Asiago Cheese Bacon Scuffins with Dried Cranberries

Stay tuned for a sweet and savory muffin recipe . . . er, or is it a scone – let’s call it a scuffin! 

I am happy to report that Tony has been able to eat a little more this weekend.  He’s had chicken and wild rice soup and eggs with toast.  May not seem like much, but after 9 days of not eating solid food, it takes a while for things to wake up.

He’s able to rest comfortably in the living room, while I keep bizzy in the back of the house in the kitchen.  While I would one day love a kitchen/den open floor concept – I know he can rest when I am making noise in the kitchen. 😀

In the March edition of Bon Appetit, one of my favorite things is when readers ask for the recipes from some of their favorite restaurants.  Someone wanted a recipe for a date bacon scone.  A quick look at the recipe and it called for 1 stick of butter!  So I decided to take Cooking Light’s classic scone recipe and kick it up a notch.  Since I didn’t make these into typical triangles, I weighed out my dough and divided that by 12 – each scone (looks more like a muffin = scuffin!) was 2.1 ounces.

[sp_recipe]

These turned out amazing.  I for one love a sweet/savory combo – the scuffin was light, but had a bit of crust on the bottom.  Since I diced up the bacon and dried cranberries, they played off so well when you got each of them in a bite – first slightly sour sweet and then the saltiness of the bacon.  Hannah’s thoughts?  Leave out the dried cranberries and sugar on top – she would prefer cheese and bacon only on hers!

And then I decided to make simple white bread while Tony is on this low fiber diet for the next several weeks.  I adapted this recipe from King Arthur Flour – I didn’t have honey, so I subbed in the sugar, and I didn’t have any dried nonfat milk, so I just added 3 ounces of 1% milk to the dough.

Simple White Bread

• 12 generous slices – 188 calories, 2.5 fat, 35 carbs, 1.4 fiber and 5 protein = 5 PointsPlus

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cups warm water
• 1 tablespoons sugar
• 1 package yeast (or 2 1/4 teaspoons loose yeast)
• 2 tablespoons butter, softened
• 4 cups flour (and up to 1/4 cup additional)
• 3 ounces milk

Mix all the ingredients in a stand mixer using the dough hook.  After a few minutes I realized it needed a bit more flour, so I added 1/4 cup and it was the right consistency.  Let the machine knead the dough for 7 minutes.

Put in a big container and let rise 90 minutes.  Once it has risen, pour into a greased 9 x 5 inch bread pan – it will just about fill the top of the pan, so you need to use this bigger size.  Let rest an additional 90 minutes.

Heat the oven to 350.  Bake for 20 minutes uncovered.  Then bake an additional 20 minutes with foil over the top so it doesn’t brown too much.  Let cool a few minutes then put it on a rack to cool.

And now its time to announce the winner of my giveaway last week in celebration of my 1500th post!

The winner is . . .

True Random Number Generator Min: Max: 107 Result: 22

Julia says:

February 24, 2011 at 3:19 pm (Edit)

Check out all the fabulous BSI recipes – cumin that Holly rounded up!

I’ll announce the new host either later today or tomorrow at the latest.

Have a great Monday!