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Posts Tagged ‘bacon’

Kitchen basics that elude me: fried eggs

Posted in Eats, Family, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 13, 2013| 4 Comments »

Nanny in her natural habitat: the kitchen.

I realized this weekend that I have successfully made a souffle, but can’t make a fried egg.

My grandmother made delectable fried eggs, and made it look easy. The everyday breakfast options at her house included bacon (turkey bacon after my grandfather’s heart problems were diagnosed), toast (or biscuits, on occasion) and eggs, either scrambled or fried (note: fried eggs, over easy, became known as Paw-Paw eggs, because they were his favorite, and to this day I can barely order them in a restaurant without calling them by this nickname).

I should have paid more attention, I guess. I should have offered to cook the eggs instead of going for the easy job of making toast or microwaving turkey bacon. (Or making the grits. I can’t believe I forgot about the grits option.)

I might not even have this ongoing fear of cast-iron skillets.

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Simply irresistible: Improved goat cheese balls get rave reviews

Posted in Eats, Photographs, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on May 14, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Late last week, I realized that I had never posted about my improvements to the recipe for Goat Cheese Pops with Herbs, Pecans and Bacon after I began experimenting with it last fall.

The worst part of this realization? The knowledge that the only record I had of said improvements was a marked-up piece of paper residing in either the kitchen (on a very busy cookbook shelf) or in my home office (a treasure trove of unsorted grad school stuff).

Luckily, the printout was right where I had sort of hoped that I left it, on the left corner of my filing cabinet in a short stack of unrelated papers.

Whew. Because these cheese balls drew rave reviews at a party this weekend.

I totally amped up the goat cheese from what the original recipe called for, resulting in a much bolder flavor. Although I also increased the measurements of the coating ingredients to account for more cheese balls (this recipe makes about 50 percent more than the original), I still find myself running short on coating when I have anywhere from five to 10 cheese balls left uncovered.

There are worse things than having five to 10 uncovered goat cheese balls awaiting you in the fridge, however.

Simply Irresistible Goat Cheese Balls
Makes 30-45

  • 9 slices bacon
  • 8 oz. goat cheese
  • 4 oz. cream cheese (not whipped)
  • 3 tbsp. chopped basil (divided)
  • Cracked black pepper
  • 1/2 cup pecans

Cook bacon until crispy. Place cooked bacon on a plate lined with paper towel and pat to remove excess grease.

Place the goat cheese, cream cheese, 1.5 tbsp. basil and a few twists of cracked black pepper in the food processor. Process until creamy and well-mixed.

Form the cheese mixture into small balls, about the size of the tip of your thumb. (Use food-safe gloves and avoid cleaning cheese out from under your fingernails later.) Place the cheese balls in the freezer for 10-15 minutes; you want them to firm up, but you don’t want to freeze them all the way.

Clean out the food processor (or use your second, smaller food processor). Crumble in the cooled bacon and add the remaining basil and the pecans. Process until the mixture is very fine and crumbly. Roll the cheese balls in the bacon mixture, pressing to lightly embed the coating into each cheese ball. (Again, break out the gloves unless you enjoy bacon shrapnel under your nails.)

Refrigerate until ready to serve. (I’ve always made these the day before serving due to time constraints — they’re fine, if not a little better, the day after.) Serve alongside toothpicks or stick the toothpicks in before placing the cheese balls on a serving platter.

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Goat cheese, basil, bacon and pecans add up to tiny, delicious treats

Posted in Eats, Photographs, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 28, 2011| 2 Comments »

I love cheese. I love cheese balls. I do not love the awkwardness involved in slicing off a small, bite-sized piece from a large, cold, hard-to-carve cheese ball.

Problems, problems. I know.

Anyway. If there’s anything I love better than plain old cheese, it’s goat cheese, so when I saw this recipe for Goat Cheese Pops with Herbs, Pecans and Bacon on Pinterest, I knew I had found a new culinary mission. Luckily, two events popped up on my social calendar this weekend, giving me an excuse to make a fancy cheese dish.

I did not put my goat cheese balls on lollipop sticks, so I can’t technically call them goat cheese pops. I also neglected to serve them with apple slices, since apple slices start turning brown the second you grab the paring knife and the parties I was supplying snacks for both had a relaxed buffet-type thing going on, meaning everything had to be stable at room temperature for a couple of hours.

Besides, every other apple I buy, any time of the year, turns out mushy and halfway tasteless.

If I make these again, I’ll probably use more goat cheese than cream cheese (the recipe linked above uses a 1:1 ratio of goat cheese to cream cheese — I’ll probably make that a 2:1 or even 3:1). The cream cheese probably helps with the consistency, but I think it also slightly masks the tangy flavor of the goat cheese.

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Early start yields exceptional breakfast

Posted in Eats, Photographs, Travel, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 8, 2011| 1 Comment »

I spent last week in Biloxi with my mom and had every intention of blogging about my adventures. I quickly figured out that I’d rather be having said adventures than blogging about them, however, thus the weeklong absence of posts.

Let’s start with the journey. Having discovered the amazing lunches at Birmingham’s Culinard Cafe a few months ago, I decided that I simply had to start my journey early enough to make it there to test-drive the breakfast menu.

The breakfast menu is significantly smaller than the lunch menu, but it still lists enough items to make anybody happy. It boasts three breakfast sandwiches on ciabatta bread, all featuring scrambled eggs: hot ham and Swiss cheese; bacon and cheddar cheese; and Southwestern chorizo, sautéed onions and peppers and jalapeno cheese. All are priced between $3.35 and $3.65.

My instinct pointed me toward the spicy chorizo sausage, but I’m still getting to know chorizo, so I chose the hot ham and cheese sandwich instead. I also ordered a small serving of loaded grits ($2.10).

My meal arrived with a surprise hashbrown pattie (a surprise only because I hadn’t really been paying attention to the menu details).

Just like the irresistible flat-iron steak sandwich that the husband and I have split a couple of times at the Culinard Cafe, the ham, egg and cheese sandwich was big enough for two people. Alas, I was by myself, but I did my best.

The bread, as usual, was spot on: thick and sturdy enough to safely encase the slippery ingredients, but thin and soft enough to bite through without too much effort. The eggs were cooked to perfection and then wrapped around the ham and gooey cheese.

The grits? Oh, the grits.

Loaded grits usually arrive with grease pooled on top, a consequence of adding more cheese and butter than necessary in an attempt, I presume, to fully “Southernize” the dish.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

There were no greasy pools in these loaded grits. They weren’t laden with butter or unmelted cheese. The grits were light (not so light that I thought they were baked with eggs in a casserole, however), and filled with small pieces of bacon — real bacon, not fake bacon bits.

The grits alone made the early departure worthwhile. I didn’t even have to stop for lunch (I actually tried to find lunch, but you know that span of I-65 between Montgomery and Mobile? That happened.)

If I have to plan a trip through Birmingham, I’m totally planning it on a weekday during this restaurant’s business hours.

 

 

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George Foreman Grill: A lean, mean, bacon machine

Posted in Eats, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 22, 2011| 2 Comments »

The good news: Earth Fare will sell you two pieces of sliced applewood dry rub bacon.

The bad news: You’ll feel like a tool asking for two pieces of sliced applewood dry rub bacon.

C’est la vie.

Bacon has been an “it” food for a while now. You can join a bacon of the month club, buy bacon vodka (or make your own) or enjoy a chocolate bacon bar (I, alas, did not enjoy this flavor mix).

What you can’t do with bacon, however, is cook it without making a mess. Before you all shout at once “Put it in the oven,” I’ve tried that. Baking bacon still spattered the oven interior a little, but mostly it just seems utterly ridiculous to heat the oven for the small amount of bacon that the husband and I eat at one sitting.

Thanks to Michael Scott on The Office, I knew about the George Foreman Grill’s potential as a bacon cooker. It wasn’t until Earth Fare — and its tempting meat counter — swung into town last year that I really considered getting back into the bacon-cooking business, however. (And I do realize that Fresh Market has a tempting meat counter, with butchers standing by who would sell me two slices of bacon, but thus far I’ve lived in two cities with a Fresh Market, and both stores have been located at the most dangerous intersection in town. It’s just not worth the drive.)

I’ve already outlined using the Foreman Grill as a panini press. It does a great job with bacon, too, but only if you’re cooking a very small amount.

You have to cut the bacon slices in half if you’re using the smaller grill, and then lay two halves on the grill. Close it, let the bacon cook for about 3 minutes, then open the lid and flip the two pieces over. Do this two or three more times and you’ve got bacon ready to go on the table. Or, actually, ready to sit on the plate and wait for the other two pieces of bacon to finish cooking.

If you’re crafty, you can put the two other half slices of bacon on the grill after the first two shrink down, giving you a head start on Round 2. Because cooking bacon takes forever.

If you’re lucky, all the grease from the bacon runs into the grease tray underneath the front of the Foreman. If you’re unlucky, then part of the grease runs up under the grill and drips on the countertop, onto which you sagely placed a couple layers of paper towels before you began this project. Toss those, wipe off the grill with dry paper towels, spray some cleaner underneath the grill, wipe and you’re done.

The applewood bacon? Totally worth it. Two slices cost me $1.30. The husband came downstairs for breakfast without being called (a rarity) and said, “You know how in cartoons the characters can see waves of smells, and the waves just sort of lift them up and carry them along? That’s what the smell of this bacon cooking is like.”

Cartoon imagery? There is no greater compliment.

 

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