CHEESE & BACON GRATIN

We wanted to cook a roast on Sunday but had limited time as we also wanted to go to church and we didn't have a morsel of food in the fridge....not ideal when the recipe I picked out took over 4 hours. So instead I had to improvise and we decided to buy a roast chicken and cook this potato gratin from a Waitrose recipe card. It took about an hour and 15 minutes in total and was pretty easy. 

Ingredients for 4 people:

10 rashes of smoked bacon, cut into 1cm wide strips
900g mix of potatoes and sweet potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced
115g pack of baby spinach
350g gated cheddar cheese
1 bunch of salad onions, thinly sliced
200ml reduced fat creme fraiche
100ml vegetable stock
1 tsp English mustard (I used 1tbsp dijon mustard)
4 tbsp breadcrumbs
2 tbsp pumpkin seeds

You can fry the bacon but I prefer to grill as it is slightly healthier so start by doing this and then preheat the oven to 200 C, gas mark 6. Once the bacon is cooked, cut into 1cm wide strips and set to one side. Meanwhile cut the potatoes into thin slices.

Layer a third of the potatoes and spinach in a medium sized ovenproof dish. Scatter a third of the cheese, cooked bacon and onions on top. Continue to layer up the ingredients, setting aside a handful of cheese for the top.

Whisk together the creme fraiche, stock and mustard and pour over the layered gratin.

Scatter the remaining cheese, add a good grinding of black pepper and then pop into the oven for 40 minutes. Keep your eye on it towards the end in case the topping goes too brown. After 40 minutes, add the breadcrumbs and pumpkin seeds, (and if it is too brown, cover with some foil), then put it back in the oven for a further 10 minutes.

Finally serve either as a main with a side salad or as a side with some roast meat such as chicken or lamb - we went for roast chicken.

I have mentioned before that I am not a huge potato fan however I really enjoyed this. The combination of the potatoes, cheese and bacon works amazingly and we all loved the crispy topping. Both my daughter and husband were also huge fans. Although Arabella (and I) thought we could add a little more cheese....maybe some mozzarella would work well! 

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