Bread Baskets

This is a celebratory post-on many counts. On the occasion of my completing 50 posts (my last in the paratha series being the 50th one) in 55 days, I thought it'd be a good idea to do a small roundup of the data I got from my site analytics widgets of visitors. So please bear with me for a moment here before I plunge into this month's recipe!

I was overjoyed today when I noticed that I've just crossed 1000 unique visitors-1210 exactly, from 40 different countries! The top 10 countries I get readers from are India, the US, the UAE, Canada, UK, Australia, Greece, Singapore, Qatar and Bahrain. Also, I've touched 100 "fans" of my blog on Facebook....out of the 100, I have to say that only 30 are from my own friends list. All the others have found me either through their friends who happen to be mine too or by just searching for the keywords "cooking" or "baking" on Facebook. "Followers" on Google Friend Connect is now 20, my subscriber list for daily email updates is up to 36 and the monthly newsletter subscribers are 13.

All this makes me overwhelmed and grateful and inspired to carry on, improving and enhancing this blog so you'll enjoy it all the more! Thank you all so much. Many of you, who were strangers to me before I started this blog, have now become my friends, taking the time to write and encourage me even more. I'm really humbled and happy...a big big thank you, to each and every one of you!

Now onto today's dish, which is a special but very easy recipe that I love to have as a snack and sometimes even for breakfast, if I'm particularly in a hurry or in a lazy mood! It's perfect when you have unexpected guests, so you wouldn't have to break into a sweat next time your friends swoop down on you on a surprise visit! The only thing is you'll need to have a muffin/cupcake tray.

If you don't own one, you could also just toast the bread slices and spread the filling on top and serve!

If you assume each person has at least 2-3 of these, I'm just going to give you the quantities needed to make 12 baskets here:

1. 12 slices of white bread (even a day or two-old bread will be okay)
2. 3 chicken sausages or 5 slices of ham or 4 streaky bacon slices, chopped fine
3. 3/4th cup mayonnaise sauce and a little extra for brushing the muffin holes
4. 2 tablespoons tomato sauce
5. 2 tablespoons cheese, grated (cheddar or any hard cheese)
6. 1 small onion, chopped fine
7. 1 teaspoon dried herbs of your choice
8. Salt and pepper to taste

• Remove the crusts from the bread slices.
• In a mixing bowl, combine all the other ingredients.
• Brush the muffin holes with a little mayonnaise.
• Now press the bread slices into the muffin holes, applying slight pressure.
• Place the filling into each mould.
• Preheat your oven to 180 C and bake for 15 minutes.
• Serve with a blob of tomato ketchup on each basket. Or just serve as it is and keep the ketchup optional.

TIPS:

If you flatten the bread slices at first with a rolling pin, applying gentle pressure, and then press into the muffin holes, they will mould better.
If you prefer, saute the sausages/ham/bacon first, with or without butter, for 1 to 2 minutes.

Even though I haven't yet tried it out, I guess this would also be great with the filling from the creamy mushrooms on toast recipe.
You could use any filling you like, either vegetarian or nonvegetarian. If you try it with something else, it would be great if you would share it with the rest of us!