoured, is a thing of beautiful taste to be sure.

 

So what do you get when you combine the three of those things?  A good strong cheddar.  Some crisp streaky dry cured smoked bacon.  And a good scone?

  

Well, you get another thing of beauty . . .  Cheese and Bacon Scones. Crunchy on the outside and so soft and flaky on the insides . . . all buttery and stogged full of strong cheddar cheese and . . . lovely salty, smoky bacon.  Perfect for serving with soups, salads, or even just hot and buttered with a nice hot cuppa on a leisurely afternoon.

 

*Cheese and Bacon Scones*
Makes 15 to 20, depending on how big you cut them

Printable Recipe 

 

Scrumdiddlyumpitiously savoury.  Perfect with some sliced ham or cheese, or both.  You can vary the spiciness of them by adjusting the amount of cayenne used. 

490g  plain flour (about 3 1/2 cups)
1 level tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 level tsp of cayenne pepper (or to taste)
1 tsp salt
2 TBS cold butter, cubed
4 ounces bacon, grilled and finely chopped with a sharp knife, or
in the food processor
115g strong cheddar cheese, grated (1 cup)
1 medium free range egg
375ml of sour milk or buttermilk (1 2/3 cup) 

 

Preheat the oven to 220*C/425*F/ gas mark 7.  Dust a large baking sheet lightly with flour.  Set aside.

Sift the flour, soda, cayenne pepper and salt into a large bowl.  Drop in the butter and then rub it in with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine dry bread crumbs.  Stir in the bacon and cheese.

Whisk together the egg and milk.

Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour in the wet.  Mix to a soft dough with your hand by running it around the bowl.  Try not to knead it as this will develop the gluten which will toughen the scones.  Dump the dough out onto a lightly floured surface.  (The dough will be quite sticky) Pat out with floured hands until you get a square 3/4 inch thick. Using a pizza cutter, cut it into 15 to 20 squares.  (Alternately you can cut them out with a sharp knife or a 2 inch round cutter)  Place onto the floured baking sheet leaving about 2 inches between each.

Bake for 10 to 14 minutes until well risen and golden brown.  Allow to cool on a wire rack.

 

I have always loved sandwiches.  Put  a tasty filling between two pieces of bread and I am all over it like a rash. I am like my Aunt Freda in that respect. She also loved sandwiches and watching her enjoyment in eating one was an experience in pure and utter joy. Having been diagnosed as a Type 2 Diabetic several years ago, I had thought that sandwiches would be off the menu for me forever.  I recently discovered the joys of sandwich thins however and I am back enjoying what I have always loved!  Yay!

 

They come in several flavours . . .  white, brown, seeded, and high protein whole meal. You can also get gluten free ones. 

 

Today I used a brown one because I was all out of the protein whole wheat ones. (Actually I haven't been able to find them lately in my shops)  There is an additional 4g of carbs in a brown one, about the same as a white one.  Did you know that the only difference between white and brown bread is the colour?  Yep!  Brown bread is simply white bread with brown colouring added.  It is not any better nutritionally than white bread.  If I continue to have a hard time finding the whole wheat ones, I am going to have to figure out a way to make my own . . .  sigh . . .

 

This Curried Chicken Salad filling is delicious and very low in fat.  Using both low fat sour cream and a tiny bit of low fat mayonnaise, it is filled with flavour.  The Curry powder adds some lovely spice, and there is a bit of sweet from some chopped raisins and crunch from the use of celery and spring onions.

 

I like to add a hefty layer of salad greens to the middle of mine, which adds plenty of colour and additional nutritional value.  (Crunch too!)

 

Today I used superfood salad greens, which includes baby kale, spinach, rocket, peppercress, beetroot and baby chard.  Lots of colour and lots of crunch.  I love them!

 

You don't need to worry about the bread getting soggy if you are eating this right away, which is usually a problem with sandwiches that are going to be held for a long time prior to eating. If this is the case, and you are wanting to take this to work, I recommend bring the filling separately in a small container and spreading it onto the bread just before eating. That way you can get around the added fat and calories of adding a bread spread.

 

Altogether this makes for a very satisfying and delicious sandwich. with plenty of flavour, colour and crunch!  I hope you'll want to try it out. You could leave out the raisins and add the equivalent in chopped dry roasted nuts, but I like the little hint of sweetness from the raisins myself.

 

  

Blend the sour cream, mayonnaise and curry powder together.  Stir in the chicken, celery, onion and raisins.  Taste and adjust seasoning as required with salt and pepper.  Use to fill your sandwiches. 

As a Diabetic I like to use whole wheat sandwich thins.  I put half of my serving of chicken salad on the bottom sandwich thin, and the other half on the top sandwich thin.  I add a hearty layer of salad greens and then put the two sides together, with the filling sandwiching the greens in the middle.  Yum!

 

Todd had his on a long buttered Brioche torpedo roll, without the salad. (He is not a salad lover.)  I didn't feel hard done by with what I had, in fact, truth be told I felt I had the more delicious of the two sandwiches!  Bon Appetit!