Balsamic-Glazed Brussels Sprouts from Fine Cooking Italian

When I got a copy of Fine Cooking Italian, I bookmarked a ridiculous number of recipes. I love pasta, I love tomatoes, I love cheese, and I love any food that is in the slightest bit Italian.

Before you ask if the recipes in this book are authentic Italian - well, the tagline for the book is "200 Recipes for Authentic Italian Food," so there's that.

Whether there are grandmas in Italian villages who are making these recipes - well, I haven't a clue. And I really don't care. What I do care about is whether there are recipes I want to make, and whether they taste good.

Obviously, I wanted to make them, and I've already tried a few, including a pasta recipe with cauliflower that looked unassuming, but tasted really good.

But then I thought I should try something that wasn't pasta, and a recipe for Brussels sprouts caught me eye. I like Brussels sprouts a lot, but I'll be honest and say that I'm usually not all that creative with them.

These were glazed with reduced balsamic vinegar and accented with crisp bits of pancetta.

Unfortunately, fresh Brussels sprouts were nowhere to be found, so I used frozen instead. It changed the cooking a bit - they didn't brown quite as quickly as fresh ones would have. But the end result was still good.

In the end, this wasn't the prettiest dish I've ever made - the super-dark reduced balsamic vinegar coated the sprouts and made them ... well, dark.

If the color is too dark for you, a white balsamic vinegar or maybe a sherry vinegar would work. I haven't tried either one, but it seems like it could be okay.

If you're worried about how tart this dish might be from the 1/4 cup of vinegar, keep in mind that reduced balsamic vinegar is actually just a little sweet. Meanwhile, the pancetta added its savory and salty goodness. It's not like a salad with vinegar. It's savory for sure, but not jarringly tart.

Balsamic-Glazed Brussels Sprouts with Pancetta
Adapted from Fine Cooking Italian - recipe by Ruth Lively

2 ounces pancetta, cut into 1/4-inch dice
1 - 2 ounces olive oil
10 ounces Brussels sprouts, trimmed and halved through the core
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
Salt and pepper, to taste
2 tablespoons butter

Choose a large saute pan that will allow you to fit all the halved Brussels sprouts in one layer. And make sure you've got a lid for the pan, too.

Add one tablespoon of the olive oil to the pan and heat on medium-low heat. Add the pancetta. and cook until crisp, about 10 minutes, stirring as needed.

Remove the pancetta with a slotted spoon to a plate lined with a paper towel.

There should be about 2 tablespoons of oil left in the pan, If you don't seem to have that much, add some additional olive oil.

Arrange the sprouts cut-side down in the pan. Since I was using frozen sprouts and they were a little wet, there was some spitting, so I turned the heat off to add the sprouts to keep my fingers from harm's way. Fresh sprouts would likely be less likely to cause the oil to spit. Or use tongs to add and arrange the sprouts to avoid the splashing oil.

Turn the heat up to medium high and cook the sprouts undisturbed until they're nicely browned on the bottom. My frozen sprouts took about 5 minutes, but fresh ones should take just 2 or 3 minutes.

Add the water, cover the pan, and let them simmer until fork-tender but not mushy, about 3 minutes. If the water evaporates before the sprouts are tender, add a little more water, 1/4 cup at a time, as needed.

Remove the sprouts with a slotted spoon and place them on a plate.

If there's any water left in the pan, let it cook off with the pan on medium-high heat. Add the balsamic vinegar and a few grinds of pepper. Boil the vinegar until it's reduced to about half its original volume and it's slightly syrupy, about 2 minutes.

Reduce the heat to low, add the butter, and stir until it's melted. Add the sprouts and pancetta back to the pan, stir to coat the sprouts with the sauce, season with a sprinkle of salt and a few grinds of pepper, and serve hot.

I received this book from the publisher at no cost to me.

Corn Chowder with Bacon

Sometimes the stars align perfectly. Or maybe it's the ingredients that align. This corn chowder couldn't have been more perfect.

Well, maybe it could have been more perfect if I made a giant vat of the chowder. But the flavor was perfect.

At at first, I was wishing I had red bell peppers for the color, but I think I actually liked the look better with all pale ingredients. Some times bits of color don't look all that attractive in a creamy sauce. If you want an accent color, I'd suggest floating some chopped herbs or grated cheese on top.

Or do the sensible thing and add a little extra bacon spread to the top.

Hmmm ... did I just say BACON SPREAD???

Yup, I did. I got some bacon spread to sample from a company called The Bacon Jams. I had a giveaway over on my other blog (which is now over). But here, I have the magical corn chowder recipe.

Want another recipe? I made Bacon Bread in my bread machine, HERE.

Corn Chowder

2 tablespoons butter

1/2 of a large onion, diced (about the same size as corn kernels)

1 yellow bell pepper, cored, seeded, and diced (about the same size as corn kernels)

Kernels from 4 years of fresh corn

2 Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and diced (about the same size as corn kernels)

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

2 tablespoons flour

3 cups milk

1 cup heavy cream

2 tablespoons Bacon Spread

1 teaspoon black pepper

Melt the butter in a saucepan. add the onion and bell pepper. Cook, stirring as needed, until the vegetables begin to soften.

Add the corn, potatoes, and salt. Cook for another minute or two, stirring as needed. Add the flour and stir. Cook another minute or two, then add the milk, cream, bacon jam, and black pepper. Stir well.

Let the mixture come to a boil, then lower to a simmer. Cook, stirring as needed, until the vegetables are cooked through. Taste for seasoning, and adjust as needed.

Serve hot. A little garnish of bacon jam would be nice.

About Bacon Spread: I received jars of this to try, and I have to say I'm in love with this stuff. I keep sneaking little samples of it. It's really good. A little sweet, a little smoky, a little jammy.

If you don't have bacon spread, I suppose you could used chopped or crumbled cooked bacon, but if you're a bacon fan, I suggest you give this stuff a try.

Bread Machine BACON Bread

I got a few jars of Bacon Spread from The Bacon Jams to try, and I keep putting it in EVERYTHING. I love this stuff.

So, of course, it went into bread. The oven was otherwise occupied, so I decided to use my bread machine.

This was amazing. Great with breakfast or for sandwiches. Toasted or not.

If you don't have a bread machine, you can use the same formula to make a standard loaf. Or buns.

Bread Machine Bacon Bread

1 teaspoon Red Star active dry yeast or instant/bread machine yeast
1 tablespoon sugar
1 cup water
2 1/2 cups (11 1/4 ounces) bread flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons Bacon Spread
1 tablespoon butter

Put all ingredients in your bread machine in the order suggested by the manufacturer. Press appropriate buttons to knead and bake the bread.

Beep-beep, boop-boop.

Remove the bread from the machine when it's baked an let it cool completely on a rack before slicing.

Disclaimer: I received jars of Bacon Spread from The Bacon Jams for myself, and they are sponsoring a giveaway - but the extra recipes are just because I like this stuff so much.

Pasta with Peas and (poor man's) Prosciutto ... featuring Pumpkin and Peppers #PumpkinCan

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of LIBBY’S Pumpkin. All opinions are 100% mine.

Pasta with Peas and Prosciutto is a classic dish, but not everyone has Prosciutto sitting around in the refrigerator. So, I decided to make my version using the famous Mr. Prosciutto's understudy, bacon.

And that's when things really got out of hand.

I mean, if you change one thing, you might as well go complete crazy, right?

The whole idea started with gnocchi. And pumpkin. Or actually pumpkin gnocchi, which is something I've made before. But this time, I decided to use the pumpkin to make a more standard pasta. And while peas and Prosciutto are classic, this may have verged a little bit towards Pasta Primavera, with the addition of some extra vegetables.

Then this conversation happened:

Ring-ring. Riiiiing-ring.

'ello ...

Hey, Donna, what are you doing today?

I'm going to make pasta.

But, that takes like 10 minutes.

No, I'm making pasta. Not just cooking it. Making it. Like, mixing and kneading and rolling it.

*moment of stunned silence* Okay, you're just crazy. I'm hanging up on you now.

Seriously, though, making pasta isn't that difficult, particularly if you have a few helpful tools. I used my stand mixer to do the kneading, and I used stand mixer attachment to roll and cut the pasta.

And, if you're wondering about pumpkin in pasta, the flavor isn't prominent, but it adds a slight earthiness and some color as well - it looks like a very egg-rich pasta with just one egg. Plus, you're getting the benefit of having a vegetable right there in the pasta, along with extra fiber and vitamins.

Although I haven't tried it, I'm sure this could be made without any egg at all - just use another 1/4 cup of pumpkin puree, or reduce the amount of flour.

For more ways to see what you can do with pumpkin, check out #PumpkinCan.


Pumpkin Pasta

3 cups (13 1/2 ounces) all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 large egg
1 cup LIBBY’S 100% Pure Pumpkin (from a 15-ounce can)

Combine all ingredients, then knead until smooth. The dough should be dense, not hard and it should feel stretchy and bouncy. If you're hand kneading, it's not as easy as kneading bread, but it should still be kneadable.

Cover the dough with plastic wrap and let it rest for a minimum of 30 minutes before rolling.

If you have a pasta machine, roll the pasta according to the manufacturer's instructions. No matter how you do it, you'll want to divide the pasta into 4-6 pieces before rolling, or you'll end up with massively long strips of pasta. If the dough seems wet and sticky after resting, flour it generously as you run it through the pasta machine. After a few runs through, it will need just a gently dusting, or perhaps no flour at all.

I used my stand mixer attachment and rolled to a final setting of 3, then cut it with the fettucini-sized cutter.

If you don't have a pasta maker, you can simply roll the dough very thin and cut it into strips with a sharp knife or pizza cutter.

If you're going to be piling the pasta up, make sure you dust it very generously to keep it from sticking to itself. If you have a pasta rack, you can also hang the pasta to keep it separated.

We're not going to let it get dry, so we just need to keep it separated long enough to cook it.

Pumpkin Pasta with Peas, Poor-man's Prociutto (Bacon!) and Peppers
Co-starring Pzucchini and Ponions (The p's are silent)

6 strips bacon
1 onion, diced
1 red bell pepper, cored, seeded, and diced
1 small zucchini, diced
2 tablespoons all purpose flour
1 cup milk (or cream, if you prefer)
1 batch pumpkin pasta
1/2 cup frozen green peas
Water or milk, as needed
Salt and pepper to taste

Put a large pot of generously salted water on to boil to cook the pasta. The pasta cooks very fast since it's fresh, and the rest of this comes together very quickly once everything is prepped.

Speaking of prepping, cut the bakon crosswise into strips about 1/4 in wide. When you cut the vegetables, cut them into pieces about the same size as the peas. They can be slightly larger, but we don't want giant chunks.

Once everything is prepped, heat a very large frying pan on medium and add the bacon. Cook, stirring as needed, just until the bacon becomes translucent.

Add the onions and stir. Let the onions cook until they're also barely translucent.

Add the bell pepper. Let this mixture cook, stirring as needed until the vegetables are almost cooked through.

Add the zucchini and cook for another minute or two, until you see that the zucchini is beginning to cook through. We're not looking for browning and we definitely don't want it soft.

If there's a lot of bacon grease in the bottom of the pan, drain some of it out - we want to retain some of it, but the vegetables shouldn't be drowning in grease.

Add the flour and stir to combine. This should dry up most or all of the oil in the pan. Continue cooking and stirring for a few minutes more. If the flour begins to brown a bit, that's fine, but we don't want it burning.

Now's a good time to drop that pasta into the boiling water. Shake off as much flour as you can before you drown it, and give it a stir to make sure it's not sticking together.

Add the milk to the vegetable mixture, and stir to combine. The mixture will thicken significantly. Let it come to a bubbly simmer and let it cook while the pasta cooks. If it thickens too much, add more milk or water to thin it to a sauce-like consistency. I don't suggest adding pasta water because it's probably got a lot of flour in it - even if you shook it off, there was probably plenty clinging to the surface.

Add a generous several grinds of black pepper to the vegetable mix, then taste and add more salt, if needed. Although the bacon is salty, we've got a lot going on here, so you might want a little more.

When the pasta is al dente - and watch it carefully because it doesn't take long - drain it and add it to the vegetables and sauce in the pan. If your pan isn't big enough to hold all the pasta, you can put everything back into the pasta cooking pot.

Add the peas and stir to make sure the pasta is coated with the sauce. At this point, you should have a gravy-like sauce clinging to the pasta. It shouldn't be watery. Cook it a little longer if it's too thin, and add more water if it seems to thick.

Serve hot.

Want more LIBBY'S? Find LIBBY’S Pumpkin on Facebook or LIBBY’S Pumpkin on Twitter or LIBBY’S Pumpkin on Pinterest.

Inspired by pasta (and a BLT)

When I found out that Hidden Valley had some new sandwich spreads, of course I wanted to play with them. These are interesting because they're made with white beans and cream cheese. The use of beans makes them a healthier option, but to be honest, I didn't know the beans were in there until long after the sandwiches had disappeared.

There are four flavors: Smoked Bacon Ranch, Country Herb Ranch, Oven Roasted Garlic Parmesan and Spicy Chipotle Pepper. I chose the Oven Roasted Garlic Parmesan. It reminded me of a pasta dish, with the garlic and cheese, and the first thing I thought of for a sandwich was chicken. I started by making a chunky chicken salad with diced chicken breast, sliced olives, and celery. I didn't need any more flavoring - the sandwich spread added everything I needed. It would have been good on its own - maybe in a lettuce wrap. But I made a more traditional sandwich - and of course it was on home made bread, because that's how I roll.

The spread I used would be great as a dip for vegetables, and would make great garlic bread. I could also imagine it drizzled over cooked vegetables or as a white sauce on a pizza. Lots of uses besides sandwiches, that's for sure.

But for today, here's a sandwich.

Inspired by Pasta (and a BLT)

1 cooked chicken breast (home cooked or a rotisserie chicken will be just fine)
12 olives, sliced
2 celery stalks, chopped
2-4 tablespoons Oven Roasted Garlic Parmesan sandwich spread
4 slices bread
1 large tomato, sliced
4 strips bacon, cooked

Combine the chicken, olives, and celery. Add 2 tablespoons of the sandwich spread and mix well. Add more if you prefer.

Divide the chicken salad onto 2 slices of bread. Add the bacon and tomato. Top with the remaining slices of bread. Slice and serve.

Hidden Valley’s line of new Sandwich Spreads & Dips will take your boring sandwich routine to another level. With new flavors like Spicy Chipotle Pepper and Oven Roasted Garlic Parmesan, your mouth will be thanking you and you’ll be on your way to delivering sandwich-envy.

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Hidden Valley Ranch. The opinions and text are all mine.

Sweet and Savory BLT Salad

Sometimes I think I have rocks in my head. I entered yet another contest at Marx Foods, this one about using sweet items in a savory dish.

Easy peasy, I thought, when I sent my name in.

Yeah, right. I had ideas for bits and pieces of a recipe, but none of it came together in a complete recipe. The only thing I was sure of was that I wanted to make some candied bacon.

But the more I thought of it, the more sweet-savory ideas I had for the four ingredients I had to work with.

I only needed to use two of them, but in the end I used all four. They were: vanilla beans, fennel flower crystals, honey powder, and coconut sap sugar.

I'm not a big fan of coconut, but the sugar is from the tree sap, and it doesn't really taste of coconut. It's got an earthy brown sugar flavor, but it doesn't seem to me that it's quite as sweet as brown sugar.

The fennel flower crystals were interesting. A pale green, they didn't have a strong fennel scent, but they burst with fennel flavor when I tasted them. And I liked the way they crunched. I wanted to use them as a garnish rather than melting them down and losing the delightful texture.

The honey powder is, well, sugar and honey in a small granulated form. Tastes like honey, pours like sugar.

And of course, vanilla beans.

I started with the idea of candied bacon and toyed with the idea of a BLT, but couldn't figure out what other sweet ingredient I could use in a sandwich. I could have baked a loaf of bread using one of the sugars, but it wouldn't have been a prominent ingredient. Hey, I watch Chopped a lot. I think of things like that.

I considered adding something sweet to the mayonnaise in the sandwich ... and then I started thinking about a wedge salad. Yes, my mind wanders off on its own a lot. But once I headed in the salad direction, I saw a lot of opportunities for using the sweet ingredients in a savory way.

If a BLT ran into a wedge salad in front of a candy store, this could be the result.

Surprisingly, it's not really sweet. There are bursts of sweetness from the bacon, but that's tempered by the bacon's saltiness. The vanilla and honey are tempered by the balsamic vinegar. And the fennel flower crystals are a nice accent to the dabs of mayo-based garlicky salad dressing.

Are you ready for this?

Sweet and Savory BLT Salad

For the candied bacon:
1/2 pound bacon
1/4 cup coconut sugar (more to taste)

For the vanilla balsamic drizzle:
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar (the cheap stuff is perfect)
2 tablespoons honey powder
1 vanilla bean, split and scraped

For the salad dressing:
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1/4 teaspoon dried lemon thyme
1/4 teaspoon sweet paprika
Pinch of garlic powder
Small pinch of honey powder
Small pinch of salt

For the salad:

Iceberg lettuce
Tomato
Cucumber
Candied bacon
Vanilla alsamic drizzle
Salad dressing
Fennel flower crystals

To make the candied bacon:
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and line a baking sheet with aluminum foil.

Lay the bacon strips side-by-side on the aluminum-foil-covered baking sheet, trying not to overlap the pieces. The half-pound should fit nicely on a half-sheet pan.

Sprinkle the bacon evenly with the coconut sugar. You want a thin layer over the bacon. If you missed a few spots, you can fill in with a little more sugar.

Bake the bacon at 400 degrees until the bacon is done to your liking, checking after 15-20 minutes, and checking fairly often after that. You've got sugar in a hot oven. There's a thin line between deeply caramelized and burned.

Transfer the cooked bacon to a wire rack to let the grease drip off. This is great warm or at room temperature, so you can make it in advance, if you like.

To make the vanilla balsamic drizzle:
Put the balsamic vinegar in a small saucepan. Add the honey powder and the split vanilla bean with its seeds. Simmer on low heat stirring, as needed, until the sugar melts and the mixture thickens and it has reduced to about half the original volume. You could do this quickly at a full boil, but the point is to infuse the vinegar with the vanilla flavor, so simmer slowly.

When the vinegar has reduced, let it cool, then remove the vanilla pod and transfer the liquid to a suitable container.

To make the salad dressing:
Combine all the ingredients in a small bowl. Taste and adjust seasonings, as desired. I normally thin my salad dressings with a bit of milk, buttermilk, or yogurt, but I wanted to keep this thick for piping. If you're going for a drizzle, thin the dressing to the desired consistency.

To assemble the salad:
Cut a wedge from a head of lettuce and remove the core. Place it on a plate.

Cut the tomato into wedges and arrange as many pieces as desired on the plate with the lettuce. Peel and cut the cucumber as desired. I cut mine in quarters horizontally, then into slices. Scatter the cucumber on top of the lettuce and tomato.

Cut or crumble the bacon (or use whole strips, if you like) and add it to the top of the salad. I'll admit that quite a bit of the bacon "disappeared" long before salad-making time. Use as much or as little bacon on the salad as you like. I'm sure you'll find plenty of uses for any leftovers.

Drizzle the vanilla balsamic over the salad - as much as you like. Leftovers can be mixed with olive oil to make salad dressing, or drizzled over fresh tomatoes and mozzarella cheese. Or, pretend it's an expensive balsamic, and drizzle over strawberries.

Dollop the salad dressing on the salad. I used a piping bag, because I was feeling flowery. I didn't use all the dressing, but it depends on how much you like and how large that lettuce wedge was. And remember, you've also got that balsamic!

Garnish with the fennel flower crystals. I sprinkled mine mostly on top of the mayo dressing. I thought it looked pretty and sparkly there.

And ... serve!

Bacon Biscuits

I love biscuits, and they're so easy to make, once you've figured out the technique. And they're fast. I can whip up a batch of biscuits while I'm waiting for a roast to rest - they're that fast.

I usually opt for smaller, taller biscuits, but this time I opted for wider, thinner biscuits for breakfast sandwiches. And, since I was thinking about breakfast, I added bacon to the biscuits.

These were also great for one of my favorite summer treats - tomato sandwiches. The hint of salty bacon was just right.

Bacon Biscuits

See the flaky layers? That's from folding the dough.

3 cups self-rising flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
3-4 strips of bacon, cooked until crisp, chilled
1 1/2 sticks cold unsalted butter
1 1/4 cups cold milk
Flour for dusting work surface

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Put the self-rising flour and salt in a large bowl. Chop the bacon into very small pieces and add it to the flour. Stir to combine.

Add the butter and cut with 2 knives or a pastry cutter until the butter is in small pieces - about the size of peas.

Add the milk and stir just until all the flour is moistened and the milk is absorbed. At this point, it's a pretty gloppy dough. That's fine.

Generously flour your work surface and turn out the dough, Flour the top of the dough. Roll the dough to approximately 16 inches square (ish). It doesn't need to be square. A vague roundish blob is fine.

Biscuit cutters from Good Cook - 3 sizes, two cutting sides.

Fold the top third of the dough over the middle third. It's good to use a dough scraper for this, since though dough isn't very cohesive at this point. Fold the bottom over the top piece.

Now fold the left and right over the center in the same way. You should have a mostly-square piece of dough.

Flour the work surface again to keep the dough from sticking and flour the top so the rolling pin doesn't stick. You shouldn't need as much flour as the first time.

Roll the dough again to about 16 inches square and fold as before.

Now, roll the dough to about 10 inches square to make 3-inch biscuits. The dough should be about 1/2 inch thick.

Cut nine 3-inch rounds from the biscuits using a biscuit cutter. Place them on the baking sheet, leaving a little space between them.

Tomato sandwich with yogurt cheese on a bacon biscuit.

Gather the scraps together, stacking them so that the horizontal layers you've made stay horizontal. Roll the dough to 1/2-inch thick, in a shape that will let you cut three more rounds.

The remaining dough scraps can be baked for biscuits, but the more you re-roll, the tougher the dough will get. I usually just bake odd-shaped pieces for snacking. If there's room on the same baking sheet, put the scraps there, or put them on a separate sheet to bake.

If you like, you can brush the tops of the biscuits with butter or milk.

Bake at 450 degrees until the biscuits are nicely browned, about 12-15 minutes.

Remove the biscuits from the pan and let them cool on a rack.

Bacon, egg, cheese and tomato? Oh, yes!

Hello, breakfast! Or lunch. Or dinner. Or mmmmmm bacon.

Bacon and eggs are good friends, right? And bacon and tomato are part of a classic sandwich. Add some cheese and an English muffin, and you've got a breakfast sandwich people will be fighting you for.

Let's take just a second to talk about cooking bacon. There are all sorts of methods - microwave, oven, stovetop ... Which do you choose?

I know some folks say that cooking in the microwave or in the oven is more efficient, but for some reason, I like cooking it in a pan on the stove. Maybe it's tradition or maybe I'm just stubborn.

One problem with cooking bacon in a pan is that it tends to curl up. The way to solve that little problem is with a bacon press - sometimes also known as a grill press. You can use that press to flatten or hold down things other than bacon, like when I used it to cook chicken on a grill. In that case, I cooked the chicken on my outdoor grill, but it would be just as good indoors on a grill pan.

Too much bacon in the pan? Nah.

Besides flattening foods (or in the case of bacon, keeping it flat), the press helps cook food faster and a little more evenly. The idea is that you heat the press while you're preheating the pan - or the grill - and when you put the press on top of the food, it cooks that food from both sides at once.

Mmmm. Crisp bacon!

If you don't want the bacon swimming in grease while it's cooking, you can use a grill pan rather than a frying pan or skillet. The bacon fat (oh, lovely bacon fat) drips down into the grooves of the pan, so your bacon is frying instead of turning into confit.

And then, of course, save that bacon fat - it's good for cooking other things.

Bacon, Egg, Cheese and Tomato English Muffin Sandwich

So good!

For each sandwich:
2 slices bacon
1 egg
1 slice cheese (I used colby - use what you like)
1 slice tomato
1 English Muffin, split

Cook the bacon until crisp. Cut in half or thirds, to fit the English muffins.

Cook the egg in an egg ring that will make it fit on the muffin. Cook it any way you like - scrambled, over easy, sunnyside up - or any other way.

Keep in mind that this is a sandwich, so an egg with a slightly soft yolk would be fine, but you probably don't want it completely runny. I opted for a soft yolk, but not super-oozy.

Or, if you prefer, poach the egg.

Toast the English muffin.

Now, stack it up! Put the cheese on the bottom half of the muffin. If you want that cheese melted, you can pop it in the microwave for a few seconds, or in a toaster oven - or whatever works for you*.

Bacon goes on top of the cheese, and then put the tomato on top of that. Put the egg on top of the tomato. Put the muffin top on, and serve.

Repeat as necessary.

*Or, you can assemble the sandwich then heat in a sandwich press - I used one that's specifically made for breakfast sandwiches like this.

Good Cook provided me with the bacon press as part of their Kitchen Experts program.

Bacon, tomato and chipotle guacamole

I never thought I'd make guacamole from a recipe. I mean, why bother? I know what I like in my guacamole, and most of the time, I like it fairly plain - and sometimes completely austere. Onions, a squeeze of lime, cilantro, and a bit of salt, and I'm happy.

But fate let me to this recipe. I happened to have exactly enough leftover bacon to make it, I had all the other ingredients at hand, and chicken mole was on the menu. And I brought tortilla chips home from the farmer's market. How could I not try it?

This recipe makes enough guacamole for a crowd, but it's fairly easy to cut down to size. Chipotle peppers are easy to find at the grocery store. They come in cans, and a little goes a long way. Most recipes only need a pepper or two, but once you've tried them you'll find other uses. They'll last a while in the refrigerator, or you can freeze them for later use.


Bacon-and-Tomato Guacamole  
Adapted from "Fiesta at Rick's" by Rick Bayless

1/2 medium white onion, chopped
3 ripe avocados
2 or 3 canned chipotles in adobo, stems and seed removed, and chopped
1 tomato, cored and chopped into 1/8 inch pieces
5 strips medium-thick bacon, cooked until crisp, drained, and crumbled
1/4 cup loosely packed cilantro, thick stems removed and chopped
Salt, to taste
1 or 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

To take some of the bite out of the onion, put the chopped onion into a strainer and rinse it under cold water. Shake to get rid of excess water, and let it drain well.

Remove the meat from the avocados and put it into a medium bowl. Mash the avocado lightly, leaving some chunks. Add the onion, pepper, bacon and cilantro, setting aside some of the bacon and cilantro for garnish, if desired. Stir gently to combine. Taste and add salt as desired (about 1/2 teaspoon) and half of the lime juice. Taste again and adjust salt and lime as desired.

If you aren't serving this immediately, lay plastic wrap directly on the surface of the guacamole and refrigerate until serving time. Garnish with the reserved cilantro and bacon for serving.