Bacon

Beef and Keith N’Ale Pie

Main, Party Food, Pie, Snack, Survivor: Cambodia - Second Chance

I was very sad to see Keith fall short of victory on Second Chances. As the affable, capable bloke that he is, he deserved to go far.

Ben and I first met Keith when we were scouting for the 1997 Shreveport Fireman’s Calendar. Obviously by scouting, I mean sneaking into the screening room and yelling smutty comments at some of the nation’s finest. I was mid disgusting sexual innuendo when in strolled a bastion of manliness and might – the glorious Keith Nale. I was so desperate to get Keith’s attention I made sure I wasn’t just looking hot that day, I was literally smokin’.

While setting myself on fire to get Keith’s attention was not my finest idea in hindsight, noble Keith rushed to the rescue and quickly put me out. A beautiful friendship, sadly non-sexual, has endured since that fateful day.

Now that Keith is back at Ponderosa, we are going to turn the heat up in the kitchen and cook something worthy of our old friend.

 

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The Beef and Keith N’Ale Pie literally has a heart of sweet, sweet bacon – dreamy and delicious, just like this fine man.

 

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Beef and Keith N’Ale Pie
Serves: 4

Ingredients
700g diced topside steak
4 tbsp plain flour
250ml dark ale
4 tbsp tomato paste
1 can diced tomatoes
4 cloves garlic, crushed
2 small chillies, finely chopped
1.5 cups beef stock
1 brown onion
2 carrots
2 celery stalks
4 rashers streaky bacon
1 sheet puff pastry, thawed
1 beaten egg for pastry wash
Salt and pepper, to taste

Method
Finely chop the onion, carrots, celery and bacon. In a large saute pan, heat some oil and cook the chopped ingredients until starting to soften. Remove from heat.

Coat diced beef in flour and then brown in oiled saute pan in batches. Return all beef and vegetable/bacon mix to pan. Add garlic, chillies, tomato paste, canned tomatoes, stock and beer and simmer for 10 minutes. Pour into a pie dish and cover tightly with foil.

Preheat oven to 150°C. Bake for 90 minutes or until beef is tender and sauce is significantly reduced. Cover with thawed pastry and brush with beaten egg. Bake for additional 30 minutes until golden and puffed.

 

As you can probably tell, we are very social but the fun isn’t only limited to celebrities! You can follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr and Google+.

Bacon and Cheese Erik Estrata

Breakfast

Erik is an absolute sweetheart and it is terrifying how much we value that in him, considering most of our closest friendships are built on a basis of lying, stealing and intimidation.

In Hollywood, it is eat or be eaten and Erik is too good for that.

We “first” met Erik after time-traveling on to the set of CHiPs after hearing about his glorious buns while working on The Nanny in the 90s. We were quickly hired as advisors on the show with our extensive knowledge of high-speed chases (from our time trying to evade arrests), after pitching a plot line involving the entire OJ arrest car-chase.

Time-travel can be really helpful when you want before their time ideas.

We haven’t seen much of Erik since he joined the police force (we didn’t want to put him in an awkward position if we fell into crime again), but got together to brainstorm the best possible way to reboot CHiPs on Netflix. Obviously it will involve me playing his son and deputy, and Annelie our sassy and aggressive Captain.

Needless to say, we had a fully realised outline by the time we finished our Bacon and Cheese Erik Estrata.

 

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The saltiness of the bacon cuts through the richness of the cheese leaving you with a strata that is light, eggy and warm. So pretty much like a hug from Erik, but with eggs.

Enjoy!

 

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Bacon and Cheese Erik Estrata
Serves: 4-6.

Ingredients
1 (heading towards stale) baguette, cut into 1-2cm slices
150g mozzarella, grated
60g parmesan, grated
100g cheddar, grated
100ml sour cream
6 free-range eggs
6 rashers bacon, diced
6 shallots, roughly sliced
handful cherry tomatoes, diced

Method
Place the cheeses, sour cream and eggs in a food processor and blend until smooth. If you don’t have a food processor, a large bowl and a stick blender will work ace. Remove the bowl from processor and add the chopped bacon, shallots and tomatoes. Lightly mix with a spoon.

Arrange the baguette slices in a layer or two in a square dish (26cm).

Pour the bacon, cheese and egg mixture over the bread in the dish, cover with cling film, and leave in the fridge to soak overnight.

The next morning, get out of bed, remove the strata from the fridge to rest while you preheat the oven to 180°C. While the oven is preheating you can say some affirmations, read the news or dance like this.

When the oven has come to temperature, place the strata in and bake for 30 minutes, or until cooked through.

Remove from the oven and devour, watching the melted cheese doesn’t burn your face.

As you can probably tell, we are very social but the fun isn’t only limited to celebrities! You can follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr and Google+.

Sweet Potaylor Swift Skins

Americana Week, Party Food, Side, Snack

We thought it best to start off Americana Week by dropping in with one of our closest all-American friends and who is more red…white and blue than dear Taylor Swift?

Like many of our relationships, we started off as Tay’s staunchest of enemies following an altercation at Chateau Marmont in the mid-00s.

We were all young when we first saw her, I close my eyes and the flashbacks start…we were living in Beverly Hills with Lisa Vanderpump at the time and were trying to grift Lindsay Lohan, who was staying at the Chateau when TayTay and her entourage stopped us in our tracks and defended Linds.

While it used to be bad blood between us (these songs were both written about us), the three of us now have nothing but mad love for one another after T-Swiz accepted our baked apology during one of our 12-step programs.

Little known fact, but we are actually the ones that got Tay and our Hollywood friends first hooked on baking!

We made a beeline for Taylor’s Beverly Hills cottage as soon as we landed and were greeted by a batch of cookies and freshly squeezed OJ. It goes without saying, but Ms Swift is a delightful, saint.

We spent the morning baking it (our jetlag) off, gossiping about what has been happening in Hollywood since we left (other than Jaime King erroneously snubbing Annelie and I for a co-Godparent role with Taylor) and how hilarious it is that people don’t know we went back in time to choreograph the aerobics video to Shake It Off as a laugh.

Our wider circle of friends dropped by for an early 4th of July party and at Tay’s request we whipped up a batch of our universally lauded Sweet Potaylor Swift Skins.

 

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Regular potato skins are good, but if you want to really make them sing like Taylor, you’ve got to use sweet potato. The rich, sweetness is cut by sharp cheddar and a kick of chilli leaving a party in your mouth to which everyone is invited. Unlike our celebrity soirees.

Lucky we let you read about them!

Also guys, as we are so social and so technologically advanced we have gone nuts on the social medias. You should follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr and Google+.

Friendster, FriendFace, Myspace and YouFace coming soon.

 

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Sweet Potaylor Swift Skins
Serves: 8.

Ingredients
2-4 large sweet potatoes
6 rashers streaky bacon, diced
1 cup vintage cheddar, grated
4 shallots, finely sliced
hot sauce, to taste
pinch smoked paprika
chives, for serving
sour cream, for serving

Method
Preheat oven to 180°C. Thoroughly wash sweet potatoes and bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until tender. Allow sweet potatoes to cool (leaving oven on).

Cook bacon in a small fry-pan for 5 minutes, or until crisp. Remove from heat.

Cut sweet potatoes into quarters, ensuring skin remains intact. Scoop out flesh, leaving roughly a 5mm layer of potato. If your potatoes are huge, cut them into smaller strips (like in the pictures) Place skins onto a baking tray, flesh-side down and bake for 5 minutes, or until golden. Turn over and bake for a further 5 minutes.

Sprinkle bacon, shallots and a dash of hot sauce into skins. Top with cheese and bake for 10-15 minutes, or until cheese is melted and golden.

Serve with sour cream , finely slice chives and a sprinkle of smoked paprika.

Kevin Bacon & Egg Pie

Main

Kevin is one of the sweetest celebrity friends we have. Sweetest and sexiest, obviously.

Following our one-two punch of Stockholm syndrome-ing and Fatal Attraction-ing our way into his heart, he gave us a start running coffee on Apollo 13 where we did such a good job (minus “accidentally” spiking Tom Hanks coffee with laxatives) that I was given the role as Jim Lovell’s wife’s body-double in the pivotal shower/ring scene and Annelie was hired to advise on the appropriate representation of the peanuts.

Obviously, we killed it and it brought us closer to Kevs and were invited to join his entourage/heavies during the filming of Picture Perfect (he was feuding with Jen An at the time…the only time we aren’t on Team Jen) before we graduated to being his fluffer on the set of Wild Things (we are really good with various…jobs).

We haven’t seen Kevin in a while, with him busy on the set of The Following, so to celebrate our warm and sexy friendship and show our gratitude he made the trip to see us, we served him up a large, hot, delicious slice of our famous Kevin Bacon & Egg Pie. This time, unusually, on plates rather than…never mind.

 

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The pie is the perfect meal for when you are short on time and want something easy and comforting. Plus spinach makes it seem healthy (and I just love spinach) and bacon is the best.

The food and the man. Enjoy!

 

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Kevin Bacon & Egg Pie
Serves: 6.

Ingredients
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 medium brown onions, chopped
350g rindless shortcut bacon rashers, diced
1 3/4 sheets frozen reduced-fat shortcrust pastry, partially thawed
1 1/3 cups grated reduced-fat tasty cheddar
8 eggs
1/2 cup pure cream
250g frozen spinach, defrosted and drained

Method
Heat oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat. Add onion. Cook, stirring, for 5 minutes or until softened. Add bacon. Cook, stirring, for 5 minutes or until browned. Remove from heat and stir through drained spinach. Cool.

Preheat oven to 180°C. Place a baking tray in oven. Grease a 6cm-deep, 20cm round springform pan. Using base of pan as a guide, cut 1 circle from 1 pastry sheet. Line base of prepared pan with pastry round. Cut remaining pastry sheet into 3 equal strips. Line side of pan with pastry, trimming to fit and pressing edges together (you will have some leftover pastry).

Spoon half the bacon and spinach mixture into pan. Sprinkle with 1 cup cheese. Whisk 4 eggs and cream together in a jug. Add to pan. Sprinkle with remaining bacon and spinach mixture. Make 4 holes into mixture in pan. Crack 1 egg into each hole. Sprinkle with remaining cheese. Season with pepper. Fold pastry over at top edge.

Place in hot oven and bake for 45 to 50 minutes or until pie is firm to touch. Stand in pan for 10 minutes. Serve on whatever dish you desire.