No, not bacon, baking. Well, one of the items did include bacon but mostly I was baking breads. The ratatouille pie, which I will talk about later, had bacon in it.
Ratatouille Pie with Mozzarella and Bacon
When I retired, my list of things to do the first year included “bake more” and “bake breads”. Besides Christmas cookies, I didn’t bake much. Didn’t have the time.
Now, I sort of have the time, although like many friends, retirement has found us busier than we ever expected. I do like to use my CSA items to bake, though, like zucchini and rhubarb, but not together. Over the weekend, I made zucchini cornbread.
Zucchini Cornbread
The recipe is courtesy of the browneyedbaker blog. And, no, I didn’t remember to cut three rings to put on top. And, yes, it contains sugar, but this is a zucchini bread made with cornmeal. If you do visit browneyedbaker’s site, you will see her classic cornbread link does not contain sugar (so all my Southern friends can stop beating me up for putting sugar in cornbread). 😉
Don’t even get me started on the white cornmeal versus yellow cornmeal battle. Really. There are some strong opinions about making cornbread. For the record, when I do make it in the cast iron skillet to go with chili, I do not use sugar, but I do use whatever cornmeal I happen to have.
After making this really nice moist zucchini bread that we have been eating with lunches, or having for breakfast this week, I got an email from another blog I follow, Diary of a Locavore, who made ratatouille pie last week. The before shot is at the top of the page, and the dinner shot is here. We ended up devouring the entire pie, it was so good, so never put anything else with it. Looking at the ingredient list, it turns out we each had about three strips of bacon, 2 eggs, a cup of ratatouille and an ounce of mozzarella.
7 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled
2 cups ratatouille
1/4 cup grated mozzarella
1 bottom pie crust, partially baked
4 eggs
1-2 tablespoons milk
1-2 tablespoons flour
If you don’t want to go to the link for this one, the assembly is simple. Partially bake a pie crust. I did use a premade pie crust, since as you will see later, I was also baking bread again. I had cooked up a pound of TLV bacon earlier to use in dressings, this recipe and for a pizza this weekend. I had leftover ratatouille. Put bacon in crust. Add ratatouille. Sprinkle mozzarella. Mix eggs, milk and flour to a creamy quiche-like consistency. Pour carefully on top. Bake at 350 or 375 depending on your oven. My convention bake setting cooks quicker and does better at 25 degrees less than a recipe calls for setting. My pie was done in about 30 minutes. For a regular oven setting, use 375 degrees and bake for 40 minutes, until the top browns and you can see that all the egg mixture has set.
Tuesday I also decided to use the CSA rhubarb and make rhubarb bread. I wandered around in this rhubarb recipe site, getting ideas. I ended up using most of the second recipe, but added cinnamon and substituted almond extract since I can’t find my vanilla extract bottle.
Ingredients:
Bread. Mix sugar and oil first. Add egg and buttermilk and whisk. Add salt, cinnamon, baking soda and extract. Gradually blend in flour and then add rhubarb and nuts. Fold together. Pour in pans and add butter/sugar crumble mixture on top.
1 1/2 C brown sugar, packed
2/3 C oil (I used grapeseed)
1 egg
1 C buttermilk
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp almond extract
2 1/2 C flour King Arthur unbleached bread flour
2 C diced rhubarb
1/2 C chopped walnuts
Topping:
1 Tbl soft butter
1/4 C granulated sugar
Baked at 350 degrees in two loaf pans. The recipe calls for 4 by 8 inch, but I used what I had.
Rhubarb Nut Cinnamon Bread
The whole house smelled of cinnamon. This is a tangy dessert bread. I will be making this one again.
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