My First Post

From baKEE

Happy valentine's day. I spent mine with food (surprise surprise). Imagine sitting at the table, a box of crackers in front of you... and a wheel of Triple Cream Brie. Can't get any more romantic than that- especially when you don't have to share it.

 So I'm not doing too well with my resolution. It's already mid February and this is my first post of the year. Deadlines are seriously needed for the world to go round, because otherwise, people like myself will never get anything done, however! This blog post is specially dedicated to Sal, who absolutely insisted that what we made today is worthy of a blog post, and what better way to start on a resolution than to present: homemade Ultimate BLT.

From baKEE

And what makes this BLT so different from other BLTs that you can usually get from a cafe? The keyword: homemade. Let's break it down- the components of a BLT aren't simply just bacon, lettuce and tomato. There's the bread- is it toasted? Is it homemade? What type of bread: sourdough? Rye? Grains? Wholemeal? Herbs? Baguette or sandwich loaf- thinly or thick sliced? Then there's the mayonnaise, and surely you did not expect plain ol' mayonnaise.

Granted, we did not carve our own pig to make bacon. That was store bought.

From baKEE

Yes, another thing about this year's blog entries is that you'll probably see a lot more faces of the people I bake with. Simply because they request their photos on facebook and I am reusing those photos on this blog. Digressing again! Coming back to our bread: Sal prepared the dough the night before, I'm not 100% sure what she put in there, but I do know she started off with a basic no-knead bread dough and added quite a bit of garlic in there. Smelt great, but extremely sticky.

From baKEE

Ah, the mayonnaise. And no, that's not me in the photo, truly. One more confession: no we did not make our own mayonnaise, but we did modify it and made it a thousand times better than what it was with magic. The ingredients for magic are: pesto and lemon. Pesto was made from fresh basil, toasted cashews (or you could use pine nuts if you're rich and can afford that luxury), garlic, olive oil and, if you like, parmigiano. Blitz the lot in the food processor, zest the lemon, marry the lot in a bowl with the mayonnaise and you have the ultimate mayonnaise to go with the ultimate BLT.

From baKEE

We're getting there. Fresh cherry tomatoes, good quality bacon, mozzarella slices, homemade bread. We've got our components- now the order. Frying the bacon in an ungreased pan just means that the bacon fat isn't diluted with any other type of oil. We retain the bacon fat to fry one side of the bread (reuse!) before loading on the rest of the layers.

From baKEE

The basil mayonnaise goes on the untoasted side of the bread I, then the lettuce, the tomato, the bacon, the cheese (so if your bacon is still warm, the cheese should be melting), another layer of basil mayonnaise on the untoasted side of bread II and slap it on.

And that is what you call a real BLT. After this, you'll be looking down your nose at any other BLTs out there. This was heavily based off and inspired by sortedfood.com, as are a lot of the recent recipes we tried out because they are so good with what they do. 

Oh right, the first picture of this entry? That's a cheesecake tiramisu, which might be in the next blog post. Whenever that happens.