BACON, bacon, bacon, bacon

Meat lovers have deeply imbedded this commercial in their mental clouds especially when they think of bacon.  How many times have you ordered bacon, made bacon, served bacon, picked up bacon in the cooler section and not thought of saying “BACON, bacon…..”  You get the idea.  

Our family is a breakfast family.  We enjoy a wonderful Sunday breakfast.  My hubby would always make the bacon in the microwave and quite frankly, it was tough, took a lot of time, made a mess and created an uncomfortable situation when handling the grease – just saying.   As a young girl, we always made bacon in the cast-iron skillet.  It took forever, made a huge mess on the stove, you needed to dump the grease into your bacon jar (yes, we had one) and clean up – yuk. 

One day I was watching my FAVORITE Food Network chef, Ina Garten, and one of the recipes was roasted bacon.  GETOUT!  Why hadn’t I thought of that before?  Somewhere in time I thought I saw her make it with sprinkling pepper on it which we adopted.  My hubby does not like the additional taste of maple syrup from her recipe but enjoys the pepper taste if we add it. 

What Ina doesn’t address is clean up.  I line my pan with foil – the miracle marvel of all cooks, good and bad.  When clean up time comes around you just gather the sides together, secure the foil, and toss. 

The basic premise to roasting bacon is use one pound of thick cut bacon – your choice.  I love, love, love Costco’s Kirkland Maple Flavored Bacon and it’s finally back in the stores.  Inexpensive and delicious.

• Preheat the oven to 400°
• Line your heavy duty broiler pan or handled jelly roll pan with foil.
• Place a baking rack in the pan.
• Line up your bacon side by side.
• Place it in the 400° oven and roast for 20 minutes to your preferred doneness.
• Remove from oven.  Let it rest.  Place the bacon on a paper towel lined serving dish.
• To clean up, wait till the grease has cooled.  Gather the sides securely and dispose of.

Once you make your bacon this way, it will become your preferred way to make bacon.

Mangiere bene (Eat Well)