Cheese and Potato Soup

I've seen a lot of potato-based soups floating around the web but never actually tried one myself. That needed to change so along came this beautiful recipe for Cheese and Potato Soup.

Steak and Bacon Pizza

Pizza - everyone loves it, and it's so easy to make at home.

We love making pizzas on weekends, making the base then loading up with whatever delicious ingredients happen to be in the refrigerator. This pizza is a simple combination of beef steak and bacon. What's more to love?

Steak and Egg Sandwich

During my short stay in Argentina, I noticed that they add scrambled egg to everything. Go anywhere selling food and you'll find french fries topped with egg, hot dogs with egg, grilled steak with egg... 

On a few occasions at a few different places I ordered a steak sandwich. Everyone knows Argentina for its steak so I had to make the most of it, right? On each occasion, the sandwich was also loaded full of scrambled egg. It tastes AMAZING!

Gnocchi Mac and Cheese

Comfort food. There's nothing else like it. Macaroni and Cheese has always been my favorite, and using potato gnocchi instead of macaroni elbows makes this classic dish even more delicious. 

Aunt Bee's Three Meat Chili

I recently saw a post Aunt Bee's Recipes put together for Rocket City Mom: Tailgating Recipes with Aunt Bee. This is a fantastic collection of football season foods, and definitely worth a read. Everything she included looked fantastic, but the thing that immediately caught my eye was Three Meat Chili. Even just the name sounds amazing.

I clicked through to Aunt Bee's blog straight away and checked out the recipe. It seemed straightforward to make, and had a great combination of ingredients. So with a few minor alterations (based on the ingredients I had) I got right to making this chili.

Chicken, Bacon, and Spinach Quiche

There's just something about quiche that I really love. Maybe it's the fact that you can eat it for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Or maybe it's that it's so incredibly easy to make. Or maybe it's just the cheesey, eggy deliciousness?

To be completely honest, I didn't come up with the ingredient combination in this quiche. That credit goes to Emmet, who came up with this in the middle of the store. 

I absolutely LOVED this quiche, this is definitely my new favorite quiche. It keeps exceptionally well too. It will last in the fridge for a few days.

Chicken, Bacon, and Spinach Quiche

Serves 6

Short Crust Pastry (homemade or store brought)
4 eggs
1 Cup trim milk
1/2 Cup reduced fat cream
1/2 Cup self raising flour
150 g (5.5 oz) chicken, cooked and shredded
6 rashers streaky bacon, diced
1 onion, finely diced
1 Cup spinach leaves, roughly chopped
1 Cup grated cheese (I use Edam)
salt and pepper to season.

1. Preheat oven to 200C (400F) and grease a quiche or pie dish. Roll the pastry into the dish (you can blind bake if you like!).

2. Whisk the eggs, milk, cream, and flour together in a large bowl. Heat a dash of oil in a fry pan and fry the bacon and onion for a few minutes.

3. Add the chicken, bacon, onion, spinach, and cheese to the bowl with the egg mixture and mix well. Season with salt and pepper.

4. Pour over the prepared pastry and bake for 45 minutes, until the quiche is cooked through.

5. Serve warm or cold for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Leftovers make a fantastic lunch the next day :)

Ham and Cheese Quiche

Quiche is an easy weeknight meal that can be thrown together in no time and using whatever you have laying around in your fridge. The leftovers keep well and can be eaten hot or cold. But my favorite thing about this recipe? It makes a perfect breakfast, lunch, OR dinner!

I originally posted this recipe back in April, but I remade it (yet again...) over the weekend for some much needed photography updates. It's looking a million times better now! 

Ham and Cheese Quiche

Serves 4-6

Short Crust Pastry (store brought is also fine!), blind baked and cooled
4 Eggs
1 Cup trim milk
1/2 Cup cream
1/2 Cup self raising flour
200 g (7 oz) ham (or bacon), chopped
1 Onion, finely diced
1 Cup grated cheese (I used Edam)
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F) and grease a quiche pan. Roll out the pastry and line the base and sides of the pan with the pastry.

2. Heat a dash of oil in a fry pan over a medium-high heat. Fry the onion and ham until the bacon is cooked to your liking.

3. Whisk together the eggs, milk, cream, and flour.  Add the ham, onion, and cheese. Mix well and season with salt and pepper to suit your tastes.

4. Pour the mixture over the prepared base and bake for 45 minutes.

Bacon and Banana French Toast

This french toast makes a simple yet impressive Sunday brunch. Bacon and banana is a fantastic combination!

Bacon and Banana French Toast

Serves 2

6 slices of day old ciabatta
25 g Butter
2 eggs
1/3 Cup milk
4 rashers of bacon
1 large banana, cut length ways and halved.

1. Grill or pan fry bacon. Heat butter in a fry pan over a medium heat.

2. Whisk together the eggs and milk milk. Dip the bread into the mixture, making sure both sides are covered. Let excess mixture fall back off the bread and place bread into the fry pan, fry for a couple of minutes on each side, until lightly golden.

3. At the same time as the bread goes into the fry pan, add the bananas as well.

4. Serve the bacon and banana over top of the bread and drizzle with maple syrup.

Bacon and Egg Pie

Bacon and egg pie is one of those meals that every New Zealand kid grows up on. It's so easy to throw together for a weekend lunch, it's great cold making it perfect for picnics and it's just so simple and delicious.

Bacon and Egg Pie

Serves 4

2 Sheets of Puff pastry (I use 40% reduced fat)
8 Rashers of bacon, fried or grilled and chopped
8 eggs
4 tsp milk
1/2 Onion, finely diced

1. Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F) Line a dish with one sheet of rolled out pastry.

2. Spread the chopped bacon over the pastry base, crack 7 of the eggs over the top:

3.  Whisk the remaining egg with the milk and a bit of salt and pepper, mix in the onion and pour evenly over the top.

4. Cover with the other pastry sheet, seal the edges, brush the top with milk and prick a couple of times with a fork.

5. Bake for 40 minutes, until the top is nice and golden.

Chicken and Bacon Gnocchi Bake

My guy had to work late last night so I thought I would make something a bit different and (hopefully) delicious for him to have for dinner when he got home. He liked it, so I will consider it a success and share the recipe with you guys.

If you haven't had gnocchi before I would definitely recommended that you try it! It's an Italian dumpling made from potatoes. You can pick it up in the fresh pasta section of the supermarket or if you have more time on your hands you can make your own, quite time consuming but not very difficult.

I didn't take a photo but it looked something like this:

(www.healthyfood.co.nz)

I will remember to take a picture next time I make this and upload it here then.

Chicken and Bacon Gnocchi Bake

Serves 4

2 Tbsp Canola oil
6 white button mushrooms, sliced
2 cloves garlic
1 onion, finely diced
1 red chilli, de-seeded and finely chopped
300 g boneless, skinless chicken breast, diced
4 rashers streaky bacon
1 Red capsicum, diced
400 g can chopped tomatoes
handful of  fresh Italian parsley, finely chopped
1 tsp dried mixed herbs
400 g potato gnocchi
Handful of grated mozzarella

1. Heat half the oil in a large fry pan over a medium to high heat. Preheat oven to 200ºC

2.  Add the mushrooms, garlic, onion, and chilli to the pan and cook for about 5 minutes, until the onion appears soft and clear. Remove from the pan and set aside.

3. Return the pan to the heat, add the other half of the oil and add the chicken and bacon. Cook until the chicken in cooked through.

4. Return the mushrooms etc to the pan and add the capsicum, tomatoes, parsley and mixed herbs. Add a little bit of water into the bottom of the tomato tin, give it a swirl and add this to the pan. Add the gnocchi. You need a bit of excess liquid to allow the gnocchi to cook.

5. Mix everything together and bring to the boil, stirring

6. Transfer to an oven proof casserole dish, spread mozzarella over the top and bake in the oven for about 20 minutes, until the cheese is golden.

Nutritional Info (1/4 total recipe/1 serve)

Calories 462
Carbs    48 g
Fat        12 g
Protein  42  g
Fibre     2 g