B is for Bacon Beignets

I'm not from New Orleans. In fact, I've never even been there. The closest I've come to this tasty treat was at sleepovers with one of my friends in elementary school. In the mornings, her mom would let us make "doughnuts" out of Pillsbury biscuit dough, deep fried, then covered with cinnamon and sugar. (If you don't have time to do a real dough, I bet that would still taste pretty darn good.)

The biggest inspiration for this recipe (besides, as always, King Bacon) were the crawfish beignets at Alligator Soul in Everett, Washington. Recipe guidance came mostly from here and a little from here, with some frying oil advice here, since I don't fry stuff very often.

Here's What I Did:
1 Envelope Active Dry Yeast

3/4 Cup Water (110 degrees F)

1/4 Cup Granulated Sugar

1/2 tsp Salt
1 Beaten Egg

1/2 Cup Evaporated Milk

3 1/2 – 3 3/4 Cups Flour
4-6 slices of bacon

1/8 Cup Shortening

Vegetable Oil for Frying

Powdered Sugar

1) Fry the bacon until crispy. Drain and set aside.

2) Combine the Yeast, Water, and Sugar in a food processor,

3) Let this sit until frothy, about 5 minutes,

4) Add the Salt, Egg, and Evaporated Milk and mix on low speed,

5) Add half of the flour and mix until it starts to come together,

6) Add the shortening and bacon. Mix.

7) When the shortening and bacon are incorporated, start adding the remaining flour, a little at a time until most of it is incorporated.

8) Add just enough flour to make a non-sticky, smooth dough.

9) Place the dough into a large oiled bowl, loosely cover and let rise
NOTE: The original recipe had the following statement "I made mine last night and let it rise overnight in the refrigerator." I did not have good luck with that method and had to do an emergency dough recovery. More on that below.

10) After the dough has doubled in bulk, (3-ish hours) punch it down and turn it onto a floured surface

11) Roll out to about 1/2″ thick.

12) Cut out with cookie cutters. (I used a ghost, an autumn leaf and a snowflake. Apparently diamonds, rectangles and circles are more traditional.)

13) Place the Beignets on a floured baking sheet to let rise about 40 minutes in a warm place (I put them in a barely warm oven. Preheat to 200 for 2 minutes, then turn the heat off and shove the dough in.)


14) When the Beignets have risen, heat 2-3 inches of vegetable oil in a large saucepan to 350-360 degrees.

15) Place 2-4 Beignets into the hot oil at a time, being careful not to smash or deflate them.

16) When they are golden brown, flip them over until golden brown on the other side (This goes VERY quickly so start checking them right after they go into the oil).

17) Remove to paper towel lined plates to drain.

18) Serve hot topped with plenty of powdered sugar

The original recipe says this makes about 2 dozen. I got about that out of it, maybe a little more; I think I was making them smaller.

How'd it go?
Great. Fried dough is just a tasty tasty thing. The bacon fit in nicely, no big surprise there.

I made 7 yesterday which were fried and eaten and then another 20-25ish I pre cut and put into the freezer; supposedly I'll be able to thaw and fry them later in little batches. We'll see how that goes.

What would I change:

- Well, I don't think i'll ever try to get dough to rise in the refrigerator again. As I said yesterday, I awoke to non-risen dough. The save that worked was placing the dough in a barely warmed over for awhile (Preheat to 200 for 2 minutes, then turn the heat off and shove the dough in). Thank you, friendly bakers of the interweb!

- I would use more bacon. There's some in every pastry, but I would like more for even more bacony flavor.

B is for Bacon Beignet FAIL!

or, D is for Dough D'oh!

I made the dough for the bacon beignets last night and, as of this morning, it hadn't risen.

I checked online and found two suggestions for saving dough that make sense to me:
- put it in a warmer place
- mix in a new batch of yeast water

I'll try them in order and see how it goes.

If that doesn't work, later we'll have Bacon Bread Pudding.

B is for Bacon Burgers

They were huge and delicious. (That's what she said.)

B is for I Can Bring Home the Bacon

Maybe I'll get back to baking tomorrow. That would be nice.

B is for Bacon Heaven

Otherwise known as The Swinery:


(Sorry about the lazy posts. I'm still sick, plus there's a fair amount of emotional upheaval these days. Feh. More on that later.)

B is for Bacon Recipes

From Mr. Interweb, shared with me by Patti. Enjoy.

B is for BBB Sandwich

Still convalescing, but finally on the upswing, and finding myself with three different kinds of bacon in the house, I did what any self respecting bacon lover would do: I made a Bacon, Bacon and Bacon Sandwich for lunch.

On the left is your typical store-bought breakfast bacon, in the center is our new friend Danish Bacon, and on the right we have applewood smoked bacon from The Swinery.


As you can see, I did not insult my masterful creation with salad or condiments. Just six slices of bacon on twelve grain bread.


Nom!

B is for Bacon Caramels

Today I finally made it to The Swinery, where I got enough bacon based products to easily carry me through the rest of B "Week". I also, unexpectedly, encountered Bacon Caramels:

Me: "Wow. And I'm gonna have to add on two of the caramels, there, on principle alone."
The Clerk: "Oh yeah. We were giving them out free on Hallowe'en and so many people asked if we sold them that we decided we should."

At 50 cents a pop they are perhaps a tad pricey (though not skimpy by any means, size-wise), but totally worth it. The caramel is rich and buttery, the bacon is smokey and flavorful and the two blend together like Torvill and Dean.

They are so good, I have no pictures of them. Go get your own. :-p

B is for Bacon Berry Cheesecake, part 2

Words! Recipe words which I will type with my hands and you will read with your eyeballs:

Here’s What I Did (with a respectful nod in the direction of the Classic Philadelphia Cream Cheese Cheesecake recipe)
~Crust~
1 ¾ Cups Granny’s Pie Crust Mix
4 Tablespoons Cold Milk

~Filling~
4 pkg. (8 oz. each) Cream Cheese, softened
1 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
One cup sour cream
15 oz mixed berries (raspberry, blackberry and blueberry in this case)
4 eggs

~Topping~
3 slices of American bacon (you can use more or less to taste)
Sprinkle of brown sugar
1 stick of unsalted butter
½ cup sugar
¾ cup flour

0) Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

0.5) Set cream cheese and butter out to soften.

1) Roll out one pie crust and place in the pie pan.

2) Bake for ten minutes.

3) While the crust is pre-baking, mince up some bacon (or be lazy and do a “rustic” cut like I did)

4) Fry the bacon.

5) When the bacon seems almost halfway done (to your taste…as previously stated, I like mine very crispy), sprinkle it with a healthy dose of brown sugar and continue to fry until the sugar is melted.

6) Place the sugary bacon bits on a paper towel to drain and cool.

6.5) If ten minutes have passed, which is probably the case at this point, take the crust out of the oven and set aside to cool.

7) Mix cream cheese with 1 cup sugar and the vanilla.

8) Add sour cream and berries and mix again well blended.

9) Add eggs: one egg at a time, mixing between eggs until _just_ blended.

10) Pour into the crust.

NOTE: Depending on the size of your pie pan, you may have leftover filling. May I recommend some CheeseCake Cuppy Cakes?

11) Evenly top the filling with the sugary bacon.

12) Combine butter, ½ cup sugar and the flour.

13) Add this on top of the bacon.

14) Bake for 40ish minutes (until center is almost set)

15) Cool.

16) Place in refrigerator for AT LEAST 4 hours. Overnight is even better.

How’d It Go?
Great. A tasty treat with the full approval of both myself and Mr. Husband. My sister, mom and brother-in-law have all also enjoyed this recipe during Christmas Past.
I once entered this in a Dessert Dash, but I wasn’t able to find the table that won it to ask their opinions. Ah well.

What would I do differently?
- Give a proper mince to the bacon next time. Lazy me.
- Remember that I have a food processor. This would be easier than just using my trusty hand mixer for all mixing steps.

B is for Bacon Berry Cheesecake

Pictures today, words tomorrow, for I am L'tired.

B is for Danish Bacon

Half a year ago, this sign appeared at the deli three doors down from where I work:

From said sign you will perhaps be informed that this is not a "proper" deli, a "proper" deli apparently being a kosher place completely sans pork.....or so says Mr. Husband, at any rate.

Proper or no, Danish Bacon seemed a good thing to look into during My Increasingly Inaccurately Named Bacon "Week".
Friday I bought half a pound of this so-called Danish Bacon. Saturday morning I did a taste test with an N of 1. Me.

Danish Bacon is on the left, American Bacon on the right. We see the Danish Bacon is shorter and wider but otherwise "streaked" like we likes it.

I chatted the deli workers up a bit about the difference between Danish Bacon and American Bacon. Their answer? It comes from Denmark. Seriously. They did at least have the grace to seem a bit chagrinned at their lack of knowledge.

I found the Danish Bacon cooked up a lot quicker. Taste-wise, I will admit to not seeing much difference. However, as you can see in the photo, I take my bacon very crispy, which many Brits and spin offs consider overcooking it. So for a different (Aussie) opinon, go here.

Perhaps next weekend, when I'm not heavily engaged in finishing a puppet, I'll give different levels of done-ness a whirl. In the meantime, please don't mention the results of this week's The Next Iron Chef, as my power went out last night halfway through the episode. Thanks.

B is for BAKON (bacon flavoured vodka)

Yes, really:

I'd heard about this Bacon Vodka a few months ago but did not encounter it in the store until last week. I decided that our chance meeting was Fate and immediately brought a bottle home...

...where I mixed it into three of my favourite vodka cocktails: Bloody Mary, Vodka Martini and Cosmopolitan, respectively.

But to be completely fair to Bakon, I decided I should also try it straight up against an unadorned vodka:

The verdict:
Bakon was great in the Bloody Mary, would've been ok in a dirty Vodka Martini and not really the thing in the Cosmo. I also would not recommend it straight unless you are generally in the habit of inhaling deeply from a vial of Bac-os after taking a shot of vodka.

B is for Warm Bacon Vinaigrette

Let's begin gently, shall we? The first time I encountered a warm bacon salad dressing was having dinner with/meeting Mr. Husband's (Mr. Fiance at the time) parents. I'm usually just as happy to skip the salad and get straight to the entree, but I wasn't in charge of the flow of the meal. And I fully admit, I don't actually remember what we ate for the main course that night. What I remember is the magical combination of spinach and bacon. Mmmmm.

But I had never made it for myself at home. I consulted the interweb, particularly this recipe from Chow before starting, but (of course) jumped off a bit to adjust for personal taste and ingredients not at hand.

Here's what I did:
3 slices of bacon
1/2-ish of a small shallot, chopped
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1 Tblspoon balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/2 pound fresh spinach,
1/4 cup almonds, walnuts and macadamia nuts coarsely chopped
1 hard boiled egg

- I cut the bacon into small pieces (a rustic dice, if you want something to call it. aka, unskilled knifery)
- Then I put the bacon in a medium frying pan over medium heat and cooked, stirring once in awhile, until crispy.
- While the bacon was cooking, I washed the spinach, cut off the stems (snacked on those; they are tasty) and tore the spinach into bite-size pieces. I seperated that into two bowls.
- Added the nuts on top of the spinach.
- I also sliced a hard boiled egg and put it on my salad (Mr. Husband doesn't like hard boiled egg, so that leaves more for me)
- Spooned the finished bacon onto a paper towel-lined plate.
- Kept the pan with bacon fat over the heat, added the shallot, and cooked about 30 seconds.
- Then I whisked in the vinegar, brown sugar, and Dijon mustard
- IF YOU WANT YOUR SPINACH WILTED: Keep the vinaigrette on the heat and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
- And then pour it directly over the salad.
- IF YOU DO NOT WANT YOUR SPINACH WILTED: Remove from heat to season. (I did the second of these, following the recipe too far, but would rather have gone the Wilted route)
- And then I sprinkled 1/2 of the bacon over the top of each salad.

What I would change:
Very little. Just would've made sure it was still hot when it encountered the spinach. Next time.

B is for Bacon Bacon BACON!

Still a bit safe as far as ingredients go, but I can’t resist; I love bacon. How much do I love it? This much:

What the heck is it? Bacon is cured meat from a pig. Now, since I’m American, my bacon of choice is cut from the pig belly (“streaky bacon” to those of you located elsewhere). In other lands, they tend to go for back and side cuts; less fat, but to me it always seems a bit more like ham.

A is for Unexpected Apple

There's a new QFC in the 'hood where I work. It's fun to go there for lunch right now because part of the Grand Opening Festivities is the Gauntlet of Free Samples (lunch appetizers, yum!).

Having gotten past the pineapple and sliced meats I reached my actual goal: the Soup Bar. It's getting Fall-ish here and I was jonesin' for some butternut squash soup. Curious, I checked out the ingredients, hoping for bacon, only to discover it was a vegan-safe, gluten free soup featuring a puree of apples? Wha-hunh?

I'm not a vegetarian of any sort, but went ahead and got the soup anyway. And it was good, not too sweet, which was my fear. I was guessing the apples were in there as a thickening agent, but poking around online, most butternut squash soup recipes out there don't seem to need that. So I guess they just like what it does to the taste.

Perhaps this calls for a side by side taste test when I get to S; apple vs. bacon. I'm betting on the bacon.