French Fridays with Dorie - Bacon, Cheese and Dried Pear Bread

All the yummy add-ins

This week, our Dorie recipe was Savory Cheese and Chive Bread.  A nice, relatively simple quick bread.  Looking at the photo in around my french table, I was very excited to try this recipe.  The bread looked savory and warm and comforting.  And, since we've had abnormally low temperatures here in Southern California, with even a dusting of snow in some areas, a warm and comforting quick bread seemed just the thing the Dr. ordered.

After reading through the recipe and all the Bonne Idees, I decided to make the bacon, cheese and dried pear variety.  After all, those 14 pounds of home made bacon are not going to eat themselves!  I also am realizing that unless I want my butt to be as big as my house, I need to add small amounts of my bacon to dishes...not eat large slabs of it just for the pure joy. (You, dear reader, are spared the inspired paragraph I wrote and then deleted on the trials and tribulations of living with a JLo inspired behind!)

The quick bread comes together very quickly with a few base ingredients (like flour and milk and eggs and oil).  I then added my diced up bacon, shredded and cubed medium sharp cheddar cheese, diced up dried (but moist) pears and sage...picked from my garden.  I was so happy that our nasty frost did not kill my herbs!

Sage, enjoying a bit of sunlight.

Here's the bread ready for the oven.  Don't you just love all the wonderful bits of things peaking through the batter?

Here's the bread right out of the oven, just begging to be sliced, buttered and eaten.  Dorie says the bread can be served when it is slightly warm, but she thinks it's best when it's completely cooled.  Well, I absolutely had to try a small slice right out of the oven and then saved the rest for our Oscar watching dinner (with my home cured corned beef...which will be a subject for a post on the 15th!).

The bread did not disappoint.  Definitely a nice comfort food...but almost a meal in itself!  A small slice is really all you need.  Which is good, because in this house, that's about all you're going to get!!  It was crumbly and soft, and a little crusty where the cheese had cooked on the outside of the loaf.  The sage was the strongest flavor, giving it that earthiness that is so sage.  Then the bacon, with it's salty bite and the pear with it's light, sweetness were wonderful complements to the sage.  The walnuts added the right amount of texture, with their crunchiness.  While I thought the cheese would be overwhelming, it wasn't and mixed nicely with all the other flavors.

Cat 2...perturbed that her nap was interrupted

Finally, every one's been sharing cute pics of their furry friends...so here's a pic of Cat 2.  We have two cats and two dogs.  The dogs are labs (Sierra and Sophie) and the cats are sisters named Padme & Leia (calling all Star Wars fans...yes, I know they were mother/daughter...but that didn't deter Ethan from naming them).  The cats look a lot alike...so much so in the beginning, that we just called them Cat 1 and Cat 2.  The names have stuck...I have no idea which cat is Padme or Leia...but I know which is Cat 1 and Cat 2.  So, for your viewing pleasure, may I present Cat 2...wondering why I just moved a chair near her with an unbaked loaf of bread on it (for the light, baby)!

You can see what amazing variations my fellow Doristas came up this week right here.