Craftilicious - The Crafty Cook: Book Group Dinner

There was a slight slip in my plan for 2012 to record all the dinners - I forgot to photograph the January dish (epic fail, month one!) However, we liked the dish so much, that I made it again the other night just for me and hubby so I photographed that one instead. Call it cheating if you will, but at least we have something to show on the first of these posts rather than lost of text and little else....

As our egg hater wasn't coming to January's group, it seemed the perfect opportunity to make a dish I'd been wanting to make ever since I saw it on the Hairy Bikers' Food Tour of Great Britain about 3 years ago - Angelsey Eggs. However, as my hubby doesn't do cheese it wasn't a dish I could make for him so it had to wait for cheese and egg loving friends. I do adapt dishes for him without cheese but it seemed a waste on this one, especially for a first outing, and I wanted to try it "properly" first.

I took the recipe from the book that went with the series, but it is currently on the BBC site with it being a BBC show too and you can find it here in full if you want it http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/angleseyeggs_92117 but essentially it is mash potato with leeks in, with a layer of hard boiled eggs, covered with cheese sauce which is then topped with a mixture of cheese and breadcrumbs. It's a proper rib sticking winter warmer so was perfect for the recent chilly weather.

I made a couple of adaptions to the bikers recipe - I softened my leeks in butter rather than boiled them and for speed (it was a school night after all) I cheated with a jar of supermarket 4 cheese pasta sauce mixed with cream for my cheese sauce (the cream was to help hubby get over the cheese factor), and whilst not authentic, it worked fine for me. I did use Caerphilly along with cheddar in my topping though and am glad I did as I'd never had it before and it as, as it turns out, a rather marvellous cheese!

Here's my second cooking of it in pictures:

Leek and potato layer (this time using up leftovers from Sunday lunch - perfect Monday night quick dinner dish):

A layer of lovely free-range golden goodness:

A rich and creamy cheesy blanket (again cheats sauce and cream to make it not too strong for my hubby)

For book group I made a full on cheese version for us girls and a separate one for the hubby sans cheese. This time we were sharing so I made the sauce weaker, and then added parsley to his "purely breadcrumb" topping to distinguish it for the cheesy side which was all mine!