Fried Cabbage with Bacon & Onions

 

I have always loved fried cabbage.  I first had it when I was in high school.  We cooked it in our Home Economics Class. It was just fried cabbage and it was mixed with buttered noodles.  

I fell in love with it then, and I have loved it ever since. It is a dish my family also loved through the years and something a few of them still make, if not all, the older ones at any rate.

 

My sister pinned this version the other day and from the moment I saw it I wanted to cook it.  It comes from a blog called Cakes Cottage. 

Admittedly, I immediately fall in love with anything that involves cabbage.  Raw, cooked and everything in between, if cabbage is involved I am there!

 

I thought that the addition of bacon sounded quite tasty.  The cabbage and onions actually get sauteed in the bacon drippings.  Cabbage and bacon?  Count me in!!

I have to say that here in the UK, we have amazing bacon. Our bacon is very lean.  Even the streaky bacon, so I added a touch of olive oil when it came time to sauteeing the cabbage.

 

I added 1 medium carrot, which I chopped into bits, for colour and for sweetness.  Carrots are another one of my favourite vegetables.  They help you to see in the dark. Its true, my mother told me that and as we know mom's don't lie! 

You could also add some other vegetables if you wanted to. But it was nice with just the cabbage, onion and carrot. I do think that possibly julienned runner beans would also be very nice, but then again,  I also love runner beans!

 

I was going to toss it with some fried pierogi, but I didn't have any made, so Todd enjoyed his with some leftover ham and a baked potato leftover from the other day.  

Can't you just imagine however, how very delicious this would be tossed together with some fried potato and cheese pierogi?  I know!  Fabulous! 

 

After I had served his up I thought to myself I don't want a baked potato or leftover ham with mine.  I fancy some noodles.  

Cabbage and noodles truly are a marriage made in heaven.  Big fat egg noodles, or skinny noodles. Rice noodles, or udon noodles.  Any noodle in fact! 

 

On its own however, this is fabulously tasty no matter what you choose to enjoy with it.  Rich and salty and earthy.  I think it is the earthy quality of cabbage that draws me in the most. I can never get enough of it. 

I could eat this with a spoon. I could eat a huge plate of this and have nothing else and be in heaven. I could just eat and eat this forever.  In fact if I could only bring one thing to eat to a desert island, it would be this. I love it that much!

Fried Cabbage with Bacon & Onions

Print

Yield: 4

Author: Marie Rayner

Borrowed from a blog called CakesCottage.  Quick and easy and delicious.  I added a bit of something myself and I think my additions were fabulous, so do see the note at the bottom of the recipe.

Ingredients:

• 6 rashers of streaky bacon
• 1 large brown onion, peeled and diced
• 2 fat cloves of garlic, peeled and minced
• 1 medium head of white cabbage, trimmed, cored and sliced
• 1 medium carrot, peeled and chopped
• The following to taste:
• salt, black pepper, onion and garlic powder, paprika
• a knob of butter (optional)

Instructions:

1. Heat a skillet and then cook the bacon rashers over medium heat until just crisp. remove and set aside on paper kitchen towelling to drain. Crumble and keep warm.
2. Add the onion and carrot to the bacon drippings. (Over here our bacon is very lean so there wasn't many. If you find that is the case, add a small splash of olive or rapeseed oil.) Cook, stirring to soften. when it begins to caramelize somewhat add the garlic. Cook and stir until fragrant. Add the cabbage. Cook, tossing and stirring, until the cabbage begins to soften. Season to taste with the seasonings. Add 60ml (1/4 cup) of water and cover. Cook and steam over low heat until the cabbage has softened. Stir in the bacon crumbles. Taste and adjust seasoning as required. If desired stir in a nob of butter. Serve hot.

notes:

What I did:

The cabbage was very good on its own and my husband enjoyed.  Once I had served him his (as a side dish) I added a splash of dark soy sauce, a splash of mirin, about 1 TBS of hoisin sauce and a pack of Udon noodles, and tossed all together, heating it all through.  It was fabulous. Quite simply fabulous.  Nummo!

Did you make this recipe?

Tag @marierayner5530 on instagram and hashtag it #EnglishKitchen

Created using The Recipes Generator

  

This is how I enjoyed mine on the day. With big fat Udon noodles and a splash of soy sauce. It was incredibly yummy! 

This content (written and photography) is the sole property of  The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at: theenglishkitchen@mail.com 

 

 

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

 

Well, I did a bit of housekeeping on here yesterday and I lost my old blog theme.  I did save the html to a word document, but I have no idea of how to sort that type of thing.  I managed to keep my header, so I guess I should be happy for that.  And I guess I do like the cleaner look without any busy background, and I like the way the blog posts are showing.  It is a neater, tidier look and I can live with that!  Growing pains, they are never easy are they?

 

Over these past couple of  months not a lot of new cooking has been going on due to the fact I was writing my cookbook, but I manage several new recipes a week, which was pretty good I thought.  I cooked a few cringe worthy things also that I would never show you.  Thing which I thought might be really tasty, but which ended up being blecch.  I hate it when that happens, but it does every now and than. 

 

This banana loaf recipe is one I got from The Complete Canadian Living Cook Book.  I have had the book for yonks, but haven't really cooked a lot from it.  I have made it my goal this year to try to cook more things from the books I have, and if I find a book that doesn't have a lot of redeemable recipes in it, then I am getting rid. Life is far too short to carry excess baggage, like too many cookery books.

 

This is a fairly decent banana loaf. It is pretty dense however and heavy. So I suppose whether you like it or not will depend on what you are looking for. If you want dense, then you have struck gold. If you are wanting more cakey, keep looking  . . . 

 

I do have some really good Banana Loaf recipes on this site.  This one is extremely good and so is this one.

 

My absolute all-time favourite one is this one, and that's probably because it is incredibly moist from the sour cream and more cake like. I like cake. My ex-bosses husband used to request this once a week.  He liked it toasted and buttered.  It is very good.

 

There are plenty of chocolate chips in this one I am showing you today.  It is not overly sweet either.  I used a really good quality chocolate chip, almost more bitter than sweet. I think milk chocolate chips would be better actually.  In any case it was very nice buttered and served with a hot drink.  I hope you will try it and then let me know what you think!

 

*Banana Chocolate Chip Loaf*

Makes one 2 lb loaf (9X5)

Printable Recipe 

The tastiest thing to do with brown speckled bananas. 

280g plain flour (2 cups)

50g sugar (1/4 cup)

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

pinch salt

180g chocolate chips (1 cup)

4 large over-ripe bananas, mashed (2 cups)

125g butter, melted (1/2 cup)

60ml milk

2 large free range eggs, beaten 

Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4.  Butter and line a 2 pound loaf tin (9 X 5  inches). 

Whisk the dry ingredients together in a bowl. Stir in the chocolate chips. Set aside. 

Mash the bananas and then stir in the milk, butter and eggs.  Pour this mixture over top of the dry mixture. Mix together just to blend. Spoon into the prepared loaf tin. Bake in the centre of the preheated oven for 50 to 60 minutes until well risen, golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean.  

Leave to cool in the pan for 15 minutes, before tipping out onto a rack and cooling completely.



Note - I've been using those pan liners which are like muffin cups a lot lately. They are so simple to use and nothing sticks as they are silicone coasted. I highly recommend!

Byron Potatoes

 

We love potatoes in this house. In fact I would hazard to say that for both of us, the potato is our favourite vegetable!

Chili Fry Tacos

 

I was looking for something quick and easy to make for our tea the other night.  I needed to go grocery shopping and there wasn't a lot of fresh things to choose from. I always have a pretty well stocked store cupboard and so I dug into that for some inspiration. 

French Dip Au Jus

 

  On Sundays if I am really on the ball, I like to throw something into the crockpot before I leave for church so that dinner is ready and waiting for us when we get home.  We're usually starving by that time.  I am much less inclined to munch on something I shouldn't if dinner is ready and waiting!  I reckon I am not alone in that! 

Lemon & Blueberry Sweet Rolls

 

 

I normally like to pull out all the stops for breakfast at the weekend.   A leftover from my working days I suppose.   

I didn't have a lot of time during the week to make much of a cooked breakfast, so Saturdays usually meant I would do us something special. I hear we are supposed to have some nice weather this weekend as well.   I am loving these longer, brighter and warmer days! 

These Blueberry Breakfast Buns fit the bill perfectly. They are like blueberry cinnamon rolls no yeast involved. I suppose you could also call them a blueberry sticky bun!

 

Retirement means that every day is a bit of a holiday it seems, although in truth I don't know how I ever got everything I had to do done when I was working full time.

 

My retirement time seems to just evaporate into thin air!  I still reserve goodies like this for the weekend however . . . old habits die hard. 

 

I saw something similar to this on Pioneer Woman Cooks a couple of years back, but you know . . . yeast breads are truly not my forte, and I am rather lazy on top of it all, so I never did anything about it.  

 I got to thinking though, I could really actually do something similar using a buttermilk scone dough . . .

 

 And so that is what I did.  I created a flaky and light buttermilk scone dough, flavoured with a bit of fresh lemon zest . . .  I rolled this out flat into a rectangle.   

 

I then rubbed butter, sugar and more lemon zest together until it was a bit crumbly.  I sprinkled this over top of the dough . . .

 

 

I scattered fresh blueberries over top and rolled it all up tightly and cut it into thick slices which I placed into a butter glass baking dish. 

I brushed them with some more butter milk and then baked in a hot oven until the scone dough was all puffed up and golden brown and that lucious lemon and blueberry filling was just slightly oozing.   

 

Slathered with a lemon buttercream drizzle hot out of the oven it made a GORGEOUS breakfast bake. 

 

And to think . . .  it didn't take hours of waiting for dough to rise or any such thing.  Almost instant, pure taste gratification.   

 

You can spell that SCRUMMDIDDLYUMPTIOUS!  That's almost like supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, except its a whole LOT better.  ☺  Tastier too!

 

 

*Lemon & Blueberry Sweet Rolls*

Serves 8

Printable Recipe

A delicious breakfast bake with tender buttery lemony scone dough, spread with a scrummy lemon sugar, sprinkled with blueberries, rolled up, cut and baked,  then slathered with a delicious butter lemon icing when done. Served warm, this will have your family oohing and ahhing and thinking about it all day.

For the scone dough:

250g of plain flour (1 3/4 cup plus 1 TBS)

2 1/2 tsp baking powder

finely grated zest of 1/2 lemon

pinch of salt

3 TBS caster sugar

40g unsalted butter, softened (3 TBS)

1 large free range egg

75ml of butter milk (1/3 cup)

(may need more as needed to create the perfect dough)

To fill:

12 TBS caster sugar

4 TBS butter

the finely grated zest of one lemon

250g of fresh blueberries (scant 2 cups)

a bit more buttermilk for baking

For the glaze:

195g of icing sugar, sifted (1 1/2 cups)

the finely grated zest 1/2 lemon

the juice of 1/2 lemon

1 TBS softened butter 

 

 Pre-heat the oven to 200*C/400*F/ gas mark 6.  Butter a deep oval baking dish really well.  (Mine is about 12 inches long at it's widest and 8 inches across at it's deepest, and about 3 inches in depth.) It's important that you butter it well.  Set aside. 

 

 

Sift the flour and baking powder into a bowl.   Whisk in the lemon zest, sugar and salt.  Drop in the butter and then rub the butter into the flour mixture with your fingertips until you get a mixture resembling fine bread crumbs.  

Beat the egg and buttermilk together.  

Stir this into the flour mixture using a round bladed knife.   You made need to add a bit more milk if the dough seems dry.   Knead gently and turn out onto a floured board.  Pat out into a rectangle measuring roughly 8 inches by 12 inches, and about 1/2 inch thick. 

 

Rub the lemon zest, sugar and butter together for the filling.   Sprinkle this evenly over top of the patted out dough.  Scatter the blueberries over top evenly, pressing them down lightly into the dough.   

Starting from the long end, roll up the dough to make a fat roll, trying to roll it as tightly together as possible, and keeping as much of the filling intact as you can.   Press the ends gently to firm up.  Using a very sharp knife, cut into 8 evenly sized slices.  

Place the slices into the buttered dish.  I used a very large sharp chef's knife to cut the slices and then let them fall on top of the knife and used the knife to move them to the dish.   

Take any bits of berry or sugar that fall out in the process and stick them back in once you get them into the dish.  They will be a fairly snug fit, but not to worry, this is the way it should be.  Brush the top of all with some more butter milk.  

 Bake in the preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes until well risen and golden brown on top.  It should look dry and beginning to just turn brown on the bottoms, which you should be able to see if you have used a clear glass dish. 

 While the buns are baking whisk together the icing sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice and softened butter to make a smooth somewhat thin icing.   As soon as you take the buns from the oven slather this delicious icing over top of the warm buns to cover them all.  Let it settle in a bit and then serve warm, separating the rolls and placing each onto serving plates for eating.

  

I really hope you will give these a go this weekend and that if you do, you enjoy them as much as we did.   Happy Saturday.  Hope the sun shines on you also.  Bon Appetit! 

This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at: mariealicejoan at aol dot com Thanks so much for visiting. Do come again! 

 Follow my blog with Bloglovin

 

Honey & Soy Baked Chicken

 

Quick baked chicken recipes like this delicious Honey & Soy Baked Chicken are great recipes to have in your recipe repertoire.  Everyone needs a tasty recipe like this up their sleeves!  

It is so simple and so delicious and uses things I always have in the house, and I am betting that you do too!  Finger licking good!

 

 It's as simple to make as combining a few marinade ingredients in a heavy zip lock bag. You then add some chicken, smushing it around a bit in the bag.

After you let it sit in the refrigerator for several hours, you dump it all into a baking dish and bake it until it is deliciously meltingly tender.

 

I always buy my chickens whole when there is a deal on them. I then bring them home and cut them up, repackage them in serving size packs of legs, breasts, thighs, wings, etc. 

I then bang them into the freezer.  That way I not only save money, but always have a variety of chicken pieces at my finger tips ready to use.  I freeze the backs and necks for soup as well. It's win/win all around!  

 

 

 On this particular day I used a mix of drumsticks and thighs.   I guarantee you will love this marinade/sauce.   I

t's filled with lovely oriental flavors . . .  soy, honey, garlic, ginger . . . which bakes into a finger licking sticky glaze. 

 

 Wings would be really good done in this sauce as well.  I wouldn't do breasts, however, as the long cooking time would dry them out too much.  

Chicken breasts are not really suited to this type of dish at any rate.  You want a nice piece of chicken meat which gets succulent and tender under a long slow cook period that allows the marinade to cook down into that delicious rich and sticky glaze. 

 

*Honey and Soy Baked Chicken*
Serves 4

Printable Recipe 

Simple and delicious.   A real family favorite. 

3 TBS olive oil

3 TBS dark soy sauce

5 TBS runny honey

4 cloves of garlic, peeled and minced

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp ground black pepper
salt to taste

3 pounds of chicken pieces (I use thighs and drumsticks) 

Mix the olive oil, soy sauce, honey, garlic, ginger, pepper and salt together in a large plastic food bag with a zip lock top.  Add the chicken pieces and smush them around a bit to coate well in the bag.   Close the bag and place in the refrigerator to marinate for half an hour to an hour.  (Obviously the longer you leave it the more the flavours permeate the chicken.)  Give it a smush every once in a while. 

When you are ready to cook it, preheat the oven to 220*C.425*F/ gas mark 7.   Dump the chicken into a large baking dish and separate the pieces.  Bake for 25 minutes.  Turn the pieces over and bake for a further 15 minutes.  Turn a final time and bake for a further 10 to 15 minutes, until the skin is nicely crisped and the chicken juices run clear.   Serve hot or cold.

 

Finger licking good! I like to serve these with some steamed basamati rice and maybe some broccoli on the side, also lightly steamed. Bon Appetit! 

 

This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at mariealicejoan at aol dot com. 

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Lemon Glazed Cinnamon Scrolls

 

 I love puff pastry.  Well, I love any pastry actually.  I am a pastry afficionado from way back and the butterier and flakier the better! I am a very good pastry maker if I don't say so myself, must be all the years of practice I have had. One thing I don't do however is make my own Puff Pastry from scratch. Call me lazy or whatever. It is very time consuming and the end results are not much better than a good quality all butter puff pastry you can buy in the shops.

Salmon and Broccoli Quiche

 

I forget where I was, but it was a couple of weeks ago now, I was visiting with someone and they mentioned baking a quiche for supper a few nights before that.  

I remember thinking to myself, I have not baked a quiche in a while and my appetite for having quiche was immediately whetted and I thought about nothing else for a few days!

Have you ever done that? 

 

The shops here in the UK are filled with a variety of Quiches, but I have always found them largely disappointing.  

Too much crust (yes, I, a crust lover, did say that!) and not enough filling.  

I love crust, but there has to be an perfect balance of  crust to filling to make my taste buds tingle.  Store produced quiches are always sadly lacking in filling.

 

Too much crust and not enough filling, just doesn't do it for me, which is why I never buy ready made quiches.  To me, they are a huge waste of money. 

Why pay hard earned money to be disappointed. It doesn't make sense.

 

I used my Butter/Lard pastry recipe for this, and it was just the right amount of flaky and savoury.  It also meant I had an extra crust to do something tasty with at a later date. 

If you have never made the butter/lard pastry, you really need to. Once you try it you will never want to make any other kind.

 

I also chose to make a Salmon and Broccoli filling.  Salmon and broccoli are a beautiful flavour combination.

Those two are a marriage made in heaven and something which we both enjoy together, especially when accompanied with copious amounts of tasty cheese!

 

And I used three kinds of cheese in this.  A nutty Gruyere.  A sharp Cheddar and a creamy Red Leicester for colour.  

The whole thing was gorgeously tasty and we both fell in love with it.  My appetite for a Quiche was sated and my husband was a happy camper also.  

I love simple meals like this.  Store cupboard ingredients.  Easy to make. Delicious. What more could a person ask for?

 

 

*Salmon, Broccoli and Cheese Quiche*
Makes one 10-inch quiche

Printable Recipe 

 

This is a simple quiche with classic flavours.  Salmon and broccoli go together like peas and carrots. 

1 unbaked 10 inch pie crust (your own recipe or a good storebought one)

1 small head of broccoli, florets removed and steamed until crispy tender, reserve stalks for another use

4 spring onions, trimmed and chopped

105g of cooked salmon, skinless and boneless, flaked (1 cup)

375g of grated cheese (I used Strong Cheddar, Red Leiscester, and Gruyere) (3 cups)
6 large free range eggs, beaten

225ml of evaporated skim milk (1 cup)

salt and black pepper to taste

1/4 tsp dill weed  

 

 

 

Pre-heat your oven to 190*C/375*F/gas mark 5. Line your pie dish with the pastry, fluting the edges as desired. Set aside. Place a baking tray in the oven to heat. 

Place 240g ( two cups) of your cheese in the bottom of the crust. Sprinkle with the spring onions. Lay out the broccoli florets and scatter over the salmon decoratively. Sprinkle wth some salt and black pepper and the dillweed. Beat the eggs and milk well together. Season to taste with salt and black pepper. Pour this over your vegetables and cheese. Sprinkle the remaining cup of cheese over top. 

Place on the heated baking tray and then bake for 50 to 55 minutes, until nicely browned and a knife inserted near the centre comes out clean.  Let sit for 10 minutes before cutting into wedges to serve.

We both had our fill over the next few days, enough so that we were satisfied and it will be a while before I bake one again.   I have never frozen a quiche, so I am not sure if it freezes properly or not.  Have any of you?  Bon Appetit! 

 

This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at: mariealicejoan@aol.com 

Follow my blog with Bloglovin