Oct22012

Bacon Weaving

Bacon Weaving

I am once again needing to take a pass on this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie.

Here’s how brilliant I am: We have a small dry-erase board on the fridge so that everyone can write down the things that they need, or if something has run out, etc.

I went grocery shopping last week. I always bring a detailed list of what I’ll need for two weeks’ worth of food and meals, but then I walked out the door without even looking at the dry erase board and briefly wondered how it was that my shopping trip was so much shorter than usual. Well, I’d left half of what I needed still scrawled on the fridge door.

Anyway, I haven’t made it back out for Shopping Trip Round 2 yet, so I don’t have the pumpkin or cranberries for the Dorie bread. But I will definitely be doing the next one in two weeks because I just discovered that I get to host it! I’m very excited.

So to make up for my lack of participation, I’m going to share with you a new trick I learned last week.

Bacon weaving.

One of our dinners last week was BLTs. However, instead of just frying up bacon in the pan, I came across the idea to kind of weave it together and bake it in the oven. This way, you get bacon in every bite of sandwich, and you’re not pulling out entire strips of bacon in one bite, either.

I cut the package of bacon in half first.

Bacon

Lay three of the strips side by side on a baking sheet (preferably a pan with edges so the bacon grease doesn’t run off into the oven). Weave three more strips into the first strips. Put in a cold oven and then heat the oven to 400°.

Bacon Weaving

My one package of bacon gave me five woven squares, which was perfect for the five of us. It took about 20-25 minutes for them to all be perfectly cooked, and I kept a close eye on them and took out the ones that looked like they were finished cooking before the others.

I can understand not wanting to go through trouble of doing this, but honestly, it only took a few extra minutes and the rest of the prep was so easy that I didn’t mind at all. The bacon cooks nice and flat, and you don’t get splatters all over your stove top, either.

The only drawback is having to turn on the oven in the first place and heat up the kitchen, but I think it was worth it!

Jul32011

Fixing Up Brownie Mix: Cream Cheese Brownies

Cream Cheese Brownies

Much to my family’s appreciation, I’ve got a lot of brownie mix sitting in my pantry. However, if I know them they’re going to get pretty bored with the same brownies for dessert night week after week (well, I would too), so for tonight’s dessert night I’m using one of my favorite add-ins: cream cheese. Read More