Cheese, ham and apple muffins

Are you a savoury or sweet kind of person? If you think of eating something sweet whenever you are hungry, you are the opposite from me. For me, I need to have something savoury to fill me up before I can think about my desserts. But of course, if it's just for breakfast, it's just got to be an either one or the other.

For the longest time, I haven't been baking much or cooking much. Blame it on the weather - sweltering heat that makes you want to laze around and not do anything much except to watch tv in a cool room. Yes, this part of the world seems to be having a long hot spell. Of course, many other things like getting your laundry aired as well as giving the perfect rise to your breads would be awesome in this weather.

You can probably see that I'm really getting at breakfast - the most important meal of the day, at least for me. Is breakfast important to you too? Sweet muffins do not appeal to me first thing in the morning but instead savoury ones too. The fact is, you can easily put anything into your savoury muffins, anything you fancy or your rumbling tummy fancies :)

I've got this rather easy savoury muffin recipe from Nigel Slater, The Observer, 19 February 2012.

Makes a dozen muffins

Ingredients: 

275g plain flour

1 tbsp caster sugar

2 tsp baking powder

3 eggs

175ml yoghurt

200g, chopped cooked ham (or luncheon meat)

a small one apple, grated

75g firm, mature cheese such as Spenwood (I used simple parmesan cheese that I could find)

grated cheese, a little to finish

Method:

1. Line 12 medium-sized bun tins with paper muffin cases. Set the oven at 200C/gas mark 6 160 degree celsius.
2. Put the flour, sugar, baking powder and a little salt in a bowl, mixing together thoroughly.
3. In a separate bowl, break the eggs and lightly beat them, stir in the yoghurt, the chopped ham and the grated apple.
4. Cut the cheese into small dice, fold into the yoghurt mixture then lightly mix with the dry ingredients. Take care not to over-mix, which will knock the air out of the batter.
5. Divide the mixture between the 12 cases, grate over a little grated cheese, then bake for 25 minutes till risen and pale gold. Allow to cool down a little before eating, but eat the same day.

I halved this recipe to make about 7 muffins. It tastes awesomely savoury with the cheese and ham. The apple gives it an extra crunch.

This muffin is packed full of flavours and simple ingredients that you can easily find. Literally, it's budget friendly week at I Heart Cooking Clubs. And so I made good use of the leftovers in my fridge without buying anything at all. Yippee!! Great way to clear the fridge. This also means that you can easily substitute ham with other protein like leftover chicken or pork as well as substituting apple with pear.

Also, I'm submitting this post to Cook-Your-Books #13 organized by Joyce of kitchen flavours.