Cheese, ham and olive loaf

We've adapted this from a recipe we cut out of a magazine ages ago. We think it may have been Sainsburys.

Ingredients:

3 eggs

100ml good quality olive oil

250g self raising flour

125ml white wine

150g cooked cubed ham

150g grated cheese (gruyere, cheddar and parmesan are nice)

100g sliced pitted green olives

pinch of salt and pepper

• Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees and line a loaf tin with baking paper or grease it with butter
• Mix the white wine and eggs together until frothy
• Add the olive oil, flour and seasoning and stir well
• Finally add the dry ingredients and make sure everything is mixed thoroughly
• Pour the mixture into the loaf tin and bake in the hot oven for 1 hour until it has risen slightly and the top is slightly browned
• Allow to cool before slicing
• Serve with salad and chutney

Other nice additions to the loaf are spring onions and sun dried tomatoes.

Bruschetta

Ingredients:

baguette or ciabatta

4 tomatoes, diced

2 spring onions, finely diced

2 garlic cloves, 1 minced and the other peeled and cut in half

basil leaves - approx 10, chopped

olive oil

salt and pepper

• Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees
• In a bowl mix together the tomatoes, spring onions, minced garlic and basil. Season and add a good glug of good quality olive oil. Put to one side for 15 minutes or so.
• Slice the bread and bake in the hot oven for a couple of minutes.
• Remove the bread slices from the oven and rub the halved garlic pieces on each slice. Drizzle with a little olive oil and top each slice with a spoonful of the tomato mixture. Cook in the oven for another 10-15 minutes until the edges of the bread are starting to crisp.
• Arrange the bruschetta on a plate and drizzle with a little more olive oil to serve.

Cheese and onion bread pudding

This is a savoury version of bread and butter pudding. We’ve seen it done in various ways but didn’t follow a recipe and just made up the quantities as we went along, according to what we thought it needed.

You could use whatever cheese you have to hand. It would also be very nice with some chopped ham or mushrooms added between the layers of bread.

Ingredients:
6-8 small slices of bread (we used tiger bread)
2 large eggs
Milk (approx 50ml)
1 tbl sp crème fraiche (optional)
Parmesan, gruyere and cheddar, grated (a handful of each)
5-6 spring onions, sliced
A handful of chopped spinach
Pepper
Butter

• Pre-heat the oven to 150 degrees.
• Butter the oven dish you are using to bake it in.
• Beat the eggs with the milk and the creme fraiche (if using). Season with black pepper and add about 1/3 of the cheese. Stir well.
• Layer half of the slices of bread on the bottom of the baking dish so that each slice slightly overlaps the next one.
• Scatter the chopped spring onions and spinach on top of the layer of bread, followed by about 1/3 of the grated cheese.
• Layer the remaining slices of bread on top, again ensuring that they overlap slightly.
• Pour over the beaten egg/milk/cheese mixture, making sure that you evenly distribute it across the slices of bread.
• Scatter the remaining cheese on top before baking it in the oven for approx 30 minutes.
• We served it with a plain green salad.