Everybody loves them some bacon! Crispy, tasty, salty… it’s the perfect food. There are tonnes of things you can do with it — sandwiches and salads are just the beginning.
If you don’t eat pork or meat, I’ll be giving some alternatives. You have no excuse!
1. Popcorn: Drizzle the bacon grease over popcorn. Instead of butter, not in addition, you fool. Break up the bacon itself into little pieces and mix it in with the popcorn. Add salt and cheese to taste.
Alternatively, you can make sweet popcorn, using dried or fried apple and cinnamon instead of bacon. Syrup can replace the bacon grease — maple, Aunt Jemima’s, or cough.
2. Bacon Banana Bread: Mix bacon in with your banana bread — Use your own recipe. Half a cup or so of crumbled bacon will be good. It may sound odd, but think about it, there is salt in banana bread and there is oil or fat. It won’t be that odd, just a little interesting (and bacony.)
Alternatively, fry some bananas in a little salt, chop them up, and use them the same way.
3. Bacon Brittle: Like peanut brittle, except with bacon. Boil one part water and two parts sugar in a saucepan for 8-10 minutes. Stir in one part peanuts and a spoonful of butter, with spices to taste. At the same time, add in a few chopped-up slices of bacon.
Alternatively, use chocolate or candy, with a bit of salt.
If you don’t eat peanuts, see above, but replace the peanuts with either sweets or a snack cereal. you can also use your imagination, there are dozens of things you can put in brittle.
4. Bacon and Date Appetizers: Quite simple, actually. Slit the dates open, and stuff almonds outside, and wrap them in uncooked strips of bacon. Bake the appetizers until the bacon is crispy. Voila!
Alternatively, use thin strips of sweet dough; buttery dough, like that used in croissants.
5. Bacon as a garnish: You can add bacon to anything. Literally. Crumbled bacon makes an excellent topping for cookies and cupcakes. Use it on a cake or like peanuts on icing. Bacon works really well when paired with maple; sprinkling bacon bits on top of maple icing is positively delicious.
Alternatively: I can only suggest the good old standby, maple walnut. If you feel like being weirder, you can use fake bacon; obviously, that goes for all of the above recipes.
Good luck, and happy bacon-ing!
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