Crispy Bacon and Egg Salad

Another salad today. With crispy bacon and egg. Spinach and mushrooms too.

And maybe a piece of buttered wholemeal toast on the side.

Because life is all about balance.

Crispy Bacon and Egg Salad

(serves 2)

The Salad:

150g baby spinach leaves (or mixed greens)

50g mushrooms

1 small red onion

2 rashers of bacon

2  eggs

The Dressing:

¼ cup extra virgin olive oil

3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

Salt and pepper to taste

Boil your eggs. 6 minutes for soft, 7 for medium, 9 for hard (but my egg-boiling system is convoluted, so disregard those times).

Fry your bacon up and chop it into little bits.

Wash your spinach, slice your onion, and cut your mushrooms cos we’re making a salad out here. 

Whisk whisk whisk the dressing.

Toss salad and dressing together and top with chopped eggs (whole egg if you soft-boiled them).

Eat, and feel really good about yourself.

Corn and Prorn Salad

Before Dressing

Before Dressing

Here’s to being healthy! And to awkward rhyming recipes!

After Dressing

After Dressing

Corn and Prorn Salad

(makes 2 serves)

The Salad:

1 ½ cups of canned corn kernels

2 tomatoes, diced

1 cup cooked, peeled prawns

½ avocado, diced

The Dressing:

(makes ½ cup)

¼ cup extra virgin olive oil

3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil

1 teaspoon minced garlic

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1 teaspoon brown sugar

Salt and pepper to taste

Whisk the dressing.

Chuck everything in a bowl and toss.

Eat.

Peanut Butter Pretzel Bites

So I had some pretzels (the mini kind).

I waved my elder wand around a little and transfigured them into Peanut Butter Pretzel Bites.

 

Peanut Butter Pretzel Bites

Makes... I didn’t keep track. About 15?

Pretzels

1 cup Peanut Butter (smooth or crunchy, your choice)

2 tbsp Softened Butter

3/4 cups Brown Sugar (approx)

1/2 cup Powdered Sugar (approx)

Dark Chocolate

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Scoop peanut butter out of the jar like there’s no tomorrow and combine with softened butter. Use a hand mixer if you have one, but a fork will do.

Add in the sugars and mix well. There’s enough sugar when your teeth start wobbling of their own accord, and when you can roll the mixture into balls with your hands without it sticking.  

Sandwich little patties of the sugar-butter mixture between two pretzels. Work fast, as the mixture becomes sticky quickly.

Pop them into the freezer for about 20 minutes. In the meantime, melt your chocolate.

Dip the pretzel sandwiches in the melted chocolate. Back into the freezer they go until serving time.

Enjoy with a glass of milk. Homer likes them too.

Chocolate and Peanut Butter Pillows

Following what’s most likely the last gloriously warm weekend of Summer, the new uni semester came around, along with an unseasonal downpour. So hopefully this sweet recipe can bring a ray of gastronomic sunshine into the lives of uni students and summer lovers everywhere.

Anyway, I was using StumbleUpon the other day, and I came across a recipe for these little babies. Not only did they sound delicious, but easy to make and low calorie too! Puff pastry and chocolate and peanut butter IS low calorie right?

So I decided to make a batch using M&Ms and peanut butter

 

But then I realised I had too much puff pastry so I decided to make some blackcurrant jam and peanut butter ones too.

And then I sealed them up so they looked like cute little raviolis, before popping them into the oven.

Peanut Butter and M&Ms

Peanut Butter and Blackcurrant Jam

 

Shame I didn’t seal the pastry properly and all the filling exploded out, but at least now you can tell which flavours are which!

Anyway, enough with the teasing, here’s the recipe:

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Pillows (adapted from Joy The Baker)

Makes as many as you want

Puff pastry, amount depends on how greedy you are, but 1 sheet makes approximately 18 pillows

Peanut butter

M&Ms/Jam/Filling of your choice

1 Egg-Weggy, lightly beaten

Granulated sugar for sprinkling (which I didn’t actually use)

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Preheat oven to 200°C (180°C fan-forced)

Thaw the frozen puff pastry. Not too much though, or they’ll become sticky and hard to handle. 

Cut the pastry into little squares. The more even the squares, the better.

Dollop peanut butter on top of the pastry squares and top with chocolate or jam or deliciousness of your choice. As hard as it might be to do, don’t go overboard or you’ll end up with most of your filling seeping out when you try and seal them.

Top each square with another bit of square, and seal by pressing a fork into the pastry, crimping the edges. Do this well or they’ll look like they murdered a PB&J sandwich once they come out of the oven (like mine).

Ok this bit is important. Make sure you brush each pastry square with a bit of the egg before you pop it into the oven, it gives the pillows an irresistibly crispy top that stays that way for days. This is also where you sprinkle with granulated sugar but I didn’t have any. Boo.

Now bake those little darlings until they’re crispy and golden (about 10 minutes, give or take depending on your oven, so just keep an eye out).

Eat. And don’t share. Don’t forget to pop the uneaten ones into fridge. Cover tightly.