Cheesey bacon spelt bread

We have been invited over to a friends house for a lasagna dinner tonight, and I hate rocking up anywhere empty handed especially this couple who are always so generous and often invite us around and supply a huge yummy feast and drinks ;) 

I finished up in the salon early for a Saturday so I had some time to prepare some bread , not so healthy though but hey you only live once and can have a naughty day every now and then right? Plus you can't have lasagna with out a delicious fresh bread to compliment. 

I was really nervous baking this as I sort of just added everything to the Thermomix bowl measuring as I went along with fingers crossed it would be ok. Baking has never been my forte so I was pleasantly surprised when all came together quite nicely ;) 

First up I had some bacon in the freezer that I'd defrosted and 220g of it did seem like quite a lot but I needed to use it all up, so if wanting you could probably halve the amount if bacon used , but who doesn't love bacon? I quickly diced it up once it had defrosted. 

To the bowl add : 

3 cloves of garlic 

Mince on speed 8 for 10 seconds. Scrape down sides. 

Then add 220g diced bacon rashes 

40 g butter 

Cook on varoma temperature for 2 minutes reverse speed 2 with mc lid off. 

Remove from bowl and set aside to cool 

Grate in bowl 

80 g tasty cheese

20 g Parmesan cheese 

Remove and set aside 

Grate in bowl 

1 cup fresh basil 

Remove and set aside with the cheese 

Make sure you have scraped the bowl as best as possible of any cheese and basil. 

Then measure and add to bowl in this order : 

300 g Luke warm water 

2 teaspoons dried yeast 

1 teaspoon sea salt 

Mix together in bowl on 39 degrees speed 2 for 40 seconds. 

Add to bowl 

320 g white spelt flour 

200 g wholemeal spelt flour 

10 g extra virgin olive oil 

1 teaspoon wallabies bread improver 

About half the diced bacon 

About half cheese and basil mixture 

Mix all ingredients together on speed 6 for 10 seconds 

Set dial to closed lid position and knead for 1 minute. 

Spray oil on thermo mat and remove dough onto the mat and roll into a ball, wrap dough lightly in mat and set aside to rise in a warm spot ( dash board of car always a winner for me )  for about half a hour.

After the dough has doubled. Punch down and quickly and gently separate into 3 even pieces and roll into logs like this , the dough should be very sticky and tacky. 

Careful not to over knead or roll the dough too much. As I've mentioned before spelt flour does not like over kneading and will make the bread more dense. 

Then remove logs onto a oven tray lined with baking paper and gently plait the dough

Sprinkle remaining cheese and bacon mixtures on top 

And set aside to rest for another 10 minutes. 

Then pop into a cold oven for 30 minutes on 200 degrees. 

Check the bread after 30 minutes, I struggle to know when bread is ready and I sometimes seem to over bake then I get the accused " rock bread " thrown around. I put a skewer in the middle and it came out clean so that was my sign it was baked ;) and it turned out perfect. Still lovely and soft and moist. We had lashings of butter and my friend had hers with coconut oil spread onto it. 

Will definitely make this bread again ! 

Thermomix Varoma Omelette

On this drizzly cold Sunday morning in Adelaide I was happily lazing in bed with my iPad. No sooner my belly starts to beg me for some tucker and of course the other half is walking in and out the bedroom hinting he is hungry and can not attempt to mow the lawns until he has something in his stomach. So I decided I might attempt a omelette for the first time. 

I admit I didn't follow any recipes and just made from the top if my head, measuring things as i added them into the bowl. Can't wait to try again once I have done a bit more research ,I struggled a bit to remove it from the varoma tray as the omelette did break up a little. But I'm thinking that could be because of the egg white content and lack of yolks? But all in all it was a delicious brekky and went down a treat served with some of my home made spelt,rye and buckwheat bread which we toasted. Ill post the bread recipe on here very soon!

So ingredients I used are as follows:

2 whole eggs 

4 egg whites 

10g light milk 

100g bacon rashers 

30g tasty cheese 

30g mushrooms 

5 cherry tomatoes 

30g red capsicum 

1 garlic clove (optional , I have to add garlic to everything as we love it!) 

Salt & pepper 

1/3 teaspoon dried oregano 

So to start out I added to the thermomix bowl

Eggs and egg whites , milk & salt and pepper to taste. Then whisked on speed 4 for 30 seconds.

Remove egg mixture from bowl and set aside. 

Roughly diced the bacon rashers and chopped the garlic clove , then added to the thermomix bowl and cooked on varoma temperature for 2 minutes on reverse speed 2. While cooking I sprinkled the oregano through the lid. 

While waiting for the bacon to cook i started to boil water in the kettle ,Chopped the mushrooms, capsicum and tomatoes into small pieces and I just added it into the egg mixture that's set aside. 

Once timer is up remove cooked bacon from bowl and set aside.

Then cut out some baking paper so it fits snugly into the top varoma tray. Making sure the side vents are not covered. 

Pour boiling water from kettle up to the 1 litre mark in thermo bowl, place lid and varoma dish on top and set to varoma temperature for 15 minutes speed 3.

Slowly pour the egg and chopped veggies mixture into the tray, carefull not to let it seep through the sides of the baking paper. Then sprinkle the cooked bacon over the top followed by sprinkling grated tasty cheese on top of that too. Place the varoma lid on and let it do its thing. 

 

Looks a bit like a pizza in this pic ;) 

Once the 15 mins is up check it has all cooked and is firm and carefully remove the omelette with the baking paper still attached on the bottom, and move onto a chopping board. 

I then carefully sliced it in half and served up on 2 plates. 

And Viola! Omelette is served! 

Any feedback or suggestions on other omelette recipes would be ever so welcome! As I said I'd love to try this again with a few other ideas ;)