The Daily Experiment
Bacon care of business
Opened the fridge once again today to a hopeless mismatch of
assorted leftovers and random ingredients. Spotting the pancetta pieces I had
bought earlier for one of these sorts of occasions my first thought was a
cassoulet. This was quickly discarded due to the lack of sausages or beans… So
instead I decided on a lentil hotpot; potatoes, lentils and bacon – I could go
from there. First I pan fried the bacon pieces till golden. While waiting for
this I got bored so opened the spice cupboard, added a few juniper berries,
coriander seeds, pinch of mixed spice, salt and pepper.
When brown, I added a
spoonful of honey, the lentils, found some red wine, a beef stock cube and hot
water, thyme I found in the fridge and a bay leaf. It smelt pretty good by this
point so I poured it straight into an ovenproof dish. To finish I sliced up
some potatoes thinly, layered them up on top of the dish, drizzled over walnut
oil, salt and pepper and put in the oven at 140oC for about an hour.
At this
point I turned the soundtrack of Matilda loud was singing somewhat un-tunefully
when my mum came in with a bowl of apples she’d just picked from outside the
house, the only thing our pathetic excuse for a garden comes up with…..
(Although to be honest the hopscotch and climbing wall sometimes makes up for
this). Just because I never like to see food go to waste (and she told me to
use them) I decided to experiment with baked apples. I cored them, placed them
on foil and filled the centres with what I found in the cupboard. This turned
out to be honey, vanilla extract, cinnamon, sultanas, pumpkin seeds, pinch of
salt and the last dregs of a bottle of amaretto that looked like it had been
around before I was born. I wrapped them up, cooked them on high for about
20mins and they came up quite mushy, but delicious nonetheless with a bit of
vanilla ice cream.
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