Egg & Bacon Pie

Great served either hot or cold, this Egg & Bacon pie makes a tasty brunch or picnic dish

This is one of my mother-in-law’s recipes, and is the perfect pie to serve for brunch … or to take along on an early morning road trip or picnic. It also tastes great served either warm or cold.

I forgot to take a photo of the finished pie with it’s ‘top’ on – but at least the photo above shows the filling clearly (a ‘finished’ pie looks like a pie anyway, no matter what’s inside it !)

As always, you can scroll to the bottom of this page for the ‘Conversion Calculator’ if you’d like to convert the measurements into ones which suit you -:


Egg & Bacon Pie

Pastry:
170 gm Flour
90 gm Butter, chilled
1 tbsp cold Water

Filling:
4 boiled Eggs, chopped into quarters
170 gm streaky bacon, cooked & roughly chopped
1 Egg, beaten
½ cup Milk
Salt & Pepper to taste

Sieve the flour into a bowl. Rub in the butter and add the water to form a manageable dough. Knead lightly and leave to rest in the fridge for half an hour or so, before rolling out quite thinly and using to cover the base of a round pie dish measuring approximately 18 cm in diameter.

Place the filling of chopped boiled eggs and bacon inside the pastry ‘shell’. Beat the egg and milk together, add the seasoning and pour this liquid over the egg/bacon filling. Top with the remainder of the pastry, brushing with a little beaten egg if you’d like, and pricking a few holes in the surface (so that the steam can escape as the pie bakes).

Bake at 200’C/400’C/Gas Mark 6 for about 30 minutes. Serves 4 generously.

A Recipe For Rustic Ham & Pineapple Pizza

Homemade Pizza is always a hit in our family - here's one we had for lunch last week, eaten out on our veranda ....

Everyone loves pizza, and living really far away from any type of pizza restaurant means that I often have to make pizza myself, else we’d never get to eat it ! I use a really simple recipe for the base – made with baking powder instead of yeast (so there’s no endless kneading and waiting for it to rise etc …) This base is more ‘biscuit-y’ than crispy, but we prefer it that way.

I usually make this to serve as a lunch dish, with a nice salad. I’ve included the topping ‘recipe’for the ham and pineapple pizza pictured, but you could use any topping of your choice. (If you’d like to see my recipe for homemade pizza with a crispy yeast dough base, click here).


Rustic Ham & Pineapple Pizza

Base:

250 gm Flour
10 ml Baking Powder
3 ml Salt
3 ml dried Mixed Herbs
60 gm Butter or Margarine
1 Egg, beaten
a little Milk

Topping:

1 x small tin (around 45 ml) Tomato Paste (Optional)
1 x tin (around 425 gm) Tomatoes (Optional)
250 gm pkt Sandwich Ham slices
½ fresh Pineapple, cubed (or around 1 cup tinned Pineapple pieces, drained)
1 cup Cheddar Cheese, grated
Seasoning to taste (salt, freshly ground black pepper, dried herbs)

Sift flour, baking powder & salt together. Add the dried herbs. Rub in the butter (or margarine) until the mixture resembles fine bread crumbs. Mix into a soft dough with the beaten egg and a little milk. Roll out to dinner plate size/shape. Spread the topping over the base (in the order listed) and bake at 200’C/400’F/Gas Mark 6 for around 30 minutes. Serve with a nice fresh salad.

Cheese Puffs

These Cheese Puffs are great served with pre dinner drinks or even as school lunchbox fillers

Here is the other recipe I made recently for our visitors from Japan.

Cheese puffs are to me, quite South African. They are usually always found served at school fetes, Church tea’s, weddings and funerals and almost every 'home industry' shop stocks them.

Home industry shops can be found – or used to be found – in every South African town or village. They are basically shops where women from the local area take their delicious homemade baked goods to sell and are very popular for people stocking up for parties or special occasions. (Over the years I have noticed less and less of these home industry shops around and I sincerely hope that they are not a part of South African food culture or 'history' that is dying out.)

Here is the recipe -:

Cheese Puffs (from “The Complete South African Cookbook” by Magdaleen Van Wyk)

1 cup Flour (I always add an extra ¾ cup flour though)
1 cup Cheddar Cheese, grated
1 Egg, beaten
5 tbsp Butter or Margarine, melted (I only use 4 tbsp)
2 tsp Baking Powder
Milk
pinch of Salt
pinch of Cayenne Pepper (I also add 2 tsp mixed dried Herbs)


Pre heat the oven to 200’C/400’F (& turn it off as soon as the cheese puffs go in).

Combine the flour, salt, baking powder, cheese & cayenne pepper thoroughly in a bowl. Combine the beaten egg with enough milk to make up to 1 cup/250 ml & stir the liquid into the dry ingredients. Mix well. Stir in the melted butter or margarine & blend thoroughly.

Place teaspoonfuls of the batter on a greased baking sheet & put in the oven which has been pre heated & then turned off & bake at Gas Mark 6/200’C/400’F until golden, about 10 minutes. Remove from the oven. Allow to cool on the sheet for a few minutes, then remove and cool thoroughly on a wire rack.

Cheese & Mustard Straws

These Cheese & Mustard Straws are great served with sundowners ...

These make a great snack, especially when served with drinks (sundowners on the veranda !). You can leave the Paprika out and add mixed dried herbs instead, to make these a child friendly snack which are great for school lunchboxes, too.

In Tanzania, snacks served with drinks before dinner are commonly called “bitings”. I’m not sure where the name originates from, or whether it is just something ‘unique’ to the East African safari industry, but mentioning the word “bitings” always reminds me of camp fires, hyena’s calling and the smell of tent canvas …. funny how certain things can do that !


Cheese & Mustard Straws

1 cup grated Cheddar cheese
1 cup cake Flour
1 tsp Baking Powder
½ tsp Salt
pinch of Paprika
1 Egg, beaten
1 tsp Hot English Mustard
2 tbsp Milk

Mix the cheese (reserve a tablespoon or so for garnishing), flour, baking powder, salt & paprika together. Mix the egg, mustard and milk together and then add to the dry ingredients. Blend well, then knead lightly to form a dough.

Roll out (about 3 mm thick) on a floured surface and cut into rectangular strips. Place on a greased baking tray. Brush with some milk, then sprinkle the remaining grated cheese over.

Bake in a very hot oven at 230’C/450’F/Gas Mark 8 for 10 minutes until golden.

Rosemary Biscuits (Cookies)

I did not have any cream cheese in the house to secure the rosemary flowers onto each biscuit - so I simply 'balanced' them on top !

Why do we call cookies biscuits in this part of the world ? I’m not sure ! A cookie is the same thing as a biscuit to us, but I know that in other parts of the world a biscuit is not what we would call a cookie. (Are you with me ? Am I making any sense yet ? Good !)

This cookie/biscuit recipe is quite unusual, so I wanted to feature it on the blog. The recipe originates from a book published by “Pick ‘n Pay” (which is one of South Africa’s large supermarket chains) which is simply called “Cookies” (which jumped out at me as we don’t actually call cookies “cookies” in Africa so why not call the book “Biscuits” ? But anyway ….)

So, this is the – slightly unusual - recipe for savoury biscuits made with fresh rosemary leaves. They are great served with cheese and would work well served as part of a cheese and biscuit platter after a nice meal. Thyme would work equally as well in this recipe. (Don’t be put off by the addition of the curry powder, as you really can’t taste it at all and if anything, it actually enhances the flavour of the biscuit.)

Rosemary Biscuits (Cookies)

2 cups Plain Flour, plus extra for dusting
½ tsp Baking Powder
½ tsp Curry Powder
pinch of Salt
6 tbsp Butter, diced
2 tbsp finely chopped young Rosemary leaves
1 egg Yolk
2 – 3 tbsp cold Water
Milk, to glaze
2 tbsp Cream Cheese
Rosemary flowers

Put the flour, baking powder, curry powder & salt in a bowl. Rub the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add the rosemary, egg yolk and sufficient water to mix to a firm dough. Chill for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 180’C/350’F/Gas Mark 4. Roll the dough thinly on a lightly floured surface & cut rounds using a 5cm/2 inch fluted cutter.

Transfer to a large baking sheet and prick with a fork. Brush with milk to glaze & bake for 10 minutes, or until pale and golden. Cool on a wire rack.

Spread a little cream cheese on to each biscuit and secure some rosemary flowers on top.

Individual Pizza "Swirls" - Great For Kids Lunchboxes !

These make a great lunchbox snack for kids, or served with a side salad as a light lunch for peckish adults !

I have a busy day ahead of me in the kitchen today. As I mentioned recently, it is my daughter’s school Sport’s Day tomorrow, and I have offered to take a tray of savoury snacks and a tray of sweet snacks for the children.

After much pondering, I’ve decided on Chocolate & Raspberries Muffins as my “sweet” snack (you can find my recipe for those here), and for my “savoury” snack I’ve settled on another version of my sister, Colleen’s Savoury Swirls (you can find the recipe for those over here).

The Savoury Swirls are being altered a little to become Pizza Swirls (or mini Pizza coils … or Pizza snails ?!) as I have decided that instead of a Bolognese/ meat filling, I am going to do a cheese, tomato and herb filling instead.

This filling, I must just add, was inspired by the recent influx of jars and jars of “pasta” and “pizza” sauce on shop shelves in the city. I have rarely seen this product here before, now everywhere I look – there it is ! Several consignments of food items have obviously just arrived in the country and been cleared and obviously they contained cases and cases of the stuff, as every shop I’ve been into is stocking them – in all sorts of varieties ! (So I had to nab myself a couple – ‘cause once the stock has run out, we’ll probably never see them on our shelves here ever again !)

I wouldn’t be surprised to find that this particular brand has either a.) expired -fiddling & forging expiry dates is common place here or b.) been removed from shelves in the “first” world due to a recall because of dodgy product ingredients & has ended up here c.) has been donated by an overseas charity to feed the starving and has somehow ended up being sold on shop shelves. (How else would you explain thousands of jars of the stuff ?!)

As I have never made the “Pizza” version of these before, and also because I was itching to open a jar of this magical pizza/pasta sauce and test it - I did a trial run earlier this week (pictured above) and they turned out really well !

So, enough of my waffling as I have to get cracking in the kitchen now …. here is the recipe I used this week - the same recipe which I will be using today -:


Pizza Swirls

Dough:
250 gm Butter / Margarine

250 gm Grated Cheddar Cheese

375 gm Flour

5 ml Baking powder

pinch of Salt

Filling:

375 gm jar Pasta/Pizza Sauce (I used Tomato & Garlic)
1 cup grated Cheddar Cheese
10 ml mixed dried Herbs

First make the dough - mix all the ingredients together to form a soft dough. Gently roll the dough out onto a well floured surface (or a sheet of wax paper/plastic wrap) into a rectangular shape.

Now spread the dough with the pasta sauce, top with the grated cheese and dried herbs and gently roll up lengthwise into a sausage shape. Thinly slice the dough into rounds and place on a greased baking tray. (Leaving the dough in the fridge for around 20 minutes before cutting makes it a little easier).

(You can also sprinkle a little extra grated cheese and herbs on the top of each slice before baking if you like.)

Bake for about 15 – 20 minutes at 180 °C/350’F/Gas Mark 4.

Colleen's Savoury Swirls

I made these with a Bolognese filling, but you could also use cheese or Marmite (Vegemite) instead

My sister, Colleen, is a great cook and I always look forward to eating at her house. (The only problem being that she now lives in the UK - so it’s a bit far to pop over for a regular Saturday night dinner, if you know what I mean !)

I remember when we were teenagers, she had a pizza recipe which she used to make for us which was absolutely out of this world. She refused to let us (me, my Mum) have a copy of the recipe, and always banished us from the kitchen when she was making it, so that we wouldn’t discover the “secret ingredients” and method used to make it ! (I remember using that as an excuse when I was found snooping in her bedroom one day and reading her diary “I was only looking for THE pizza recipe !”)

Of course we were just kids at the time and I think that as we grew into adulthood she must’ve eventually shared the recipe with me, because the other day I came across it in one of my hand written recipe books “Colleen’s Top Secret Pizza recipe” …

Anyway, my sister is also mother to my adorable niece and nephew and as she has been packing school lunch boxes for close on 5 years now (as you know, I’ve only been packing them for close on 1 week !) she recently shared one of her favourite school lunch box filler recipes with me - “Savoury Swirls”. She created the recipe herself some time back.

I made these yesterday … smaller ones for lunch boxes and larger ones which we enjoyed with salad for supper. They really are tasty – and luckily, not “Top Secret” so I can share the recipe with you all here -:


Colleen’s Savoury Swirls

250 gm Butter / Margarine
250 gm Grated Cheddar Cheese
375 gm Flour
5 ml Baking powder
pinch of Salt
Filling of your choice (Bolognese sauce or Marmite/Vegemite/Cheese)

Mix all the ingredients together (except for the filling) to form a soft dough. Gently roll the dough out onto a sheet of wax paper/plastic wrap roughly into a square shape. Spread the pastry square with Marmite/Vegemite/grated Cheese or Bolognese Sauce (find my recipe for that here).

Gently roll up (as you would a swiss roll) & allow to cool in the fridge for about 20 minutes (this makes it easier to slice). Remove from fridge & cut into slices, lay slices on a greased baking sheet & bake for about 15 minutes at 180 °C/350’F/Gas Mark 4.

You can also use shop bought puff pastry for this recipe.