001 - Bacon
FACT: Everything is better with bacon.
Bacon on its own is godly, of course. My parents made pancakes and bacon this morning from breakfast and honestly, I was most excited about the bacon. I love nice, crispy bacon, and I also like tender, slightly chewy bacon. Bacon is never, ever bad.
Bacon is simply a wonder food of awesome. When vegetarians cheat, they cheat for bacon. When people go on a diet, they go off of that diet for bacon. Unless it's the Atkins diet, where it's 100% totally cool to eat bacon. And sure, they say that bacon is bad for you, but it's good for your soul. Bacon is often imitated, like turkey bacon, and vegetarian bacon, but nothing ever compares to straight up salted smoked pig fat.
It's amazing how simply changing the order of two words can result in something awesome, and something not awesome.
For instance: Turkey Bacon = NOT awesome.
(these are lies)
But on the other hand: Bacon Turkey = TOTALLY awesome
(not a lie)
Bacon can stand alone, simply eaten as strips, but I think there's something to be said that, according to my first started fact, everything is better with bacon. Meaning bacon makes everything else taste better. For instance, I'll start off with one of my favorite bacon enhanced inventions: Mo's Bacon Chocolate Bar.
Vosges Haut Chocolate makes a lot of strange chocolate combinations, but none are quite as decadent as Mo's Bacon Bar. I'm personally a fan of the Milk Chocolate Bar, but it also comes in a Dark Chocolate Bar. The Milk Chocolate bar is 41% cacao (the Dark Chocolate has 62%), with delicious bits of applewood smoked bacon and alder wood smoked salt. The inspiration for this chocolate bar came from the breakfast I had this morning: Sweet pancakes and syrup with salty crunchy bacon.
Honestly, this Bacon Chocolate bar is one of the best things I've ever tastes. It's like... nothing will ever be quite as delicious again. The chocolate is smooth and rich, it contains the perfect amount of bacon (and trust me, they aren't stingy with it) and the balance of sweet and salty is just... unrivaled. You can purchase Mo's Bacon Bar at Whole Foods Market.
This decadent combination of Bacon and Chocolate inspired me to search for Chocolate Bacon Cupcakes. And while I have yet to actually make any, I certainly plan to, using this recipe from allrecipes.com. What about chocolate (or vanilla) ice cream with bacon on top? The potential awesomeness just goes on and on.
If you don't like chocolate (weirdo) but you still want to test out the wonders of sweet and salty bacon. You can always try Praline Bacon "Candy". If you're allergic to pecans, or just don't like them, you can still do the following recipe with just brown sugar.
Ingredients
1 pound thick cut bacon
2 1/2 ounces light brown sugar, about 6 tablespoons
1 1/2 ounces pecan halves
Directions
Heat the oven to 400 degrees F.
Line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil. Arrange the bacon in a single layer on a cooling rack, and set it in the prepared sheet pan. Bake until the bacon browns and the fat is rendered and bubbly. About 30 to 35 minutes.
Meanwhile, combine the brown sugar and pecans in a small food processor. Pulse about 15 times or until the pecans are finely chopped.
Remove the bacon from the oven, sprinkle with the brown sugar mixture, and pat down to adhere. Return to the oven a bake until the bacon is crisp, about 10 minutes.
Cool on the rack for 10 minutes before serving.
Since I started with dessert, I supposed I should move on to dinner. Another one of my favorite bacon combinations (that is slightly less adventurous than chocolate) is bacon and shrimp. Sure, everyone has had bacon wrapped shrimp and/or scallops as appetizers, but I defiantly think shrimp and bacon deserves it's own place on the menu as a main course. I have a recipe for a very simple dish of Spaghetti with Shrimp and Bacon, but it's really freaking delicious. Try it with Bakon Vodka.
Spaghetti with Shrimp and Bacon
- Coarse salt and ground pepper
- 12 ounces spaghetti
- 2 strips bacon, chopped (I say fuck that and use a pound. Honestly. This is just from the recipe I found, but add as much bacon as your heart can stand)
- 8 ounces large peeled and deveined frozen shrimp, thawed and halved horizontally
- 6 scallions, chopped
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 to 1/2 cup vegetable or chicken broth (depends on how "saucy" you want it)
- 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook pasta until al dente. Drain pasta, and return to pot.
While pasta is cooking, fry bacon in a large skillet over medium until browned, 6 to 8 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer to a paper-towel-lined plate.
Add shrimp, scallions, and garlic to skillet. Cook, stirring frequently, until shrimp are almost opaque, about 1 minute. Add a splash of white wine, and then add cup broth, and bring just to a boil.
Add shrimp mixture and lemon juice to pasta. Season with salt and pepper, and toss to combine. Serve sprinkled with bacon and parmessian cheese.
So we've covered dessert and dinner. The obvious next step is lunch, of course! Now, most people would say their favorite bacon themed lunch is the BLT. Unfortunately. I'm not a big fan of lettuce, tomato, or mayo... So it'd totally rather have a sandwich of JUSt bacon. Lots of bacon. Or, maybe, a bacon cheeseburger. The best bacon cheeseburger I've ever had was made right here in my own home. It was a burger patty bade from bison (buffalo) meat, with melted American cheese, Sweet Baby Rays Sweet 'n' Spicy Barbeque Sauce, some fried onion straws, and of course, 4 slices of super thick cut, slightly chewy bacon. Goddamn was that a good burger. The major grocery store chain in my area, Publix, also makes a stuffed bacon cheeseburger, which is basically a burger patty with pieces of bacon and shredded cheddar already in the patty. It gives the whole burger that delicious smoky bacon flavor.
Now, we've all had this happen before: You're eating your bacon cheeseburger (or maybe your BLT without the LT), but for some reason, you just can't seem to get a bite of bacon in every bite! curly strips of bacon aren’t very consistent. Sometimes you'll get a bite with just bread and no bacon. And that's just a travesty. So what do you do? You make yourself a Bacon Quilt of course.
In case you're not so good with the maths, that's 12 slices of crispy, meaty bacon, braided together into a perfectly consistent, every-bite-full-o-bacon quilt. Never again will you have a disappointed bite of sandwich, void of bacon. And it won't be only one slice of bacon, but every bite of bacon will have at least 2 perfectly fired slices per meaty square inch.
Dessert, Dinner, Lunch... The only logical next step is Breakfast. And I've already mentioned, perhaps the best breakfast in the world is pancakes and bacon. But what if you're on the go? What if you just don't have the time to sit down with a fork and knife and cut up your pancakes and eat your bacon? Well, Aunt Jemima's got you covered.
It's the perfect solution! You fry up your bacon, nice and crispy like, and on the same damn griddle, you pour your pancake batter over your bacon slices and BAM. Bacon in a pancake. As for syrup, if you've just GOTTA have it (i can go without syrup sometimes) there's no reason you cant just dip them in syrup. And they don't just have to be for "on the go". They're pretty good all the time.
I've covered several edible ways of enjoying bacon, but did you know you can enjoy bacon all the time, without actually having to eat it? I know I know, you're asking "what's the point?" But bacon has a loyal following, so bacon also has merchandise!
That would be Bacon Lip Balm, Bacon Air Freshener, Bacon Bandages (free toy inside! I WONDER WHAT IS ITS?! IS IT BACON? I BET IT'S BACON!) and Bacon Soap.
Check out mcphee.com for some other awesome bacon and meat stuff.
Need the perfect gift for your favorite bacon lover (or just want to treat the hell out of yourself)? Get a subscription to a Bacon of the Month Club! The Pig Next Door offeres two kinds of Bacon of the Month packages. There's the Traditional package, which sends you a different kind of artisan bacon to your home once a month. Then there is he Heirloom package, where you get to sample different bacons from specialized breeds of pigs.
I hope you all love bacon as much as I do! See you tomorrow when I discuss the finer points of... something else that's totally awesome x3