Bacon Bar – Ta da! (and the winning recipe)
Let’s just get right to it. From left to right: peanut butter, chocolate chip and bacon cookies, maple-glazed bacon, Bacon Classic, pimento cheese and bacon crisps and spiced bacon twists. The culmination of four days of non-stop bacon baking. The Bacon Bar at the Swine Ball. I have whined and moaned through the last week over this thing and for that I truly apologize. I am sorry.
But I will show off a few photos because, at the end of the day, bacon is pretty. It makes you smile. Here are a few things I learned about bacon that I will call upon next year for the Bacon Bar. First off, there is a great deal of difference between the beautiful, uniform strips of bacon you get at the supermarket and the slightly horrifying completely random strips you get when buying it wholesale in a 15-pound box. I spent probably 50 percent of my time trying to piece together bacon shreds that had been subjected to some kind of merciless slicing machine that knew not restraint or respect for our fine friend, the pig. Next, I will find a commercial convection oven and boil this whole process down to one day. Poor King Daddy couldn’t get a decent meal for days because my entire refrigerator was given over to bacon in one form or another. And, let me tell you, it is unsettling to see your cats parked at the front of the icebox, waiting for the door to open so they could pounce on that porcine perfection.
So here it is – the Bacon Bar winner, the most popular bacon treat at the Swine Ball. I give you pimento cheese bacon crisps. And the recipe.
- 8 slices of bacon
- 1 thin baguette French bread
- 1 11-ounce container Mrs. Grissom's Pimento Cheese Spread
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
- Put the bacon slices on a foil-lined, rimmed baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes or until the bacon is brown and crispy. Remove and let cool. Crumble.
- Slice the bread into ¼-inch rounds. Place the slices on a rimmed baking sheet and bake in that same 400-degree oven until bread begins to brown, about 7 minutes.
- Remove and let cool.
- Move an oven rack near the broiler and preheat the broiler to high.
- Place the bread slices on another foil-lined, rimmed baking sheet and spread each slice with pimento cheese. Top with crumbled bacon.
- Broil until the cheese melts and begins to brown, about 4 minutes.
Catherine – what good fun and fellowship vis-a-vis bacon….proves the point everything is better with bacon.
So true, but I’m not eating it for awhile!