Bacon and Chocolate? Say Hello to Mo's Bacon Bar

At the end of July, Bret and I had a really wonderful date night at Bergamot.  After dinner, we stopped by one of our favorite wine and cheese shops - the Wine and Cheese Cask.  As we perused the store, Bret made a huge discovery - Mo's Bacon Bar!

I had mixed reactions about purchasing this chocolate.  I love chocolate and I adore bacon but would I like the two ingredients together?  Nonetheless, we decided to give it a try and threw it in the basket with our other Wine and Cheese Cask treats.  We put the chocolate bar in our pantry to try out for a dessert sometime but it was soon forgotten as we spent most of August indulging in seasonal summer fruits and local ice creams.  As the weather started to cool recently, I re-discovered the bacon bar in our pantry and finally decided to give it a try.

As the package describes and illustrates, Mo's Bacon Bar contains applewood smoked bacon, alderwood smoked salt and a deep milk chocolate.

When I opened the wrapping, I was overwhelmed by the smell of bacon.  While I love waking up to the smell of bacon in the morning, I wasn't sure that this was what I wanted my chocolate to smell like.

Bret and I each took a square and gave it a try.  I honestly wish we had taken photos of our faces as we took our first bite.  Let's just say that it was not pleasant.  The chocolate was definitely overpowered by the smoky flavor of the bacon and the smoky salt.  While the salt added a nice crunch to the bar, it definitely didn't need any more saltiness!  I think that if the bacon bar had some nuts, like pistachios, it would have helped balance everything out.

There was no way that Bret and I were going to ever eat this chocolate on its own.  I decided to balance out the flavor by adding one of my favorite snack foods - popcorn!  I put a bag of light popcorn in the microwave and when it was done, the kitchen thankfully smelled like something besides bacon!

While I let the popcorn cool a little, I roughly chopped up two squares of the bacon bar.

I added the chocolate to the popcorn and gave it a toss.  I actually did a pretty good job mixing this up because it was hard to find a good photograph of the chocolate with the popcorn.  

The bacon bar was definitely more enjoyable mixed with popcorn.  Every so often, you got a nice chocolate and bacon flavor with your popcorn.  In hindsight, I wish I added some cayenne to the popcorn to get a spicy flavor in there too!

I'm thinking about possibly chopping up the other half of the bacon bar to make a trail mix with nuts and dried fruit.  But what do you think? Any suggestions on how to use Mo's Bacon Bar?

Local Ingredients: Caprese Egg White Omelette

On Saturday morning, I woke up feeling so relaxed.  For the first time in ages, Bret and I didn't have anything scheduled or planned for the day.  I let Bret sleep in and decided to get started on my day by making a healthy egg white omelette for breakfast.  While I usually make egg white omelettes with whatever frozen vegetables I have on hand, I had lots of fresh local ingredients to work with and I decided to make an egg white omelette using tomatoes, basil and mozzarella. 

I started out by chopping up some gorgeous yellow cherry tomatoes I had on hand.

I then washed and dried a handful of fresh basil from Atlas Farm.

I gave the basil a coarse shop and then put it aside.

I cubed a quarter of a ball of Fiore Di Nonno mozzarella cheese and also put that aside.

While I warmed up two skillets on the stove, I threw some leftover slices of bacon in the oven to cook while I prepared my omelettes.  To start on my omelettes, I added my cherry tomatoes to the pan and then poured in my egg whites.

I added some of the chopped basil, fresh cracked peppercorns, salt and oregano to the omelette and slowly let the omelette cook at medium heat. 

When the omelette was nearly ready, I added the cubed mozzarella to the omelette and then folded the omelette in half.  The omelettes slid off my non-stick pans so easily onto to the plate and I topped the omelettes with some fresh chopped basil.

Of course, no breakfast is complete without adding some bacon! 

When I woke Bret up, he told me that there is no better way to wake up than to the smell of bacon.  He was thrilled that I made this healthy and hearty breakfast.  The egg whites had a lot of nice flavor, especially from the sweet cherry tomatoes and the fresh chopped basil.  Since these three ingredients make up a Caprese salad, I decided to call this breakfast my Caprese egg white omelette, which is bound to make repeat appearances in my kitchen this summer!

What is your favorite kind of omelette?

Cracklin' Cornbread

There were a lot of firsts this weekend and you know fried chicken was one of them. Cornbread was another one. I've never made cornbread from scratch. In fact, I've only ever used those little jiffy boxes and made corn muffins. They aren't very good actually. When I brought up my theme idea to my beeps (bakespace peeps - I know, I know, we're corny) they immediately had a ton of suggestions for me. One of them was cornbread and then to make it even better DD of DDPie's Slice suggested cracklin' cornbread. As soon as I saw that I knew it had to be on the menu. What is cracklin' cornbread you ask? Well, corbread with bacon in it, of course!

I followed the recipe that DD gave me and next time I'll only make two slight changes. The first would be to use the full amount of sugar. The recipe suggests 2-4 tsp and DD suggested that if I use the bacon I may not want it to be as sweet. I think I'd like the taste of sweet and salty together so I will try the full amount (I only used 2 tsp) next time. Keep in mind that cornbread isn't supposed to be as sweet as a corn muffin but I just like it sweeter. The second change I would make would be to take out the bacon and mix it with the batter and then pour it into the cast iron skillet. All the bacon stayed on the bottom and I imagined it throughout the cornbread. That's it. It was very moist, tasty and easy! Thanks DD!



Corn Bread

By: DD of DDPie's Slice

Ingredients:

1 cup Quaker or Aunt Jemima Yellow or White Corn Meal
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 to 4 tablespoons sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1 large egg, beaten
1/4 cup vegetable oil

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425F

Place all dry ingredients into a mixing bowl and stir together. In a seperate bowl, whisk together milk, egg and oil. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add the milk mixture. Stir together quickly.

Pour into a greased pan and bake in hot oven for 20-25 min until golden brown and a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

For Cracklin' Corn Bread:

I always use my iron skillet for corn bread. I dice then fry about 3-4 pieces of bacon until crispy. I pour off excess grease, leaving only about 2 tbsp of the bacon grease in the pan with the bacon. Mix corn bread according to directions and immediately pour into the HOT skillet containing the bacon. Place in oven and bake accordingly.

FYI- if you are making regular corn bread, the key is the hot skillet. So when I'm doing "plain" cornbread, I put the skillet in the oven with a couple of tbsp of melted shortening in the skillet and let it get hot while mixing the corn bread. Then pour it into the hot skillet.

Spaghetti Carbonara

This picture does not capture the beauty of this dish. It's not just this picture but every picture I have taken and this is the second time I've taken pictures of it for my blog. To solve this little problem you must come to my house so I can show you how to make this and so we can make it together.

I'm going to admit that it took me try after try to truly perfect this recipe. I've always loved it but sometimes it's too wet, sometimes it's too dry, sometimes it's really just eggs and pasta (what I call Poor Man's Carbonara) but this time I got it right. It's just how I like it. Creamy without being too saucy, flavorful but with a balance of flavors, not too yellow, not too white, it's just perfect...for me. Give it a try, play with the measurements and ingredients, find your perfect balance. Let me know how it works out for you.


Spaghetti Carbonara

1 medium onion, diced
6 slices of bacon, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 cup pinot grigio (usually i use a dry white but I love the sweetness with the bacon and onions)
1/4 chopped fresh parsley
1 lb spaghetti
3 eggs beaten
2 tbsp heavy cream or milk
1/2 cup or more of romano cheese
salt and pepper
extra virgin olive oil

Directions:

1. Bring a large pot of water up to a boil and season generously with kosher salt.

2. While water comes to a boil, cook bacon in large pan and cover with a splatter shield so you don't burn yourself. When bacon is cooked remove with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels. (At this point completely ignore the pool of grease on the paper towel, it will all be worth it in the end, I promise.)

3. Add a tablespoon of oil to the bacon drippings and saute onion and garlic. Deglaze the pan with wine and use a wooden spoon to pick up the bits of bacon that stuck to the pan. The cooking term for the tasty morsels (if you care) is called "fond". Once most of the liquid has evaporated turn off the heat.

4. Cook pasta in salted boiling water. While pasta cooks, beat eggs, cream and grated cheese in a small bowl and set aside.

5. When pasta is al dente remove with tongs and add to the pan with onions reserving about 1/2 cup of pasta water. Toss in bacon.

6. Slowly add 1/4 cup of hot pasta water to the eggs whisking quickly to temper the eggs to prevent scrambling. Toss with hot pasta, sprinkle with parsley and add if it seems very dry add more of the pasta water but only if you need it. Top with more romano cheese.

Serve immediately!