Bacon Watch '10 Gets Nuts

One night last week I wanted to make cookies but couldn't stand the thought of making regular cookies. Since I had bookmarked a recipe for Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies while surfing the web, my thought process was easy: "Remember seeing that bacon cookie recipe, Beck? Wasn't that sort of a kick?" "Definitely it was a kick. I'm just thinking bacon-in-a-cookie, are we turning into Elvis?" "Would that be such a bad thing?" "No, I'm just saying I don't know about this. How will it taste?" "Trust me, it will be awesome. And if it stinks, we'll never have to make it again." "Ok." (we hug) "You're the best!" "You are."

After that was decided, I threw our bacon package into the freezer so it could get very hard before I had to cut it up. The cookie recipe called for a standard set of ingredients (I had to substitute miniature chocolate chips for real ones because I used only ingredients that I already had in the house (!!!!!!)), and I added the cooked bacon at the end. The link to the recipe I found mentions something about candied bacon, which only made me think of John Candy and Canadian Bacon, so it made me lonesome for John Candy and then I was sad and didn't want to do it.

Please think of me as your intrepid Bacon Watch '10 guide, and not as some gross kid who's putting bacon into foods where it doesn't belong just for like, I don't know, attention or something. I am leading you into the wide world of pork-laced pastries. I am not gross.

Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies
Courtesy of ClosetCooking.blogspot.com
(Blue comments mine)

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter (softened, feel free to replace some with bacon grease)
1/2 cup brown sugar (packed)
1/2 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/8 cup all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup dark chocolate chunks - I used mini chocolate chips but I think I'd try their suggestion if I could do it over
5 strips bacon - I only used four (diced small) (freeze before slicing)

Directions:
1. Cream the butter and sugar in a bowl.
2. Beat in the egg and vanilla extract.
3. Mix the flour, baking soda and salt in another bowl.
4. Mix the dry ingredients into the wet.
5. Mix in the chocolate and the bacon.
6. Place the dough onto a cookie sheet one table spoon at a time.
7. Bake in a 350F preheated oven for 8-10 minutes. (Or longer, if your oven is like mine)

Addendum: These cookies came out just as I suspected: a little salty, a little crunchy, and a little delicious. I had some pretty high hopes for them, however, and I will say that they weren't met. My hopes were VERRRRRRY high, though. Very high. Also this could have to do with my sub-par oven and variations on the recipe. I'm not saying they weren't great. They were great! Just not what I would have expected out of a bacon cookie...I guess I thought it would be explosive.

Bacon Watch '10 Marches On

I've got a habit for weekend bacon, and this sat/sun were no exception. On Saturday morning, Josh and I went to Whole Foods to collect the items we'd need for an anniversary celebration home made brunch. Amongst* these items: bacon. You guessed it!

*Should I have used "among" there? What's the difference between "among" and "amongst?" Once I used "thusly" in a paper and my teacher's margin note was like 8 full inches of "YOU ARE NOT FROM ENGLAND. GET IT STRAIGHT FOR ONCE." One other thing I'll mention, however, is how often people use "awhile" when they mean "a while." You can wait for a while or you can wait awhile something happens. But never the twain shall meet.

On Sunday, my apartmentmates and I met old apartmentmate and adored friend Tess for brunch. Although 24 Prince boasts a kitchen staffed by at least one Top Chef contestant (Nikki**), they really can't boast about their bacon. Yipes.

**Nikki, you're before my time. But google images show that you are very pretty.

BACON WATCH '10 OFFICIAL RECORD

Whole Foods: 365 Brand Applewood Smoked Uncured Pork Bacon. Very good. I cooked it longer than my mom taught me to, and it turned out extremely well. The key: always drain cooked bacon on a paper-towel-lined dish. Do I even have to say that?

my full meal: Cinnamon-raisin french toast, scrambled eggs, bacon, oj

24 Prince: miserable bacon. Just miserable. Maybe one millimeter better than Stacks's bacon. They did not drain off the grease. Blech. I had my first baked egg, though.

my full meal: baked eggs with spinach and feta, bacon, bellini

Introducing Bacon Watch '10

For the past three weekends, I have been lucky enough to find myself in brunch situations. Some have been low-key, some have been in Hoboken, but all have had the self-evident pattern of bacon involvement. Apparently I can't do brunch without bacon. To turn this into something helpful, I've decided to develop a new segment to Becklectic, which I will call Bacon Watch '10.

BACON WATCH '10
("Restaurant name": "Bacon observations")

1. Spring Street Natural: I can't find the exact name of the bacon now that I'm actually looking into it, but I believe it was specifically Applewood bacon or something like that. There was an aptly appley sweetness to the bacon, which was around 75% meat. I enjoyed it, but my memory of it has possibly been compromised by item #3.

my full meal: Bagel & lox plate, side order of bacon, blood orange bellini (why wasn't it called a mimosa, though, when a blood orange is still an orange?)

2. Stacks (in Hoboken): The bacon here was pretty flimsy and greasy. But on the plus side, they give you little bits of cornbread to eat while you wait to order. The plus side in this case is that they don't give you bacon while you wait, instead.

my full meal: Red, White, & Blue Pancakes, side order of bacon, iced coffee

3. Brinkley's: Oh man!!! My roommates and I shared a memorable Sunday morning at this upscale pub-fare bar/restaurant yesterday, and man oh man, the bacon was the best part. Admittedly, the service was reeeeally slow, but when my friend Zach asked for a side order of bacon, they (four hours later) basically brought him an entire side of bacon. It was mapley. It was abundant. It was about 60% meat, 40% fat. It was 100% very, very delicious. In fact, here are a few of the notes I took immediately after deciding to start Bacon Watch '10:

"TASTED LIKE MAPLE CANDY. WOWZA, AND THE PORTIONS! OH JEEZ!!!!!!! VERY GOOD!!!!!!!!"

To be fully honest with you, this bacon was the reason I started Bacon Watch '10. I know I said earlier that it was because I noticed how much bacon I eat, blah blah, but even that reason takes a backseat to how delicious the bacon at Brinkley's is. I just want to keep the record straight.

my full meal: Scrambled eggs and bacon, cherry scone, coffee (and a shared appetizer of welsh rarebit, which I enjoyed, but I think their toaster/broiler was broken)


That's the list so far. I intend to keep it going, so that one day this can be a vast Baconpedia for your bacon resource needs. Bacon, je t'aime.