We all know they grind up the bits and press them into molds, and then batter and fry them. The question I really want to know is where are my baconuggets? Same process but instead of chicken bits just grind up a whole slab of bacon. I know there is deep fried bacon at Sodalak's, but this is different.. a thick (by bacon standards) chunk of bacon nirvana, fried up and served with your favorite dipping sauce. I am thinking maple for my morning drive thru run, melty cheese at lunch, and the smoked hickory sauce on the way home for dinner. "I'll take the 20 piece family pack please....better make that two."
Wendy's.... are you listening? You owe us for that Baconator debacle.
Every holiday season I buy stocking stuffers, and a variety of gifts from Archie McPhee. So I was pleased that a print catalog from them showed up in time for my black Friday shopping needs. Everyone knows, at least I think every one knows that they have a great selection of novelty bacon items (try the mints at your own risk). They have a wide selection of items, but what theme did they pick for their holiday catalog?? mmmmm bacon.
Did you know that they have a blog over there at McPhee's? They do and occasionally Mr. Bacon answers questions. Check it out. How fun must it be to work some place that sells cool bacon items and toys as well as has Mr. Bacon blogging for them?
Earlier this year, my work sent me to Massachusetts for a few days and of course, I was away from home and longing for comfort food - Bacon!
Now while I partook of some of the local specialties like a lobster roll and clam chowder, I couldn't help but imagine how Bacon could add a level of depth and flavor to these already deliciously decadent dining delights.
SO, after working our tails off, I took a little drive and let my inner Bacon guide me. As irresistible as the Kavorka, the Bacon in me took control of my steering wheel, and as the picture below illustrates, guided me to exactly what I sought.....
..while it wasn't Bacon that I could eat, I knew this deserved some attention on our site. Although, I would have named the place Bacon Liquors ( Bacon lickers :) ), it was a fine establishment with a very friendly and helpful staff. The Northborough location was the one I found. After my stop here, my bacon hunting desire was fueled even more and off I went.
Have you ever used Tinyurl? take a long URL and you make it tiny, been around forever, if you have never used it, then you probably aren't a geek. Well the genius behind bacongeek.com (one of my favorite baconlogs, see how I added bacon to blog there, man I am clever, seriously, this site is awesome it has two of the three elements that define me, bacon and geek, if it had Mountain Dew it would be like the ultimate trifecta, in fact I would begin to wonder if I had some sort of alternate me out there, but I digress.) they have launched a GREAT new site, http://bacn.me/ it is like tinyurl, but it is for bacon, now all those long url's that you wanna send to your favorite bacon friend can be shortened and thereby made sweet, by using http://bacn.me/, cool huh?
There is a post here (http://bacn.me/6a) that explains it way better than what I have done. So if you got a great link to share with us, all I can say is "bacon me".
That headline may conjure up all sorts of images, especially when I tell you its about porn...well bacon porn. Don't worry it is SFW, well as safe as Maxim ever is, guess it depends on your work.
A handy dandy "Pocket Pork Calender" with 12 graphic bacon porn images for all your baconlust needs. You have all the oldies but goodies here, bacon chocolate, deep fried bacon, maple-bacon lollipops, the works. I suggest laminating it or something as it won't hold up to 12 months of drool.
The picture here is just a scan from the magazine, its not as hi-res as it could be, that is so you will go out and buy and or but up your own copy of the magazine.
Special shout out to the guys watching the systems through the night so we don't have to, you guys rule, I'll be sending some bacon your way.
In the vein of Sodolak's Steak House in Snook, TX, The Risque Cafe in Chicago is offering up country-fried bacon. There is an article and picture in the Chicago Sun-Times, the article also mentions Chinaski's Bar, which on the first Monday of every month they have all you can eat bacon... for free.
I love this quote: "All true religions have to have some monthly faith meeting," says one employee, when asked about the purpose of the bottomless bacon bowl.
Too often bacon is relegated to the duty of garnish, and add on to a sandwich to enhance and improve. A job it does well and without any complaints. Sure you got your BLT or B3 the way I do it (substitute bacon for the other two, then you got something), but that gives the lettuce and tomato equal billing. Well we heard from friends that a local sub shop chain "Sub-Contractor" had a little something for the Lords of Bacon, #6 Bacon and Cheese. That isn't the toppings, that IS the sandwich. How friggin awesome! Bacon Jason and I decided to head up the street to the Sub-Contractor closest to the office and see for ourselves. The staff was super friendly and we chatted about bacon, I am not sure if they thought we were nuts or what with the way we were going on about bacon. The people at work have learned to tune us out so we forget sometimes our level of bacon obsession can freak people out when they meet Bacon Jason and I for the first time. In any case, they were friendly, and didn't seem like they would spit in our food even after ordering a "large Farva".
We both got the #6 and grabbed some napkins to mop up our drool. There was a list of toppings you could add just as you would any sub sandwich, I went for some lettuce for color, and I am still nervous about tomatoes so I opted for olives. The iPhone doesn't do a macro focus too well so the picture here is pretty crappy. You ever eat some place where the food is decent but the service is so bad you won't go back? The service here was AWESOME and I may go back for food again. I feel bad for the review I am about to give because the staff was so great, but honesty is always best I feel. The bacon in the sandwich was too crisp, I mean like extra crispy, what you might use as pizza topping. Not bad, but very, very crispy. The sandwiches were crunchy, not sure that is a good thing. Perhaps if the bacon were a little less on the crispy side this would be a very repeatable sandwich. But as it stands, we both felt like once was enough. We left a little disappointed but with a belly full of extra crispy #6 and a hope of someday finding the ultimate bacon sandwich.
Those crazy kids over at Oscar Mayer have put together a little social networking that launches today. Bacon Talk has been up for a while with some blog posting, and today they launch their "community" section. Think bacon-centric facebook/myspace but with less evil and more bacon. I am not a huge fan of social networking sites, but since this is a niche one and that niche is bacon, I am giving it a try. Come on by and sign up, its free, and add me as a friend if you like, my user name is "Bacon_Chris". See you there!
While walking through Costco at lunch the other day, my friend Dennis and I came upon a cooler filled with hundreds of pounds of bacon. Literally this thing was probably 8 feet long and a couple of feet deep, completely filled with these double packs of bacon. He stopped me from climbing in and rolling around in it, which is probably a good thing as I want to be able to go back and get some of this to review. Its four pounds for just under $11 so its a very affordable bacon, but if it is only as good as the price, I have to go through four pounds of the stuff. Oh the sacrifice... OK I'll do it.
You didn't think we ordered JUST jerky from Baconfreak.com did you? Of course not, we went with the Boss Hog Style Bacon - Hickory Smoked Brown Sugar Cured bacon because it just sounded so damn good. Turns out we picked a popular one, as I was writing this I noticed over on baconfreak that this very bacon is featured in the latest edition of Maxim magazine. Congrats to them for getting the attention they deserve.
If you take a look at the picture you will see this is some meaty bacon. It smells fantastic from the time you open the package and after you cook it up. My house smelled like someone was cooking bacon over a campfire once I was done cooking this up. The downside of that is the scent lingered well after I had eaten all the bacon, and was making me hungry for more. This is a great wake to the smell of bacon type of bacon, if you are lucky enough to have someone cook this for you to wake you up, you are in for a great day indeed. This bacon did not suffer from the usual shrinkage you get from average bacon, it will never shout "I was in the pool!"
This is the first of the many bacons available at baconfreak.com, and if this is any indication of what the other bacons are like, I am going to LOVE reviewing each and every one they have. This was full of flavor, very meaty, and a great stand alone bacon. Not too salty, and a great sweet smokey flavor make this one of the best bacons we have tried so far here at LoB. We noticed from the packaging that it was shipped from Moorpark, CA. This is literally around the corner from where Bacon Jason and I live, I wonder if they have like a factory store where you can walk up and get bacon, that would be awesome. In any case it means a very fast turn around on shipping, so that is a bonus.
Boss Hog receives the first of what I expect to be many great reviews, four and a half strips!
I love food, especially bacon. That being said it is no wonder I enjoy cruising the aisles of the grocery store and checking out new things to put bacon on, etc. There is a fairly new chain of stores called fresh & easy and there is one opening this week in my neighborhood. Not much happens in my neighborhood so this store opening is not only the most exciting thing in a while, but also the source of much anticipation. Yes, excited and anticipating a grocery store opening, I very well might be old. In today's mail I spied a flier from the new fresh & easy with details of the grand opening etc. As I open it up, what do I see? A turkey covered with bacon! I knew the anticipation wasn't for naught. But wait as I look closer, its not just a serving suggestion, they are selling turkeys pre-wrapped with smoked bacon for Thanksgiving! I haven't even been there yet and I love this store! Once they open I will have to go and check their bacon section and write it up here. Hopefully it will be worth the wait.
UPDATE: Fresh and easy website has been updated to include the current ad with the turkey, also of note, bacon wrapped sausages!!
Rocco "Boss Hog" Loosbrock a.k.a. the "Bacon is Meat Candy Guy" is truly helping bring the world closer to baconlightenment. If you have not been to his website or perused his blog, we highly recommend you do so, although I cannot imagine if you are on the Internet, and you like bacon, you have not already been there.
Pigs were domesticated 7,000 years ago. Depending on your flavor of religion, that is close to the dawn of all time, or at a minimum a really, really, long time ago, and we have been enjoying bacon ever since. So why is it that it hasn't been until recently I have had the option of "bacon" when it comes to my jerky needs?
I love jerky, ever since I was a kid, it has been one of my favorite snacks. Beef jerky, venison jerky, I have even enjoyed some Ahi tuna jerky. I have thought about it many times and never acted on it, but always wondered why I couldn't have bacon jerky. Sure I could get a dehydrator and some bacon and try to figure something out, but lets face it I am lazyerrr.. busy, yes too busy for all that. Well baconfreak.com to the rescue. They not only have bacon jerky but five flavors of bacon jerky. Bacon Jason and I ordered up some of the Honey BBQ Rubbed Bacon Jerky, and proceeded to salivate until it arrived. A couple days and some soggy shirts later we had our bounty.
We opened the package and first took a whiff, it wasn't exactly smoky bacony goodness, but it was intriguing. I am not sure what I was expecting exactly, but reaching in, it wasn't this. I guess I am used to beef jerky which is pretty dry and lean. The bacon jerky was very moist from the inherit fat content. On the plus side it makes the fingers, "finger licking good". The strips were like little miniaturized strips of bacon, I felt like a giant. Imagine if you will all the flavor of a strip of bacon, compressed and shrunk down to a miniature size, that's what this is like, also of note, all the saltiness of a strip of bacon, these babies are salty. Despite it being different than ordinary jerky, it is good, and like a good jerky, it didn't last long. Bacon jerky isn't cheap, when you look at the cost per ounce it is a pricey treat. But it is tasty, and addictive. We can't wait to try the other four flavors. I am asking Santa to stuff my stocking full of bacon jerky this year. If you have been wondering whether or not to try some, definitely DO try some. If you love bacon, and you love jerky, this is a no brainer.
Spam wasn't always something you got in your email, before Canter & Siegel unleashed an era of junk onto the Internet, Spam was simply a "tasty" canned pork meat product. Soak that in for a minute... canned pork meat product.... yes, its as good as it sounds. Well Spam still is that tasty canned meaty goodness, and what could make it better, except maybe a Monty Python skit? Bacon of course!!!
When I was a younger man I remember playing a game called "Pass the Pigs". You had a couple of plastic pig "dice" that you tossed and depending on how they landed you scored point, don't really recall the specifics but I do remember the miniature "pig dice". They were no bigger than a nickel, and you are probably wondering why I bring it up, well as you can see from the picture, this can 'o spam has "Real Hormel Bacon". That may be true, but what I did not realize is there is some form of actual pygmy pig, that the game used life size replicas of for the game.
It is from those wee tiny nickel sized pygmy pigs that Hormel harvests the bacon from for this Spam product. I am sure there is a very hi-tech process for this, miniature farms no bigger than a conference room, tiny little smokehouses to hang the pork belly in and I am sure a fine laser guided slicing mechanism to slice the end product into the microscopic strips of bacon seen here. I am assuming there is bacon in the meat product, there are some dark flecks, but those could just be some other part of the pig that got ground up.
It didn't have any real bacon aroma, it smelled like, well, canned pork meat product. I fried up a couple of slices for a sandwich, it was o.k. but on my second sandwich I put on some "instant bacon" (review coming soon) and that made it much better. If only I had tried this all out after the advent of Baconnaise, that would have been a GREAT sandwich, I'll have to try it again with some of the creamy Baconnaise goodness (once my local market gets it on the shelf). I have been checking Ralph's and Albertson's daily, soon I can feel it, all my sandwiches will be better.
Okay, so I have been very lax in my posting, but I assure you it is because we have been busy busy busy with a lot of different bacon products. So be prepared for an onslaught of reviews this week. But first some unfinished business, as you may recall I grabbed some of the butcher counter bacon from Bristol Farms, and have been meaning to post the second part for some time.
This is for the more expensive ($6.49 per pound) "Applewood Smoked Bacon" I found at the butcher's counter. Let me tell you this is some THICK ass bacon! It it has one of the best stp (slice-to-pound) ratios so far, coming in with a whopping 11:1 ratio, that's 11 slices in 1 pound of sweet glorious bacon. This stuff fried up like bacon steaks. It had some moderate shrinkage but a very nice smokey aroma. This bacon was far superior to the other bulk bacon hands down. Well worth the extra two bucks per pound. I can see myself picking this up again, but it will have to be more than a pound, its just that good. Now if my bacon colored Honda didn't stick out so much in the parking lot.
Great flavor, smokey aroma and incredibly thick slices garners this bacon a hefty four slices.
O.K. so I work in an area that is kind of "hoitytoity", I believe I mentioned the Porsche & Jaguar crowd in a previous post, while my bacon colored Honda suits me just fine, I do like to see how the other half lives by going to the premium markets and scoping out their bacon selections. On my way home I stopped at Bristol Farms. It is a pretty cool market, it reminded me of Whole Foods, but with Mountain Dew. They didn't have much in the way of packaged bacon, some Oscar Mayer, Farmer John's, and a house brand. The butcher's counter was quite large and when I checked they had two types of bacon. When I saw how thick the cuts were, I knew I had my bacon for the evening. The first was a generic "Thick Sliced Bacon" and an Apple wood Smoked Bacon that ran about $2 a pound more.
I picked up a pound of both and headed toward the front of the store. On my way I just happened to be in the refrigerated beer section, and there on the shelf, my favorite beer Hacker-PschorrWeisse, thick bacon and good cold beer, this store may be alright. Part one is the generic "cheap" bacon and once I cook up the other package I'll post part two.
This is what it looked like in the display case. It is a really thick cut and for me that is a plus, I prefer the thick cut to the thin. You can see from the picture that it is a pretty fatty bacon, but more on that in a bit. The package was just over a pound and once I got it open I counted 13 slices. That a great ratio for thick bacon. Time to cook it up. When cooking anything other than "instant bacon" (review coming soon) I usually use the standard LoB approved method, but tonight I felt like mixing it up a bit, being a little more hands on. Tonight I am going to cook it up on the George Foreman Grill, ok... not exactly hands on, but a little more involved than normal. I think I may have been inspired by the Office quote on Royal Bacon Society the other day.
This is a close up of the thickness of the bacon, you can sort of see that it is a fatty bacon. Let me tell you my bacon butter jar got topped off from this batch. I cooked it up till it was barely crispy, and gave it a trey. I was concerned that it would be too salty, but it wasn't. It had a good flavor, hint of smokiness, but it had a very fatty finish. Don't get me wrong I love the hog fat..... mmmm hog fat.... but this had an oily after taste. So it gets points on thickness but loses them on the greasy finish. A smokey finish or at least a meaty taste after you finish is what draws you in for another piece, this just didn't have that. Overall it was a mediocre bacon, it would be great for a BLT or sandwich bacon, but doesn't cut it as a stand alone bacon.
I have often pondered about the pounds and pounds of Bacon sizzling through cyberspace - pictures of Bacon in emails, discussion boards on Bacon and even Blogs About Bacon! ....but what about actual virtual Bacon. I mean can you DO that? Actual Virtual?.... Well thanks to the fine femme fatales over at GameBetties.com, we now definitely know that you indeed CAN! Apparently all you need to do is make your way to the Hellfire Peninsula, find and kill a HellBoar, then just get the meat, make it pure, sweet talk Legassi and his skillet and BAM! You have some HellBoar Bacon! W.O.W.! BAM!
What a world - you can not only find Bacon in a world some say doesn't exist and eat Virtually all of it ( see what I did there ? )! Oh yeah, did I mention that to aquire this particular VBacon ( For those of you that are STILL newbs to this post( How does that work? ), that is yet another cool way to reference Virtual Bacon ), that you need to be playing a little game we like to call World Of Warcraft. MMMMmmmmmm Bacon!
I came across this great article, chock full of pictures and great bacon treats. It is a nice collection with everything from bacon wrapped tofu, to a bacon wrapped Mr. Potato Head.
(And for those that were whining, here is that short post you requested)
I love Tivo, and I mean real Tivo here not some crappy Moxi DVR from the cable company. I know people that have told me, "Oh I got the cable company tivo thing, its the same, I'm not impressed" That right there is someone who has never used a Tivo. I have had/have a cable company provided DVR, and it is no Tivo. Imagine if you will Tivo=bacon, then cable company DVR=turkey bacon, its packaged similarly, but we all know, imitation while a sincere form of flattery, in some cases, just doesn't get it done. This is one of those cases. Anyway.... my Tivo has a keyword wishlist for "bacon" anything that mentions bacon, gets recorded. Sure I get to sort through movies or old TV episodes Kevin Bacon has been in, but once you take those out you are left with... well the list below.
This is a list of all the shows my Tivo recorded in September with regards to "bacon", mostly cooking shows, a few other tidbits as well. It is fun to see some of these cooks, their faces light up and they become even more animated when it is a bacon themed show as opposed to just a recipe containing bacon.
9/4 Boy Meets Grill: "Tapas" (Food Network) Mussels; shrimp; squid with bacon and garlic oil.
9/6 Paula's Home Cooking: "Apple a Day" (Food Network) Apple-stuffed pork loin; grilled apple, bacon and cheddar sandwich; apple strudel.
9/8 Tyler's Ultimate: "Mac & Cheese" (Food Network) Macaroni and cheese with bacon; roasted-tomato soup.
9/9 Take Home Chef: "Adriana" (TLC) Baby-spinach salad with smoked bacon and cheese croûtons; garlic and parsley marinated Cornish game-hens with tarragon fettuccine.
9/11 George Hirsch Living It Up!: "Stormin' the Castle" (KHIZ) Ashford Castle in County Mayo, Ireland; falconry; golf; cheddar-potato soup and chive-bacon salad.
9/12 30-Minute Meals: "Believe in Bacon" (Food Network) Rachael's favorite ingredients take center stage.
9/12 30-Minute Meals: "BLT Steak" (Food Network) Beef, leeks and tomatoes with a bacon dressing.
9/14 Guy Off the Hook: "Downhome Diner" (Food Network) Pretzel-crusted chicken tenders; bacon studded mac-n-cheese; sweet 'n' tangy Tennessee lemonade.
9/15 Martha Stewart Show: "Martha takes viewers to her home" (KEYT) Chef Chris Schlesinger prepares pork glazed with molasses and chili; chef Joey Campanaro provides his recipe for a bacon cheeseburger; chef Scott Peacock makes a classic southern side dish; Martha takes viewers to her home in Bedford, NY.
9/20 30-Minute Meals: "Bayou Sizzle" (Food Network) Beer braised shrimp with Louisiana salsa and rice; fried green beans with bacon.
9/23 How It's Made (Discovery) Bacon; snowblowers; luxury cars.
9/26 Party Line With the Hearty Boys: "Buffet Breakfast" (Food Network) Bacon with brown sugar; individual egg baskets; rosemary and thyme potatoes; fruit salad.
9/27 The Cooking Loft: "Break the Rules Breakfast" (Food Network) Crustless quiche; pancakes with a fresh fruit compote; bacon.
9/27 Modern Marvels: "The Pig" (History) Some say pigs are as smart as 3-year old humans' turning pigs into bacon, ham, ribs and sausage; boar semen collection.
9/28 Cooking for Real: "Bistro Night In" (Food Network) Grilled chicken with white wine mushroom sauce; garlic hasselback potatoes with herbed sour cream; wilted green salads with warm bacon vinaigrette.
Man am I glad I ate before this post, otherwise I would be dying at the mention of sooo much bacon. Every time I think there is nothing good on TV, I just go look at the bacon wishlist.
I will admit, I am a geek, a nerd, a lover of technology. I have a blog about bacon, way to tech something not at all technological and nerd it up. I am o.k. with it. I have a PlayStation 3, among my many toys. Its awesome, I set the background to a bacon wallpaper and I have 56" of Hi-def bacon in the living room (It's all I can do to keep from licking my TV). I use it as a media center to play my xvids from my PC, I run software on my PC that streams my Netflix movies, hulu, youtube etc to it, oh and it rocks the Blu-Ray. On the PS3 you create an account, select an avatar, etc. for your online profile, that gives the other players a way to track you. I suck at games, but I figured my profile was out there on the PS3s of all the people that I had been pwned by in various games, it should say something about bacon, right?
So I go into to edit my online profile, you get one line for the "about me" portion of your profile, I figure "I love bacon" would do the trick. I input it and click continue and I get a screen like this: "The text you entered cannot be used. Please enter a different content. Please try again."
What does that even mean??!?
So I try some other options, until I am down to the one word "bacon", to which I am still getting the same reply. I try other words and it accepts them, but as soon as "bacon" is in the mix, FAIL! I decide to try some alternates including, "b@con" to no avail, not only does it not like bacon, but also anything that looks like bacon.
Sony, what gives? Why you gotta hate? maybe some vegetarian programmers? Is there something I am missing? Is "bacon" a gamerz term for something other than sweet sweet meat candy? Perhaps I will go back and try some expletives, although if it takes those and not bacon, I think I might actually be pissed. I feel censored. I wanna think the founding fathers had worldwide, networked gaming in mind when they wrote that first amendment, but even if they didn't I think Thomas Jefferson would fall to the side of bacon. I found a work around, b a c o n.
I'll try to do some more research and see if I can come up with a reason as to why Sony isn't on board with the bacon, if I can tear my face away from the TV, I swear I wasn't licking the hi-def bacon......honest.
If Jesus had turned water into Bacon, or perhaps fed the masses BLTs with seven loaves and a pig, perhaps I would have more faith. No matter, there is a religion that I can get behind; The Holy Church of Bacon. The strange thing is, and our annoyed co-workers can attest to this, Bacon Jason and I have said time and again, there should be a Holy Church of Bacon, and we should be in it. Well Bacon prayers do come true, its a miracle enough for me to have faith. Bacon Brothers and Bacon Sisters, read the Five Baconic Laws, and join us today. May your arteries never clog.
Mmmmm bacon feeds, sounds like a recurring dream I have where I am laying in bed while my woman feeds me bacon and more bacon, followed by...... more bacon.
No this is a post about all the good people spreading the word about bacon.
I use the iGoogle home page for my RSS feeds, I have a whole tab dedicated to Bacon blogs / RSS feeds
I currently have 17 feeds I subscribe to, some post frequently, some I am unsure if they are even maintained.
But here they are, feel free to let me know if there are any I missed in the comments, as I am sure there must be some I have not come across yet.
Alphabetically:
Bacon Freak: Bacon Is Meat Candy is a must for all Bacoterians. Bacon of the month club... need I say more?
I think cats are cute, but admittedly I am a dog kind of guy.
One thing cats have going for them is they can't eat as much of your bacon as a big fluffy dog. A friend of the LoB is working with a no kill shelter and is trying to find homes for cats, you can checke tem out here. Hmm a cat named "Bacon" or "Sir Sizzle-a-lot".
If you are in the market for a pet please visit any of the links on the video site or go to http://www.petadoptionfund.org
Our friend Nik sent in this item, note the first element on the table, yes, BACON.
BTW: Not being one to argue with science like this, but I have no idea how 113 wound up where it is on this table. I'd make it top 5 at least, but I am no scientist.
Here at LoB we had a friend Armando, that worked with us. You may remember him from the "Weight of Heaven" post, he was the one with the slicer. Any time we have a potluck we could count on Mando to bring in these fabulous treats, they were always one of the first things to be gone. Mando is no longer in our space, having moved on to greener pastures. But the demand for his famous bacon wrapped peppers remains. He was good enough to send over the details on this surprisingly simple to fix appetizer.
Ingredients:
(20)Jalapenos
(1) container of cream cheese
(1) 1 package of bacon
Steps
1. slice the jalapeno (about 1' girth) without breaking the jalapenos (be gentle on the Jalapeno)
2. spoon out the seeds
3. stuff the cream cheese in the crack of the jalapeno
4. wrap the bacon around the juicy jalapeno
Cooking Instructions:
Pre-heat oven at 350. Place the jalapenos on a flat cookie sheet and cook for about 30-45 minutes until the bacon looks cooked. You want the bacon to be a little crispy.
I doubt anyone out there remembers our radio show from back in the 70s, but if you do, you know that Friday was always the day we would wrap foods in bacon, or sprinkle bacon chunks on things, basically try out new ways to consume bacon. Well those days are gone, but Bacon Jason and I have never really given up our constant thinking of new ways to eat bacon, we just don't relegate it to Fridays anymore.
So what we will do on Friday's now is do a quick synopsis of the week's adventures in bacon. I can pretty much promise that we won't get to this every Friday, but I can promise we will keep trying new bacon concoctions. Pretty much everyone knows the answer to our favorite question, some may even dread those eight words we love to say, "You know what would be good on that?" Everyone say it with me...... "BACON!"
So this week we had an idea that we didn't get to, yet and we had a few contributions, all in all a kind of slow bacon week. But here is what we had. Everyone knows what butter or margarine is, its basically salted fat/oil. Bacon butter is just that, you strain your bacon drippings into a jar and while it isn't a pretty yellow color, it is a tasty greasy substitute for any place you might use butter or margarine.
We work in an office now (sold out to the man, but hey it keeps bacon on the table) so it wasn't feasible to try out the first idea this week. You have an artichoke, its steamed and normally you dip the leaves in melted garlic butter.... well replace butter with bacon butter and enjoy. If anyone gets to this before I get to a store and get an artichoke, please let us know how it turned out, it sounds yummy to us.
On the bacon butter front, toast. That's right a little dab will do ya and before you go "oh gross" remember that butter you put on your toast now is just salted milk fats. This just tastes better. Mmmm toasty!
Our friend Darren wrapped his Twix bar with bacon this week. There has been a lot of buzz in the media recently about chocolate dipped bacon and chocolate and bacon is an old favorite here at LoB. Well since he was trying it I promptly dove in with my own Twix and bacon. It was good, heck it had bacon on it, but not sure if it was not enough bacon or the flavor not mixing well with the caramel, it was just OK. Perhaps it was the distraction of the cookie crunch, in any case I like the Butterfinger wrapped in bacon a little more.
Another friend Rick, had a nice juicy pear when we thought hmmm pear slice.... bacon. Bacon wrapped pear slices are quite tasty, the pear is cool and sweet, mixed with the warm crispness of the salty bacon. I always enjoy those taste juxtapositions. I will definitely be putting more bacon on my next pear.
Yesterday I had a piece of double fudge chocolate cake. Again with the chocolate and bacon, I wish I could have put bacon chunks right into the cake itself, but since this was bought by the slice, strips on top of the icing had to suffice. Always an excellent choice.
So whatever you are about to eat today..... You know what would be good on that?
So have you ever been to a concert and they have those screens up flashing ads etc? Well last night my bacon-free (read vegetarian) offspring and I went to The Wiltern to see a show consisting of Electric Touch, The Airborne Toxic Event, and The Fratellis. This isnt a music blog so I will sum it all up as a great show. Anyway back to the bacon, they had a screen showing ads and a crawl along the bottom displaying txt messages from the crowd. If you went in one you were entered to win a prize or something. Also after several minutes of sponsored comercials they would do a slide show of pictures sent in from the crowd.
So I had to represent. I have several bacon photos stored on my "jesusphone" ya know, in case of emergency. I chose the bacon background one as it had the most BPP (bacon per pixel). I also sent several "bacon" txt messages. I only saw one of the TXT crawl slowly across the screen... BACON IS THE BEST!!! I'm not positive but I could of sworn I heard a "whoo hoo" somewhere in the crowd, but it probably wasn't related. The bacon picture came up several times during the evening. It sucessfully made me hungry and wish they were serving cups of bacon rather than hot dogs and pretzels. They should sell bacon as a snack food, at the movies, ball games, street corners... it would be huge I'm telling ya.
Anyway, if you are ever at a concert and they have a screen like this, and you see bacon txt or pix that you didnt send, there is a good chance one of the Lords of Bacon is also there.
So to make pasta, you boil water, its pretty much that simple, boil, add some sauce, BAM! you got dinner. But sometimes, even that is just too much work. Pizza (Pasta) Hut would like you to believe that their 3 pound tub o noodles is fancy restaurant quality fare. Its just noodles, and if you are like me (lazy) the idea of not having to boil water, or do much more than click order now, well that's all the appeal I needed. The now have a "premium" bacon mac and cheese option. Bacon Jason and I knew this was the perfect opportunity to pimp our pasta!
Here is the "stock" Pasta Hut Delivery option, lots of bacon sprinkled on top... looks good.
But I am thinking.. "It's just on the top, and well you can see a lot of noodles"....
So we fired up some "instant bacon" (review coming soon)
this is all the smaller "bits o' bacon" really should be, and we had to make a couple platefuls, one was NOT enough.
So we added a bunch and BOOM!
Look you can barely see the pasta, now THATS how to do Mac and Cheese.
We stirred it in, and got a great 1:1 BTB (bacon to bite) ratio.
The pasta was mediocre, not horrible, I am sure I will be lazy enough to order it again. Just have to add more bacon.
You know the popular image of waking up to the smell of frying bacon, well that is to IBD as the image of kids creeping down the stairs on Christmas morning is to that holiday. Family gathers around the table for a great meal, much in the way families gather around a roasted turkey on Thanksgiving. My sister is traveling out from her crappy state to the beautiful location I live so we can celebrate IBD as a family. Its one of those special holidays that creates cherished memories... gimme a minute I am all choked up. OK
Hallmark doesn't appear to have any cards, I am guessing they are working on the technology to be able to have actual bacon inside the card when you open it. Man that would be great.
We will post some pictures from this years celebration next week, feel free to comment with what your plans are for International Bacon Day.
I imagine a bacon pimp would say something like that. I am sure I don't want to know what they are doing for or with the bacon... but that's just me. Speaking of pimps, last week we pimp'd our cheeseburger. For today, we are going to take a cue from the folks at pimpmytaco.com. We are not gonna dress up our taco with queso fresco or habaneros, we are the lords of bacon.... you know whats coming.
First we needed some tacos. For this I chose Jack in the Box "meat paste" 2 for 99¢ TVP tacos. They aren't on the menu like that, but buying them late at night, possibly after drinking.. they tend to get a longer name with age. I am not sure there is any actual meat in these babys but there soon will be.
First a taco: mmmm spicy TVP
These aren't your Del Taco tacos: now for the pimpage...
Suprise!! we are using BACON! Only 2 strips these aren't Monster Tacos
There are a lot of bacon cheeseburgers out there in fast food land. Let's face it they all pretty much suck (Yes you Baconator). But they are convenient, probably why they call it 'fast food'. Well I found myself at home the other day with a Carl's Jr Double Western Bacon Cheeseburger, which by itself is pretty average at best. Having recently read and being impressed by the great stuff the kids over at pimpmycheeseburger.com are doing, I was inspired to pimp MY cheeseburger.
Here it is in 'standard' or delivered configuration: Nothing to write home about for sure.
Now we add to that a little of the ole 'instant bacon'.. (review coming soon) mmm bacon!
I folded the instant bacon to give a little double thick bacony layer: now that's is a TBL (Tasty Bacon Layer)
and voila!! Pimped out cheeseburger in the house! that's how we roll... LoB style!
Just a reminder that International Bacon Day is fast approaching. You can read about it over here. This year the date is Aug 30th. There are T-Shirts available here, but even if you don't have one of those, be sure to plan your bacon meals and snacks and share the bacon goodness with family and friends. Bacon Jason and I will be celebrating and posting our I.B.D. stories in September.
Bacon Jason and I as well as the honorary Bacon Fred love us that bacon chocolate but lets face it $7.50 is a lot of money for some chocolate, EVEN if it has bacon in it. With our recent discovery that the local Cost Plus has it for under $6 its like getting a free bar when we buy five (yes we could eat five in an afternoon if we were rich) it's still an expensive treat. So we are always on the lookout for some tasty bacony chocolate goodness. Today I was prepping some instant bacon (review coming soon) and as if by fate my tummy says "Butterfinger". I thought to myself, someone should try those together....I should try those together, so I did. I didn't have any fancy preparation, just a plate of hot bacon and a Butterfinger bar. I simply did the bite of this and a bite of that mixing method. Damn it was tasty! I think I could get some of those mini Halloween sized Butterfinger bites and wrap them in bacon, make it more of a presentation; if I do I'll post photos. In the mean time, I give the BacoButterfinger three strips.
I am a self professed nerd, geek, dork, what have you; I don't think I will get any argument from anyone, after all I write a blog about bacon for christsake. I was bragging to my girlfriend about how I had a lot of domains as that is some sort of nerd mating ritual maneuver ( I think, I may be too much of a geek to know for sure). Well long story short, she pwn'd me and my paltry number of domains. I only bring this up as it was part of the inspiration for (cue trumpet blaring, or better yet the sound of bacon sizzling here) "Bacon Domain Week!!!
The idea being each day I would register a bunch of new bacon related domains, and then down the road develop each of those domains into a multimillion dollar empire of cash and bacon.. mwhhahahaha! (that's my semi-demonic maniacal laugh, its very impressive in person but does not translate well to the written word, but trust me, it makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, or at a minimum, gets strange looks).
Now I could stretch this baby out into a weeks worth of posts, one each day, all sorts of witty bacon comentary on each one providing all 3 of our RSS subscribers endless amounts of entertainment. But.... Its all going into this one post, for two reasons. 1) I'm lazy, you saw the post recently about blogging taking up a lot of time, well I got a window tonight, this is it. 2) There is a certain someone perhaps two someones who stated that if the post is more than a couple paragraphs in length they simply will not read it. And who said the MTV generation has a short attention... what was I talking about again? Well this figures to be too long for the friends with a disdain for words, and guys if you did get this far, I intend to ramble further just jump out now. :)
I should mention that our uber-admin extraordinaire was very helpful in taking time out from more important things to register each of these silly domains, or as he calls them the "tocino dominios".
Monday started out full of hope and I think with the intent of spending some of the 10's of thousandths of cents this blog generates on maybe a hundred bacon domains. Then reality set in, a lot of the really good ideas were already taken. In fact one of my first choices was http://baconisthenewblack.com/ which turns out to be a "baco-blog" already. So I added that to my bacon scented RSS reader and resumed our quest for one hundred bacon domains. I checked my account balance, did some number crunching, projected the ROI from this little whim of internet bacon domain domination, and made the command decision; one domain a day for the work week was probably overkill, but what the heck 5 is a semi round number, as well as the top bacon strip rating here at LoB, so with the goal being set it was into the think tank of bacon grease to come up with the ultimate 5 bacon domains. I would like to say that we achieved success in finding the 5 greatest bacon domains ever thought of, when in reality, we wound up covered in bacon fat and smelling good enough to lick for like 2 weeks. Monday's domain is a pretty good one, possibly one of my favorite from the week allaboutthebacon.com; its descriptive, you know what you are getting right from the domain name. I mean, really isn't it all about the bacon? Just saying.
So on Tuesday, it was feeling lonely in the old shop, lots of empty cubes, former spots filled with the friends and comrades that once worked in our department. I thought about 'tipping the 40' for our friends, but since the very presence of alcohol at work would be a cause for immediate dismissal, I decided to toast them with bacon. As I sat there with some fresh hot "instant bacon" (review coming soon) and thinking about all the people that were missing out on its smokey aroma because they are all now employed over at Tom's space, Tuesday's domain came to me, an applewood smoked domain that represents a little love for the homies, mybaconspace.com. One day it too will be the 2nd largest site of its kind; a bacon social network, where bacoterians can meet, post oddly angled pictures of their favorite bacons, and wonder if they are the only person on the site over the age of sixteen.
Wednesday was push day, like there is a schedule that is followed or something, not sure if it was classic or code flavored like water but didnt have a lot of time to think of domains. Fortunately, while working with this drummer that moonlights as a change management engineer, we were discussing bacon..... I know duh! He mentions "Bacon is awesome!" again I know... duh! Would you believe that baconisawesome.com wasn't registered?!? I didn't...but it is now. Three down and two to go. I was thinking we gotta really nail it on Friday, ya know, save the best for last? Well if my ADD friends by some miracle are still with me, feel free to wander over to /. as its really just more of the same for the next couple of paragraphs.
Thursday, I am not sure what was on my mind. I dunno if it was the Adam Sandler sketch about weight lifting or the fact I was trying to figure out what makes my saliva glands kick into over drive more, bacon or my girlfriend. But I envision either some sort of advice page or perhaps funny situations where the answers to the issue boil down to either bacon or sex. Not sure on the presentation yet, but really are there any two greater forces that can drive ones decisions? Like the old angel on one shoulder and devil on the other, except on one its smokey delicious bacon, and the other, your significant other calling you to bed, or the couch or kitchen counter...... hey I don't judge, whatever your thing is...rock on! Anyway baconorsex.com becomes Thursday's domain, and I can literally hear the uber-admin's eyes rolling right through the gtalk window.
Thank Bacon It's Friday! This one seemed a little anti-climactic, but it is very simple. In math when you factor a number several times you say x the nth power, well what if you took bacon to the power of bacon. Yes I realize that bacon is not your normal math or algebraic type of equation, ya know since its not a number and all, and even though you can spell it with some letters, I am not sure there is a mathematical symbol that represents bacon, although I am still not sure that the ~ tilde is not secretly a bacon symbol in disguise. What with math all up in my head on Friday, I know, you all get all mathy on Fridays too right?? No?? Anyway, I was thinking of bacon equations and ways to turn those into domain names and well, they were all long and they sucked. I simply started thinking of bacon dotcom type names a single bacon was of course taken and parked waiting for someone to come along and snatch it up at what I am sure is a fair price...yeah right. Two bacons or baconbacon, also parked. Three bacons or baconbaconbacon redirects to a microwave bacon tray, wow. (Maybe we should review that here? hmmm.) So next up was baconbaconbaconbacon.com thats right 4!!!! bacons, or as I like to think of it as bacon times bacon times bacon to the power of bacon. Damn thats alot of bacon, give me a sec, I need to grab a quick bite of bacon.......... ahhhhh much better! Well that was the last of the domains for (cue trumpet blaring, or better yet the sound of bacon sizzling here) "Bacon Domain Week"!!! I like em all, they make me happy. I barely find time to blog, but I am sure I will find time to develop these babies into some righteous bacon domain website goodness.
Have a suggestion for what would make these tasty bacon domains cool? Leave a comment and let us know, I doubt we will do anything with the suggestions, but we might toast the best ones with some bacon. And I know a few people will be making a certain suggestion, and trust me you can NOT place a domain name into any orifice of ones body.
This beautiful Bacon creation made its debut on May 15th, 2008. It was so delectable that I was nearly speechless and typeless until this very day. I had visions of this for quite some time and one fateful night I happened to have the one known only as 'Fred' over for dinner.
We had finger food for an appetizer. Freshly cooked Bacon that was perfectly prepared - firm, yet tender, just shy of crispy.
I grilled some tri-tip and Bacon and my wife prepared a crispy, tasty salad - of course with Bacon.
Now this was all delicious and Very satisfying, but we all knew that the desert would be the 'coup de grace'.
Now, at first I attempted to make the dish with a 1 to 1 ratio of Bacon slices to cheesecake slices. With the strawberries, blueberries, chocolate syrup and the cheesecake, there was just not enough Bacon flavor coming through.
Fred jumped in and aided in the crumbling of the bacon and we each used a minimum of 2 slices of Bacon per slice of cheesecake ( this will vary by individual - Bacon to taste ).
THIS was the critical factor that made even non-Bacoterians like my wife ( Fred is an honorary Bacoterian when he visits - 100 mile rule ) fall in love with the irresistible combination of smoky, salty Bacon with rich cheesecake, fresh fruit and a hint of chocolate!
Jim Gaffigan's management company has removed all copyright infringing youtube videos. There is however an official Jim Gaffigan channel on youtube, but sans bacon skit. You could go see him live I guess.
Update 2: There is video on the web in places OTHER than youtube.
My dear friend Jaime is not fond of my bacon lifestyle, but accepts it. It really is all I talk about some days, it inspired her to write this little poem.
E.coli on my lettuce, Salmonilla on my tomatoes, Oh pray, what is next to come? Parasites on my potatoes?
But alas there is one, Who makes life so complete; Not a veggie or a fruit, But the king of all that is meat.
This is my ode to bacon, Although I hate it so, It has captured my friend Chris In it's marble striped cloak.
He buys his bacon by the pound And on his plate a mound so high, For his bacon he has much love, A great love that money CAN buy.
A love that reaches far beyond taste, With bacon trinkets and doodads galore; Bacon toys, bacon floss, bacon this, bacon that; A bacon carpet even adorns his floor.
An expert in the bacon field, And a self proclaimed critic of the divine meat. With his blog about bacon, He even declared "bacon domain" for this week.
No one can compete with this love for bacon, And bacoterian is how he defines his race. So much does he feel akin to this fare, Not for any other meat could his love misplace.
This is my ode to bacon, Although I hate it so, But so much to I care for my dear "Bacon Chris" That out of much love, my respect for his bacon, I will show.
OK, so it has been over a month since the last post. Not to worry I have not given up on bacon. In fact this week I have declared it the unofficial "bacon domain week", registering a new bacon domain every day this week, more on that later. Life has simply gotten the priority when it comes to posting. I know there are some people that post every day or multiple times a day, boingboing this aint. I want this blog to be about bacon, for the most part, and just bacon. It's not my soapbox to bitch and complain about every little thing, unless it has to do with bacon, nor will I be posting pictures of my cats and how they did the cutest thing and are just like people. I am not one of those self involved bloggers who have little worthwhile to say and even less talent to say it, that posts entry after entry about nothing in general, drops the occasional "F-bomb" to seem edgy and does little more than prove they are a pretentious person posting crap, hoping others will subscribe to it, and adding other people's crap in hopes someone will read theirs in some sort of egocentric cyber-circle jerk. It’s all I can muster to find the time from living life to post about one of the things I enjoy most in life, bacon. I don't profess to have talent or be good at blogging, or even that original, there are others that do this better. But this is my take and life permitting, we will put up reviews of bacon, and bacon related products, and well not too much more than that.
So as for life getting in the way of blogging, here is the low down. Bacon Jason has been out of commission with a rare but completely NOT made up disease called baconmysitisis. This relatively unknown disease is almost identical to appendicitis, so much so in fact that if it reaches the critical stage, you gotta get your appendix taken out before it ruptures. Basically the difference being that unlike appendicitis where little is known about the onset of the disease, baconmysitisis is brought on by a bacoterian not eating enough bacon. Once it has set in it mimics appendicitis exactly, so much so that most doctors would be unable to distinguish any difference, and you still gotta get the appendix out. Bacon Jason had this rare disease and underwent surgery to have his appendix removed and is going to make a full recovery, look for some posts soon from him. Get well my brother. I on the other hand have been baconing it up like always and in fact life has been so good, I have a new girlfriend. I know what you are thinking, must be a vegetarian and doesn't like his bacon ways, hence no posts. Rest assured she too enjoys the bacon, and while this is not a blog about my love life, I will make just this one comment. Early on in our courtship we met for breakfast. I am not saying it was a test, but I was curious to see if she was a bacon or sausage girl, she ordered bacon, big thumbs up. But here is the cool thing, she has the last bite of bacon on her plate, she picks it up and feeds it to me, without me asking or saying a word, just feeds me her last piece of bacon. I didn't realize there was a way to make the best of all meats taste even sweeter, but that will do it. So, I am sure you are thinking the same thing I was... "Keeper" :)
My roommate and I recently had a housewarming party and our honorary "LoB" Bacon Charles shows up with not one but two types of bacon. They happen to be two of the bacons that are on our "IFR" list (intended for review) Niman Ranch applewood smoked bacon, both uncured and dry-cured. This is not to discount the wonderful gift of bacon and Code Red that Josh and Apryl brought, but this review is about the Niman Ranch bacon.This high end bacon, and you can tell its “high end” because it comes in a 12 oz. package as opposed to the standard 1 pound variety, is available at Trader Joe’s as well as online.
Now I have to be honest I didn’t know the difference between uncured and cured bacon until I looked it up, and to be honest I was concerned that the uncured bacon would somehow be less bacon-y for some reason.Well I am pleased to tell you that uncured bacon is very bacon-y and this particular brand is fantastic.For this review I used the "LoB approved" bake method. Others have described this method exactly as if they had watched me prepare bacon in my kitchen, even down to the rotation detail, if I had just searched the internet before all the trial and error sessions, I would have had a lot more perfect bacon.(Just double checked the link and I see that Tony also has a plug for the Niman Ranch bacon, let that be a sign to you doubters.)Back to the bacon, from the moment I opened the packages, yes packageS, this is to be a side by side comparison, the smoky aroma hit me.This is some of the best smelling bacon since the weight of heaven post. The uncured pack seems to be somewhat thicker slices, and also a bit meatier; this could just be a slight variation of the package and is probably not an intended standard.Over all both packages are quite meatier than your average grocery store brand of bacon and I believe that is an intended standard. I did not do any pre or post measuring, but the uncured slices did seem to shrink just a slight bit more than the dry-cured but not enough to warrant wasting time with tape measures or rulers, my house smelled of freshly baked bacon!!I remember thinking, this is what our summer cabin would smell like back when I was a kid and mom would make breakfast for everyone, I paused for a moment to remember how good that was and how long it had been since I had smelled something that reminded me of home, it also reminded me I was hungry for bacon, moving onward.
I went with the dry-cured first for my taste tests, and it did not disappoint, this is delicious, thick meaty bacon.This is the type of stuff that will spoil you, and make you unable to eat cheap bacon if you can help it.I baked up these batches to the “just past chewy but not yet crispy” state, a very small window of about 90 seconds you have to pull the bacon before you go crispy, not an easy thing to get right, but these strips were on the money.The package states you need just one bite to know this is no ordinary bacon, and it is so refreshing to see truth in advertising.This is great bacon, so much so that I took a few more bites after that first one.
Next up was the uncured bacon, it looked and smelled delicious, and man did it taste good.A big difference is that the uncured has no sodium nitrates added to the meat.If you are on a low sodium thing, I would love to say this is right for you, but a quick package check shows it is merely 5mg less sodium per serving than the dry-cured, both still are prepared with salt, yummy yummy salt, sorry I forgot you are on a low sodium thing, maybe this isn’t the best reading material then.This bacon rocked, equally as tasty as the dry cured, just a slight taste difference, so slight that if I had not known it was uncured before preparing it, I don’t think I would have noticed.The smoky flavor wrapped these strips in a fluffy blanket of yummy just like the dry-cured.I recommend picking up some of this bacon and trying it yourself, you will not be sorry.I can’t wait to try the maple and chipotle flavors as well.
Both the dry-cured and uncured varieties of NimanRanchApplewoodSmokedCenter cut Bacon receive 4½ out of 5 strips!
and some bacon and try to figure something out, but lets face it I am 
". You had a couple of plastic pig "dice" that you tossed and depending on how they landed you scored point, don't really recall the specifics but I do remember the miniature "pig dice". They were no bigger than a nickel, and you are probably wondering why I bring it up, well as you can see from the picture, this can 'o spam has "Real Hormel Bacon". That may be true, but what I did not realize is there is some form of actual pygmy pig, that the game used life size replicas of for the game. 
or the fact I was trying to figure out what makes my saliva glands kick into over drive more, bacon or my girlfriend. But I envision either some sort of advice page or perhaps funny situations where the answers to the issue boil down to either bacon or sex. Not sure on the presentation yet, but really are there any two greater forces that can drive ones decisions? Like the old angel on one shoulder and devil on the other, except on one its smokey delicious bacon, and the other, your significant other calling you to bed, or the couch or kitchen counter...... hey I don't judge, whatever your thing is...rock on! Anyway baconorsex.com becomes Thursday's domain, and I can literally hear the uber-admin's eyes rolling right through the gtalk window. 
