It's All About the Bacon

Maple Bacon Cinnamon Rolls

Our family tradition is to have cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning; if any of you have made these, send us a picture!

Recipe from Delicious Coma via Back to Bakas

[h/t hilker]

Bacon Latkes

Recipe from thefoodmonkey.com

via brooksbayne

Last-minute Bacon Gifts »

Gift certificates from Amazon.com are a great last-minute gift option, since you can print them out right at home, and Amazon carries plenty of bacon merchandise!

Sweet Chicken Bacon Wraps

Oh man, these look soooo good. This would be a great addition to Chrismas-dinner!

Recipe by othersideof50

via brooksbayne

OK, here's the deal...

As you know, Oscar Mayer gave us some coupons for a free pack of their super thick-cut Applewood-Smoked Bacon.

At first, we were tempted to use all of the coupons for ourselves and see if we could subsist on nothing but applewood Bacon (a la Mike Nelson) for the month of January. But after discussing this with our boss, loved ones and priest, we have decided instead to give them away to our readers (that’s YOU!)

We will send a coupon to the seven best photo submissions of a bacon creation made over the Holidays— be it a recipe, a work of art, a Christmas sweater made entirely out of weaved bacon… whatever! Include a contact email (will not be published) so we can get a hold of you, and preferably a link to the photo on your blog, flickr or wherever.

When submitting, make sure to select “Submit a Photo” from the drop-down menu. We’re going to pick our favorites on January 4, 2010, so get your submissions in by then, ‘kay?

Let the bacon-games begin!

Some ideas to get your bacon-mind-grapes churning:

mrtbrown:

This is three pieces of crispy fried bacon in vodka

The recipie says to leave it for three weeks, then freeze to congeal the fat before running through a coffee filter.

The bacon went in on Saturday.

Excellent work! Let us know how it turned out.

ILoveTacBac.com

Man, this guy really loves his Tactical Bacon!

by ohlordygordy

Grilled Bacon-Wrapped Asparagus Skewers

by disneymike on flickr

via f-word

Bacon Wallet

from mousch on Etsy

New Orleans-Style Maple-Bacon Pralines

So, Oscar Mayer is promoting their new Super thick-cut Applewood-Smoked Bacon, and were kind enough to send us over a couple packages with some recipes to try (they even covered the cost of the other ingredients!). The bacon is indeed super thick-cut, which we likey!

The recipe (from their super-fancy in-house chef, Chef Li) is as follows:

6 Slices Oscar Mayer Super Thick Cut Applewood-smoked bacon
1/4 cup butter
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup whipping cream
6 oz pecan halves
1 tsp. ground cinnamon

Cook bacon (recipe calls for skillet, but we prefer baking); drain on paper towels and chop finely.
Place next five ingredients in large saucepan; cook on medium heat 15 min. or until temperature reaches 239 F (soft-ball stage) on candy thermometer, stirring occasionally.
Remove saucepan from heat. Stir in bacon, nuts and cinnamon. Immediately pour onto baking sheet sprayed with cooking spray; refrigerate 10 min. or until firm. Break into bite-size pieces.

Out pralines turned out very well, and were perfect to serve at our Christmas party last weekend. The only thing we would note is that it took much less than 15 minutes for our goo to get to 239 F on medium heat, so be prepared for this to go faster; we recommend getting a candy thermometer.

We’re not sure why smoking bacon with Applewood is all the craze these days; we should look into that. Our friend Jody tells us that apple wood has a high BTU output; maybe that has something to do with it. Either way, the bacon tastes excellent, and we found the thickness to be more conducive to baking than regular bacon. Seriously; if you like bacon, try out this stuff— you won’t regret it.

Oscar Mayer also gave us some coupons for free packs of their super thick cut Applewood-smoked bacon to give out to our readers, (!) so we’re going to concoct a sweet contest later this week… stay tuned!