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Saturday, August 30, 2014

#BaconMonth Round Up for #InternationalBaconDay

In my humble opinion, every day should be International Bacon Day, and I often treat each as if it were. But, all people rejoice, because today is the actual day. Happy International Bacon Day, everyone!

In honor of this great holiday - Seriously who's working? Leave me a comment, I'll see what I can do about sending you some bacon in recompense. - I've stopped by every post from every blog in our linky tool for Bacon Month and created a link list, categorized for ease of clicking! We've got everything from Appetizers and Drinks to Cookies and Dessert and lots of great bacon recipes in between.

What are you making with bacon today in celebration? Might I suggest a few recipes from the following 116 links?

Enjoy!

Candied Habanero Bacon

Appetizers and Snacks

Drinks

Condiments

Sweet and Spicy Bacon Cocktail Sausages

Salads

Cheesy Bacon Baked Onions

Side Dishes

Spicy Roasted Bacon Tomato Cauliflower

Soups and Chilies

BLT Muffins

Bread

Breakfast

Bacon Butty

Sandwiches

Bacon-wrapped Jalapeño Popper Stuffed Chicken

Main Courses

Cookies and Bars

Bacon Dark Chocolate Bourbon Cookies

Desserts and Sweet Treats

How to:

Once again, many, many thanks to Julie from White Lights on Wednesday for organizing Bacon Month and sponsoring all the cookbook giveaways!

Wednesday, March 4, 2020

Bacon Ranch Stuffed Celery #FoodieExtravaganza

Bacon ranch stuffed celery is an easy appetizer that satisfies our need for crunch! And who doesn’t love cream cheese seasoned with loads of bacon, chives, parsley and plenty of black pepper? It makes the perfect filling for celery, not to mention baked potatoes.

As a child, my favorite dressing was always thousand island because I loved its creaminess with just a bit of bite. As I got older, I taught myself to love blue cheese dressing. Not sure exactly where I got the idea, but I decided it was more sophisticated than thousand island and that I should like it.

Every week in my high school cafeteria the menu seldom varied. Thursday was rigatoni day. It was our favorite meal of the week. Big rigatoni pasta with Bolognese sauce and a side salad. Despite not liking blue cheese, that’s the dressing I chose week after week, until sometime in the middle of possibly sophomore year, I actually really liked it. Yeah, I know, I’m weird. Blue cheese became my favorite.

Until 🎵dum dum da dum 🎶 RANCH DRESSING entered my consciousness. I first tried it at a Texas buffet restaurant I adored called Souper Salad, where one could fill one’s plate with salad ingredients too numerous to count, along with myriad toppings, like crumbled bacon and cheeses, sliced boiled eggs and sunflower seeds. The vats of dressing were enormous, like the ice cream tubs in the cooler at Baskin Robbins. They also served soup and some of the best cornbread on the planet.

After that, I wanted ranch on All The Things. And possibly some crumbled blue cheese.

Bacon Ranch Stuffed Celery

Sure, you could just dip your celery sticks in ranch dressing but my way is much more delicious. Mix the ranch flavors into cream cheese and stuff the celery full. It doesn’t drip off on your shirt like dip does and it’s more delicious to boot.

Ingredients
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
2 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
4 thick slices bacon, fried till crispy, crumbled
8 oz or 226g cream cheese, at room temperature
1/4 cup or 60ml mayonnaise
3 tablespoons minced fresh chives/green onion tops
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh parsley
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Salt, to taste
8 ribs celery (mine were about 8 in or 20cm long)

Method
Put the minced garlic in a large bowl and add in the lemon juice. Set aside for 10 minutes. This mellows the garlic so it isn’t as sharp but it’s still got plenty enough garlicky flavor.

Use a fork to mash the room temperature cream cheese into the lemon juice and garlic.

Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well.

Taste and add salt if needed. With the cream cheese, bacon and mayonnaise, all of which are salty, you probably won’t need much, if any at all. I don't usually add any.

Cover and refrigerate for at least one hour to allow the flavors to meld.

Use a plastic bag with the corner cut off or a pastry bag to pipe a healthy amount of the filling into your cleaned celery ribs. Run the tines of a fork over the top to score the filling and gently push it into the celery so it won’t fall out.

Cut your celery into 2 inch or 5cm lengths and arrange them on a serving plate.

Enjoy!

This month my Foodie Extravaganza friends are celebrating National Celery Month by sharing our favorite recipes with celery. Many thanks to our host, Wendy of A Day in the Life on the Farm. Check out all the great recipes:

Bacon Ranch Stuffed Celery from Food Lust People Love
Braised Celery Over Cheesy Polenta from Culinary Adventures with Camilla
Celery Leaf Pesto from Karen's Kitchen Stories
Homemade Celery Salt from Sneha's Recipe
Italian Celery and Mushroom Salad from Making Miracles
Shaved Celery and Apple Salad from Palatable Pastime
Shaved Celery Salad with Sauteed Scallops from A Day in the Life on the Farm

Foodie Extravaganza is where we celebrate obscure food holidays by cooking and baking together with the same ingredient or theme each month.

Posting day is always the first Wednesday of each month. If you are a blogger and would like to join our group and blog along with us, come join our Facebook page Foodie Extravaganza. We would love to have you! If you're a spectator looking for delicious tid-bits check out our Foodie Extravaganza Pinterest Board!

Pin this Bacon Ranch Stuffed Celery!

Monday, October 20, 2014

Spicy Cheesy Bacon Ranch Muffins #MuffinMonday

Extra sharp cheddar cheese, crispy bacon and ranch dressing seasonings are combined in these flavorful savory muffins, making them perfect brunch fare for game day or tailgating picnics.

Ranch trumps plans
I had a complete different muffin planned for today. I had bought the ingredients and it was going to be sweet and fabulous. But then, I saw this. This, my dear readers, is the even more fabulous Cheesy Bacon Ranch Dip from my friend, Carla, over at Chocolate Moosey.

I am a huge fan of ranch dressing and ranch dip and ranch pretty much everything. My suitcase returning from the US to whichever country we are living is regularly stocked with packets of Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing, unless it’s available where I am. I hate to be without it. I also stock up on the buttermilk ranch seasonings from Penzey's. One cannot ever have too much ranch. It’s great for dipping carrot sticks or potato chips and there's hardly anything that makes me happier than cutting an avocado in half, removing the pit and filling the holes with ranch dressing so I can eat it with a spoon. Unless it’s being home alone when I do it so that I don’t have to give someone else one of my avocado halves. Dang moochers.

The upshot of it was that when I saw Carla’s spicy cheesy bacon ranch dip, I knew all those flavors – that bacon, the cheese, that hot sauce, the ranch seasonings! - would also make a fabulous muffin. And I wasn’t willing to wait. As I sit here typing this, I have just polished off my second muffin. Then I licked my finger and picked up the crumbs from the saucer and cleaned them off too so, unless someone is counting muffins, it looks like I haven’t even started yet. And that, friends, would be the truth. Two down, just 10 to go. Don't bother to knock. I'm not answering.

Ingredients

2 cups or 250g flour

5 oz or 140g extra sharp cheddar cheese, grated

2 tablespoons ranch seasoning (About half of a ranch dip packet. I used my Penzey's for this.)

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

1 cup or 240ml sour cream

1/3 cup or 80ml milk

5-6 slices bacon, fried and chopped – approx. weight after frying and draining: 1 3/4 oz or 50g

2-4 tablespoons hot sauce, depending on your taste and how spicy your chosen hot sauce is. Know thyself, as the ancient Greeks said.

Method

Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and prepare your 12-cup muffin pan by greasing it or lining it with paper muffin cups.

Separate out small handfuls of both your grated cheese and your bacon for decorating the muffins before baking.

In a large bowl, mix together your flour, the bigger of the grated cheddar, ranch seasoning, baking powder, baking soda and salt, making sure that the cheese is well coated in flour and is not sticking together in clumps.

In a smaller bowl, whisk together your eggs, sour cream, milk and hot sauce.

Pour your wet ingredients into your dry ingredients stir until just mixed. Then fold in the larger pile of bacon pieces.

Divide the batter between the muffin cups.

Top each with the reserved smaller piles of grated cheddar and bacon.

Bake in your preheated oven for 20-25 minutes or until the muffins are golden and a toothpick comes out clean. Cool in the pan for a few minutes and then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

Enjoy!

And, just a side note that I found amusing. Muffins are not a stable building material. I was stacking them like this.

And then this happened. One went off the left and one went off the right. And that is the story of how my helper got a muffin. Three down, nine to go.

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Bacon-wrapped Smashed Redskin Puffs

Small red potatoes, cooked to tenderness then smashed flattish, covered with bacon and fried till crispy. You can serve these as a side dish but they also make a fabulous main course alongside a big salad or vegetables.

Food Lust People Love: Small red potatoes, cooked to tenderness then smashed flattish, covered with bacon and fried till crispy. You can serve these as a side dish but they also make a fabulous main course alongside a big salad or vegetables.

It’s Blogger C.L.U.E. Society time again, where I am assigned a blog to poke around in and find a recipe to make which fits our “clue” or theme. Which, this month, is potatoes. While I’m not the diehard fan my mother is – her last meal on earth would be potatoes and more potatoes of every recipe and description – I am quite a fan. I was also delighted to be assigned the blog A Day in the Life on the Farm, written by my friend, Wendy, a retired police officer who has taken up the life of a leisurely farmer. HA! Yeah, that was a joke. What she does do, between chores, is cook some pretty tasty dishes.

As I poked around in Wendy’s potato posts, it became apparent to me that my eyesight is failing. I have an annual checkup each summer but here we are in only March, and these contacts just aren’t quite working for me anymore. When I saw the first photo of her smashed redskin potato puffs crisping up in the frying pan, I thought, “Oh, my goodness, brilliant, she has wrapped the smashed potato with bacon!” Upon enlarging the picture, I realized that was just the red of the potatoes. But then I HAD to wrap them in bacon. There wasn’t any other choice.

Let me say that if you are not a bacon person, ~~I’m not sure we can be friends.~~ Wendy’s original potatoes are still brilliant. The smashing opens the skins so the fluffy insides can fry up crunchy and crispy and more-ish. They would be an excellent addition to any meal!

I intended to serve these as a side dish, just as Wendy did, but with the addition of the bacon, I changed my mind and made them the main course, with a lovely mixed salad on the side, perfect for a meal when meat doesn’t have to be the center of attention. Since the salad was so big, we still only each ate two of the potatoes.

Ingredients
Small redskin potatoes – about 2 per person
1 slice of normal smoked streaky bacon per potato (Not thick cut.)
Handful chopped green onions to serve
Cayenne pepper – optional

Method
Boil your potatoes in a large pot of water until tender, testing with a pointy knife at about 20 minutes. Cook a little longer if you still feel resistance in the middle.

Yeah, I know I said two per person and we are only two people at home but who boils only four potatoes?
Exactly no one.

Drain the water from the pot and leave the potatoes to air dry, and cool a little, uncovered in the hot pot.

When your potatoes are cool enough to handle, but are still quite warm, heat a non-stick skillet on the stove over a medium flame.

Lay one piece of cold bacon on a plate and top with a potato. Use the potato masher to smash the potato till it is kind of flattish and about the same size as the masher.

Fold the ends of the bacon over to cover the smashed potato. With a spatula, lift the bacon-wrapped potato and place it - overlapped bacon-end side down - in the heated pan.

Continue until all the potatoes are smashed and wrapped with bacon, adding as many as you can comfortably fit to the pan and leaving the rest to wait on the plate.

Overlapped bacon end side down to start.

You don’t want to crowd your pan too much because these need room around them so everything can get crispy, instead of just steaming. Also, room to maneuver makes turning them over easier.

When the overlapped bacon on the bottoms are sufficiently browned and sticking together, use a spatula to gently turn the smashed potatoes over. If little pieces of potato try to detach, just push them back where they belong with the spatula.

Push down gently on the smashed potatoes with your spatula to reflatten them occasionally.

Cook until both sides are crispy then remove the smashed potatoes to a warm plate to keep warm. Sprinkle with a little cayenne, if desired. Continue cooking until all your potatoes are done.

Sprinkle with the chopped green onions to serve.

Enjoy!

Many thanks to this month’s host and organizer, Liz of That Skinny Chick Can Bake.

One potato, two potato,

Three potato, four,

Five potato, six potato,

Seven potato, MORE!

Here’s the list of this month’s Blogger C.L.U.E. participants. Follow the links to see which blog they were assigned and which great potato or starch recipe they have recreated.

Bacon-Wrapped Potatoes with Sriracha Sauce from Debra at Eliot's Eats
Bacon-Wrapped Smashed Redskin Potatoes from Stacy at Food Lust People Love
Balsamic Roasted Fingerling Potatoes from Wendy at A Day in the Life on the Farm
Basil Lime Gin Gimlet from Christy at Confessions of a Culinary Diva
Cheddar Scallion Potato Buns from Lora at Cake Duchess
Chicken Pot Pie from Heather at girlichef
Chipotle Sweet Potato Soup from Kim at Liv Life
Chocolate Coconut Butterscotch and Oatmeal Cake Cookies from Lisa at Authentic Suburban Gourmet
Daisy's Noisette Potatoes from Janet at Cupcakes to Caviar
Honey Dijon Roasted Potato Salad by Ramona at Curry and Comfort
Irish Brown Bread from Kathy at Bakeaway with Me
Okie Peasant Potato Soup from Christiane at Taking on Magazines
Potato and Celery Root Puree from Lea Ann at Cooking on the Ranch
Potato and White Bean Soup with Sage from Kathy at A Spoonful of Thyme
Potato Bread Rolls from Kelli at Kelli's Kitchen
Potatoes O'Brien from Azmina of Lawyer Loves Lunch
Slow Cooker Beef and Guinness Pie from Anna at Anna Dishes
Smoked Salmon Chowder from Jean at Lemons and Anchovies
Tchertma- Zucchini and Eggs from Kate at Kate's Kitchen
Thin Crispy French Fries from Liz at That Skinny Chick Can Bake

Pin these Bacon-wrapped Smashed Redskin Puffs!

Sunday, January 19, 2014

Squid with Garlic Chili Olive Oil

Despite the title, this wonderful tapas dish also has smoked bacon pan-fried to crispy nuggets of deliciousness, along with the chilies, garlic and squid. And please don’t forget the squeeze of fresh lemon juice at the end. It elevates this dish to brilliant like a flood of hot sunshine on a sparkling white Majorcan beach.

Food Lust People Love: A wonderfully fragrant tapas dish with smoked bacon pan-fried to crispy nuggets of deliciousness, along with the chilies, garlic and squid. You'll love this Squid with Garlic Chili Olive Oil.

Sunday Supper is getting the party started this week with tapas recipes. Delicious bites or snacks that are made especially for eating with drinks. And since, as I mentioned in my #CocktailDay post, this is my birthday week, I'm going to pretend that they are all for my own virtual party. Yay! Such fun!

When we were living in Paris, we took advantage of charter flights to head south and get away from the cold, damp winters that extended way too long into months we felt should have been quite rightfully spring. I’ve already written about Portugal here but one of our other favorite holidays was to the island of Majorca. To date this is our only venture into Spanish territory but I remember it so fondly, with its fresh seafood, white sandy beaches and clear, aquamarine waters that I knew immediately what I wanted to cook when the tapas theme was announced for Sunday Supper.

Majorcan traditional cooking uses mostly seafood and pork, so a dish of bacon and squid, with some garlic and chilies was perfect! I don’t mean to imply that this dish is authentic in any way or that I remember eating it there. I do want to say that it brought me back, in a way that only the clean smell of the sea in seafood and a good imagination can. I can almost feel the sand between my toes.

That little blondie is our elder daughter - Majorca, 1994

Ingredients
4 oz or 115g smoked slab bacon
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 or 2 small red hot chilies
Olive oil
1 lb or 450g whole fresh squid (I prefer baby squid, if I can get them.) Or about 9 oz or 260g already cleaned and sliced squid rings.
Sea salt flakes
Small handful fresh parsley leaves
2 sprigs fresh thyme, leaves picked off
1/4 large lemon

Method
Slice your garlic thinly and split the red chilies in half lengthwise. Chop your parsley and fresh thyme. Set aside.

Chop your bacon into the small, slim chunks the French like to call lardons.

Pan-fry them with a good drizzle of olive oil over a low heat while you clean and slice the squid.

For those of you using squid rings, you can skip this next part. Move ahead to where we are making sure the bacon is golden and crispy.

To clean the squid, first grab hold of the part that has the tentacles and pull it out of the tube-y bit. (I tried to find the technical terms for you but I didn’t think they’d be helpful after all. Who would have known what the mantle is? Yeah, me either.)

You can discard the leggy body bits from the squid but I happen to like the look of the little tentacles once they are cooked. If you agree, cut that part off just below the eyes and discard the part with the eyes. The ink sac is in that part. If you happen to pierce it, just wash everything off with water and put to dry on a paper towel. The squid ink is harmless. In fact, a lot of cooks use it to color pasta or add it to sauces.

Run your finger around inside of the tube-y bit until you find the hard thing that feels and looks like plastic. Pull it out. It should be almost as long as your squid tube so if it breaks off short, fish around and get the rest of it out and discard.

See, that thing. Take it out and throw it away.

Go check on the bacon. It should be starting to render the fat and fry gently. Give it a stir.

If you do decide to keep the leggy bit, turn it over and pinch out the hard bit with the black spot in the center and discard it.

Go check on the bacon. Give it another stir and make sure it isn’t burning.

Now peel off all the colored stuff from the outside of the squid tubes. You can use your hands but the easiest way is to rub it off with dry paper towels and then discard them. Rinse your squid in clean water and put it on paper towels to dry.

Your squid is clean! Slice it into wide rings.

Direct your attention to the bacon and turn the heat up a little if it’s not golden and crispy yet.

When it is golden and crispy, add in the garlic and chilies.

Sauté briefly until the garlic starts to brown around the edges and then put all the squid in at once. Give it a good stir. The squid should turn white and start to curl up.

Now is the time to sprinkle with sea salt and then the parsley and thyme. Give the whole thing a good stir.

Add in another generous drizzle of olive oil. Flavored olive oil is the best for dipping bread in so don’t be shy!

Squeeze in the juice of your lemon, give the dish one more good stir, and serve with slices of a fresh crusty loaf of French baguette.

Enjoy!

Join our Sunday Supper host, Conni from Cosmopolitan Cornbread and travel with us to Spain or some other sunny clime for a festival of tapas.

Agave Truffles from Killer Bunnies, Inc
Artichoke Heart and Manchego Spread from The Wimpy Vegetarian
Bacon Wrapped Calamari from Jane’s Adventures in Dinner
Balsamic Raspberries with Mascarpone Cream from That Skinny Chick Can Bake
Black-Eyed Pea Cowboy Caviar from Shockingly Delicious
Blueberry and Lemon Yogurt Quesada from In The Kitchen With KP
Bruschetta Topping from What Smells So Good?
Caramelized Onion & Gruyere Bites from The Foodie Army Wife
Cheesy, Tortellini Tapas & Spicy Bacon Ranch Dip from Daily Dish Recipes
Chorizo Filled Dates Wrapped in Bacon from I Run For Wine
Chorizo Manchego Toast Tapas from Family Foodie
Chorizo with Spicy Sweet Potato Tapas from Soni’s Food
Clams in Green Sauce (Almejas en Salsa Verde) from The Little Ferraro Kitchen
Croquetas de Pollo from Cookin’ Mimi
Gambas al Ajillo from Manu’s Menu
Gambas al Ajillo y Clementina (Shrimp with Garlic and Clementines) from FoodieTots
Giardiniera Salad from Peanut Butter and Peppers
Goan Beef Croquettes from Masala Herb
Herb and Citrus Marinated Olives from Magnolia Days
Herb Roasted Almonds from Curious Cuisiniere
Krab filled Avocado Tapas from Hot Momma’s Kitchen Chaos
Low-Carb Salmon Croquettes from Yours And Mine Are Ours
Manchego-Stuffed Spanish Meatballs from The Weekend Gourmet
Mushroom Chevre Crostini from A Kitchen Hoor’s Adventures
Patatas A La Riojana (Rioja-Style Potato & Chorizo Stew) from Cupcakes & Kale Chips
Patatas Bravas from Supper for a Steal
Pear, Brie, and Honey Crostini from Hezzi-D’s Books and Cooks
Pocky Cake Pops from NinjaBaking.com
Polenta Crostini Bites with Caramelized Mushrooms: Cicchetti – A Venetian Tapas Traditionfrom La Bella Vita Cucina
Roast Onions with Blue Cheese and Pine Nuts from Healthy. Delicious.
Roasted Bone Marrow with Citrus Salad from The Girl In The Little Red Kitchen
Roasted Tomato-Basil Flatbread from Take A Bite Out of Boca
Serrano Ham and Manchego Croquetas with Smoked Pimenton Aioli from My Other City By The Bay
Shrimp and Chorizo Tapas from The Texan New Yorker
Smoky Paprika Peppers from Small Wallet, Big Appetite
Squid with Garlic Chili Olive Oil from Food Lust People Love
Stuffed Green Queen Olives with Garlic Infused Olive Oil from MarocMama
Tomato Bread from girlichef
Tortilla Española from The Not So Cheesy Kitchen
Tortillas De Papa y Atun (Tuna and Potatoes Tortilla) from Basic N Delicious
Tortillita de Camarones from Cindy’s Recipes and Writings

When you are eating tapas, you need a glass of wine: Best Wines To Pair With Tapas from ENOFYLZ Wine Blog.

Pin Squid with Bacon and Garlic Chili Olive Oil!

And for those of you who scrolled all the way to the bottom, I reward you with two more Majorca holiday photos. :) Thanks for stopping by!

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