Bacon Explosion!

For the 4th of July each year, my husband and I like to serve our guests something tasty and unique off the grill. One year it was mead-marinated tri-tip steaks. Another year we did candied chicken teriyaki skewers. This year, we decided to go for the gusto and cook up a variation on a famous internet recipe: The Bacon Explosion.

We started on Saturday night, cooking up a pound and a half of bacon. We were up until almost midnight getting it crispy, and didn't take any photos. Our bad.

On Sunday afternoon we got out the pile of cooked bacon and got to work.

Bryan cut up all the cooked bacon into small pieces.

We read a lot of blogs and watched various You Tube accounts of people's experience with this recipe before giving it a try. The following picture (with the big point and grin) is in honor of this guy.

I opened up our three pound package of thick cut bacon, and set about weaving a 5x5 strip lattice with all the enthusiasm of a Girl Scout fashioning her first sit-upon (probably more, because, let's ace it -- sit-upons aren't made of BACON).

As I weaved the bacon together I reminisced about how I had a loom when I was a kid. Good times. Not sure hubby was all that impressed by my prowess, however.

Below is my dainty (did someone say sissy?) attempt to "rub" a Tablespoon of BBQ rub into the bacon.

Here is a close up of all that glorious bacon just covered in tasty seasonings:

Next we open up the beef. Here is where we've altered the recipe from its original form. We are using beef instead of ground sausage, because what we want to serve up is the ultimate bacon burger patty. You can see we got very lean beef. With all that bacon, who needs the extra fat?

I traded off with Bryan, who formed the beef into a large square patty with the quickness of a ninja.

There is almost two pounds of meat in this patty:

Next he lays it on top of the bacon mat.

Then we used a third of our pre-cooked bacon, which we measured out as about 2/3 cup

and dumped it on to the beef:

We spread it out and now we were ready for the BBQ sauce.

I used Bull's-Eye brown sugar and hickory. It was very tasty and contains no high fructose corn syrup. Which is good, because if our heart doesn't stop from all the grease, the last thing we want to be worrying about is some off-beat sugar.

We poured it on there thick, using a third of the bottle.

Look at this...

Then it was time to roll it up

And roll the bacon back over it:

Tucking in the sides so none of that good stuff falls out.

Ah... a log of meat.

Then we did it again. And again.

But this time...

we added grated Tillamook Cheddar Cheese on top.

Bryan was having fun rolling these up while myself and two of our guests snapped pictures.

It is a little messy, but SO WORTH IT!

We seasoned the outside with the same rub, and topped the cheese one with a few shreds so we would know which was which.

And then promptly went outside to pose with our three logs of raw meat:

We were pretty dang excited about it, too. Try making one of these yourself. The effect of that much bacon is great anticipation and enthusiasm. See if I'm wrong.

We put them in the fridge until it was time to cook them.

When it was time, Bryan put one into the smoker. We staggered the start times to allow time to cut and serve each one when they were done.
There is the first one ready to cook.

This is the smoker we borrowed to slow cook them in.

We set the temperature to 220* and went about the rest of our party while we waited the 2 1/2 hours while each one cooked.

In went the cheesy one next.

Now there is a little lapse in photography. The reason being that there was so much excitement about it coming out of the smoker, that we didn't take many pictures at this point. Just pretend that we took a picture of our thermometer in the center of the thing reading an internal temperature of 165 degrees, ok? Because that is how we knew it was done. That, and the saliva running down everyone's chins.

Here it is cooked and sliced open:

Here is my VERY happy husband with his bacon burger success:

From this time forward people got in line and were served up a slice of beefy, bacon-y, barbaque-y goodness.

Some people made them into burgers. Others ate it ala carte and mocked those who would mess with perfection.

I made myself a bun with all the fixings in preparation for the final log.

It was by far one of the best burgers I've ever had. Not greasy, like I would have expected. But moist, flavorful, and delicious.

We will definitely want to make these again in the future. Three Explosions fed about 30 people. Each log cost us about $10 to make. And the time involved in the prep wasn't considerable for such a conversation piece. Now that we've done them (and won't have to take a ton of pictures next time) we could easily form a log (if the bacon was pre-cooked) in under 15 minutes.

Everyone at the party seemed to think that these were delicious and pretty epic.

So, who is going to try one? Who has already made one? I look forward to hearing from you!

Carnivores, enjoy!

Homegrown Sprouts

My husband surprised me a few weeks ago by requesting sprouts for his sandwiches. I was excited to hear him requesting something so healthy! So I pulled out my Easy Sprout and started growing some:

This batch has been growing for about 4 days, I think.

Then I de-hull them in the salad spinner I just acquired (from a co-worker who was no longer using it) and they are ready to go into our sandwiches and salads.

We have been using them so quickly, I am now doing two batches at once. This low cost sprouter (AKA: mason jar) doesn't get as good of air circulation as the other, but as you can see, it works just fine.

I am making rinsing my sprouts part of my FlyLady routines in the morning and evening, just before I shine my sink. :)

Have you ever grown sprouts, salad greens or herbs inside? Tell me about it in the comments below!

Happy sprouting!

Pulled Pork Bento

Today's bento is super simple. It is a pulled pork sandwich ready to be assembled.

You may notice I have a new "bento box." My co-workers have been going on about how it is not great to microwave your food in plastic, so I am slowly making the switch to Pyrex dishes for my hot lunches.

Happy bento!

Produce Wash

I have a confession to make. I do not usually wash my produce. Oh, I scrub the dirt off the potatoes before I bake them, and rinse my celery, but most of the rest of it I just chop up and eat. So this is an extremely odd sight for me:

Not sure I'm doing it right, but I looked up this homemade organic fruit and vegetable wash on Videojug:

• 1 Tb fresh squeezed lemon juice
• 2 Tb vinegar
• 1 cup water
  

...and now I've got half of my produce (that was all I could get washed before rehearsal) air drying on a towel by my sink.

I guess it looks clean. My friend Debi says it will taste better, so that's gotta be good. But does anyone know, do I put them back in the bags they came in now, or what?

I think I'm just going to go to bed and hope someone answers my question before I have to go to work tomorrow. (Because as colorful as they are, I don't want these food items to become a permanent fixture on my kitchen counter!)

Any help? Thanks!