Baconalia Review: Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies with Great Lakes Porter

Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies with Great Lakes Porter

Bacon and chocolate chip cookies with a nice, rich porter. ..sounds like dessert to my face!  I’m currently in the midst of planning a bacon party that (at this point) will focus entirely on baked goods.  For whatever reason, I’m actually trying the recipes ahead of time this round.  Perhaps I am growing up and becoming more responsible or perhaps I just really like to bake and post cookies to friends.  Regardless of the present and the future, these cookies were the first cookies of my bacon cookie past.  These cookies predate my whole “Baconalia” concept and I got the recipe from a friend, rather than from the internet.  Seriously.   The first time I made these cookies I was completely unaware of the internet’s boundless infatuation with bacon.

Crock Pot Bread Pudding – Round Two

NKOTB

A couple of weeks ago, I made a sweet bread pudding in my mid-sized crockpot.  One of my friends (Suzy) was aghast that I didn’t include raisins.  I tried to explain to her that I did not include them because I don’t much like raisins in my baked goods* and I do like chocolate in my baked goods and, well, since I was the one making the baked good, I GOT MY WAY.

Some people just have very little sense.  Those same people also don’t always want to hear it.

Crock Pot Bread Pudding, Recipe and Ramble

These are leftovers, because I forgot to snap a picture during the original eating

The following is part recipe and part confession.  The recipe part is super easy and yields delicious bread pudding.  The confession aspect is more complicated…see, it turns out I am a total nana.  Technically, I’m only nana-like, but if I started a promiscuous line or lived back in, say, Tudor England, I’m technically old enough to be an actual nana.  Like, the sort of nana with grandchildren – the real sort.  In actuality, I have two houseplants (one dead) and neither child nor grandchild.  Scattered throughout this process were moments akin to what a grandmother might do, for which I (cringingly) awarded myself “nana points.”

I’m not exactly sure what compelled me to make bread pudding, but the need was strong.  I’m not even a huge fan of bread pudding and I lack any emotional attachment to it.  Growing up, we rarely had it as my mother classified it as soggy, old bread.  That is a true statement, except you then cook – or crock – the soggy, old bread.  Conveniently, I had a little over one-third of a baguette left over from earlier in the week.  Completely stale, bread pudding or bread crumbs were probably the only practical purposes for it.  If you are keeping track, that’s two nana points: one for bread pudding and one for salvaging old bread.

Baconalia II Review: Turkey Bacon with Lindeman’s Framboise Lambic

Turkey Bacon with Lindemans Framboise Lambic

One of my long-standing beliefs is that people who claim “turkey bacon is just as good as pork bacon” probably don’t eat much pork bacon.  (Henceforth, pork bacon will be referred to merely as bacon.  Because it is.)  I paired turkey bacon with Lindeman’s Framboise Lambic, a Belgian fruit beer.  Thanksgiving inspired this pairing, hence why I’m posting it now.  I know cranberries are the traditional Thanksgiving fruit, but I think this is a better beer and using the terminology “inspired” allows me a fair bit of leeway for play and fun – both vital to a successful Baconalia.

Five Good Things

1.) I am a Food Network fiend.  Food Network did a major programming dump on On Demand.  While I’m still not very good at watching tv, I like that I now have a greater number of programs to reject and not watch.

2.) I am less than a week away from vacation!  This means that I am about to start thinking about doing laundry that I might want to pack…well, maybe it’s more like thinking about thinking about doing laundry, or maybe I just need to do laundry.  Whatever though, I have both Tide and time.

3.) My pumpkin whoopie pie recipe is better than Rachel Ray’s is.  My tastebuds say so and that is one sense with which I do not argue.  (Ray Ray’s is still all right; mine is just better.)

4.) I am attending a fancy event this week.  I’d go so far as to call it a gala affair and I will be wearing a dress that is dry clean only.

5.) I tried a new pizza topping combination and I liked it – eggplant and spinach.

Hot Chocolate

Yum.  I a convert of making my own hot chocolate.  My friend SB recently blogged about how “it’s basically as easy/quick, yet much tastier” to make one’s own hot chocolate.  I’ll agree with her on the second point, but not the first.  However, while it is significantly more involved and time consuming to make cocoa from scratch, it’s still super easy and super fast…and super worth it.

As per my usual, I didn’t actually measure anything.  Thus, I can’t comment on her exact recipe.  I CAN (and will!) say that it is a great guide.  I really liked the kick from the cinnamon; it was NOT too much.   Try it.  You’ll love us both.  Recipe is here . 

This would probably work well in a crockpot, for a larger group or thirsty/cold friends.  I would probably melt the chocolate in a saucepan, for faster results.  It would require an extra pan, but I think that is worth it to avoid melting chocolate in a crock.

Warning: This is super rich and makes Swiss Miss look/taste/smell like dirty water.

Warning #2: NO RUM FOR KIDS.

How I Bake

I am one of those freaks who enjoys both cooking and baking; I also enjoy both eating and sharing my results.  I made pumpkin whoopie pies last night, for a pumpkin carving party I attended tonight.   I mostly followed the recipe for the cookie/cake part, but could not find marscopone cheese for the filling.  Instead of stressing, I reminded myself that I have my own baking protocol anyway, so things like ingredients and recipes aren’t really relevant – except for the parts where I try to pretend that they are vital.  While I do sometimes completely wing things (more in cooking) and other times actually follow a recipe like it’s some sort of sacred ritual (again, more in cooking), I generally follow these steps:

1.) Make a plan, which involves finding a recipe (or two) at some point.  The birth of the plan could be from seeing a recipe on a website, a product in a store, or inspiration from a specific ingredient/concept.

2.) Take inventory of the ingredients needed for said recipe.  Potentially reevaluate the aforementioned recipe OR make a trip to the store…possibly stores.

3.) Get my business all set out and ready.  I don’t necessarily get all of my ingredients out at once (although sometimes I do) but I do like to know what’s going to happen before it needs to happen.  For example, if I am going to need softened butter at some point, I’ll put it out early.  I wait on nobutter; butter waits on ME.

4.) Begin the recipe, with fastidious attention to detail and directions.  Measure twice, pour once – etc, etc.

5.) Get bored with measuring.  Doubt the recipe.  Is 1t of cinnamon REALLY enough?  And why were ginger and allspice not invited to the party?  I’m not sure about Ina G, but I don’t snub MY spice cabinet. 

6.) Decide I definitely know better than any “recipe” and go all willy-nilly.  While going willy-nilly, refrain from writing any amendments down for future use.  To really prevent any reproduction and keep each creation “one of a kind,” I also often avoid measuring, instead using the highly scientific method of “dump and taste.”   “Dump and taste” is a bit like “guess and check” except with greater and earlier commitment.

7.) Bake it…or something.  Basically, get it to a state where contamination or food poisoning is unlikely.

8.) Eat and enjoy!

The moral of the story is that while I might not know better than recipes (insufficient data) I definitely know WELL ENOUGH.   And those pumpkin whoopie pies?  GONE.  Gone in a good way.

Five Good Things

1.) I made a deposit at the bank on Sunday.  My bank recently changed its hours and the teller decided to give me a random quiz on the new hours.  (I was the only person there = likely bored.)  When I got the answers TOTALLY RIGHT, the teller was not only impressed, but convinced by another teller to give me a prize.  Yay for free grocery bags!

2.) My bank is open on Sundays.  

3.) Indian Summer.  Now is the time.

4.) I booked my tickets for Thanksgiving vacation!  AND I get to cut out of town midday on Tuesday.

5.) I got lab work results and I’m all good.  (Maintenance appointment.)

Wha?

Ming Tsai is a contestant on The Next Iron Chef.  This boggles me as:

a.) He competed on The Iron Chef as a challenger.  (He beat Bobby Flay!  I just learned this via a search on the google.)

b.) He starred in multiple tv shows, since pretty much forever.

I haven eaten at his restaurant, Blue Ginger.  It was delicious.

Baconalia Review: Bacon-Wrapped Pineapple Chunks with Bruery Hottenroth Sour Ale

bacon-wrapped pineapple chunks with sour ale

Pineapple.  Bacon.  Beer.  This offering involved a trio of independently tasty bits; it was simple, yet strong, in its statement.  My inspiration for this matching was “sweet and sour” ala a (stereo)typical Asian dish, but with a beverage upgrade.

The label bacon-wrapped pineapple is entirely self-descriptive: chunks of pineapple wrapped in strips of bacon.  Personally, I am not a fan of canned pineapple.  I don’t care for its defective taste or texture, especially when fresh pineapple is so superior.  Fortunately, grocery stores in the tundra carry fresh pineapple and I am flat-out amazing at cutting those buggers.  (Using a baller knife helps a lot.)  You probably could use canned pineapple, but you are definitely worth fresh pineapple.