What to give the Grill Man in Your Life - Chocolate Bacon

Father's Day... A week away.

Have you started pondering the perfect gift for the man in your life?

Give him what he really wants.  Something that acknowledges his unique tastes and a unique presentation for everyone's favorite food...

Chocolate covered bacon!!!

It really is very easy.  I tried a new presentation that worked very well.  I cut a slice of bacon into three equal sized pieces.  Then I rolled each piece into a tube shape and secured with two toothpicks.  Then bake 'em.

Pre heat oven to 400 degrees e
set each tube of bacon on a parchment sheet covered cookie sheet
Bake for 20 minutes until the edges are crispy
Allow to cool completely before dipping.

For the chocolate, select your favorite dipping chocolate, melt slowly in a microwave or double boiler.  Be careful that the chocolate does not get above 88 degrees.  Takes a little time and effort, but the slower you melt chocolate the better.  Also "Temper" your chocolate by adding about 20% at the end without additional microwaving or off the heat.  Do a google search for tempering for more details... Makes the best chocolates when it is done correctly.

And from there, dip away.  I dipped, allowed the chocolate to drip off as much as possible.  Air dried for about 30 seconds for each piece and then stood the piece on end.

When I had them finished and they completely dried and set I garnished with a drizzle of white chocolate.

Sweet Salty Delicious and.... BACON BACON BACON!!!

Cinnamon Rolls

This is yet another leftover recipe... really.

Did you all catch my Peach Strudel post I did over at my sister blog...  Inspired by eRecipeCards???

Have you seen the fresh peaches showing up at the grocery store lately.... And CHEAP!  Sounded like strudel time to me.  Well, the strudel came out terrific.  But I planned ahead.  I made a double batch of the dough, planning on left overs.

So, early one Sunday morning, I woke early, sneaked out of the bed so as not to disturb the rest of my long suffering (her with the inconvenient day job) wife.  I took the spare ball of dough out of the fridge,  and did a quick warm up (kneaded by hand for about ten minutes to get the dough warm enough to work with, yet still cold enough to roll out.

Form into a rectangle about  1/12 foot wide, 1 foot tall.

Mise en Place a melted stick of butter
The cinnamon mix of 2 TBS Sugar, 1 TBS ground Cinnamon

Brush the butter over the entire dough surface.  As much as the dough will hold and sprinkle the sugar mixture over the butter... As much as you can with it all absorbing.

Moisten the far side of the dough (top edge in the photo) with more of the butter so that it sticks when you roll it up.

Starting at the bottom, evenly roll up the dough into a stick.

Slice the stick of sugared dough into about 1 to 1 1/2 inch circles... Like this...

Stand them up in a pie plate, allow to rise for about 30 minutes.  This dough is not a heavy yeast dough, but they did come rise a bot, adding about 50% of volume.

Bake at 375 degrees for about 12 minutes (I like them a little dough and chewy, so underdone.  Feel free to bake for 15 minutes if you like.

While they are baking, take 1/2 cup of confectioner's sugar, add a tbs of milk (more to get the thinner, less to get a thicker consistency) and stir into a drizzle.

And your long suffering spouse with those inconvenient day jobs can wake up to the smell of fresh made cinnamon rolls.

A pretty good use for leftovers... Be sure to check out my post on the Peach Strudel to get my recipe for the sweetened dough that I used.  Worked pretty good!

Let Them Eat Quiche - Bacon, Spinach and Swiss

I was in a quiche mood the other day... Eggy, custard canvas just waiting to be filled.

I made two this day, one a bit of a classic... this one filled with spinach and bacon and flavored with a classic nutty Swiss cheese.  I also made the crust from hash browns with a bit of my garden peppers tossed in.

I also made a bit of a spectacular experiment...

Spicy Salami, sharp provolone cheese and sweet banana peppers to balance out the flavors..

I am not sure what happened, as I baked each an equal amount of time and basically used the same process.  But in the bacon, spinach and Swiss version, the "fixins" rose to the top and the spinach caramelized (fancy name for that dark color, not quite burnt, but a bit crispy.  In the spicier version, the top was more a golden brown... But you will have to check out today's post on my sister blog, Inspired by eRecipeCards.com to see the details of that quiche.

So, let's talk about this tasty treat... very easy to make and delicious.

The crust comes together easy with a food processor using the shredding blade.  For each I shredded

3 medium sized russet potatoes,
1 medium yellow onion and
1 green pepper (picked fresh from my garden!!!

Once everything is shredded, squeeze as much of the liquid out as you can.  There is plenty, well over a cup.  If you skip this step you will get very soggy potato crust.

Preheat your oven to 375.
spray a pie plate with non stick canola oil
line the bottom and sides of the pan with an even amount of the potato mix... about 1/2 an inch.
Bake in the oven for about 15 minutes.

This gets the potatoes crispy and firm.  Again, if you skip this step you will have soggy potato crust.

While this is baking, dice up about 1/3 of a pound of bacon into pieces about the size of a dime.  Saute these until they are just cooked and most of the fat has rendered out.

Shred about 4 ounces of Swiss Cheese

Whisk together
4 eggs
1 cup Half and Half (can use whole milk)

Cut your spinach into thin strips.

When the crust has finished it's par-baking time, line the bottom with half of the cheese.  Again, this prevents the eggy liquid from making the potatoes soggy and losing their crispness that the par-baking session does.

add the bacon and spinach and fill to the rim with the eggy mixture.

Top with the remaining cheese.

Return to the 375 degree oven for about 45-50 minutes until the center egg mixture does not jiggle.

Allow to cool for 10 minutes before serving.

Add a dollop of sour cream, a few sliced green onions and salt and pepper (I used my Sodom and Gomorrah Low Salt Substitute mixture of Salt, Garlic Flakes and equal parts Black and White Sesame Seeds).

Breakfast lunch or in this case DELICIOUS Dinner!

Stromboli - More Pulled Pork Leftovers

Ain't the little piggy plate cute???  Twenty Five cents at a garage sale.. Who could resist?

And my Strombli sandwich... Who could resist this?

It is mostly a Philly Cheese Steak inspired rolled pizza.  I used my cold rise go-to pizza dough...

Pizza Dough...

4 1/2 cups chilled Flour
1 3/4 tsp Salt
1 tsp instant Yeast
1/4 cup Olive Oil
1 3/4 cups COLD Water (40 degrees)

Makes 4 pizzas

OK, did you read the 2 cold ingredients. Takes an extra hour or two of planning, I measure the water and the flour and pop them in the fridge for a couple hours to get cold. The small amount of yeast, relative to the amount of flour and the cold will make for a flat bread, almost no fermentation (rise). Just enough to soften the taste, but not make a big rise.

In my pre Kitchenaid days, I mixed and kneaded this recipe in a gallon size ziplock bag. Worked great, largely I believe because of the oil in the recipe. Without that, the dough would be too sticky to mix in a bag. But this sure made clean up easy.

Here's what I did...

• Mix the dry ingredients first
• add the water and oil about a fourth of each at a time
• mix well until all the flour is hydrated and you form a large dough ball in your bag 
• continue kneading for about 10 minutes, or if you use your kitchenaid, use the dough hook attachment, and allow the machine to knead for 7 minutes
• And now, time to divide... Generously sprinkle a work surface with flour. Also, prepare 4 ziplock sandwich size bags (bigger works fine as well) by spraying the insides of them with spray canola oil.
• Plop the dough ball into the flour and coat well. Divide into 4 equal parts (or fewer if you know you are making larger pizzas). Put each dough ball into a prepared ziplock bag and refrigerate at least 6 hours, and preferably overnight.

The "guts" of the sandwich is a bit like that Philly famous sandwich...

Pulled pork in place of the steak

Grilled Peppers and Onions

Cheese sauce (I made a provolone sauce)

It is optional to add a bit of BBQ sauce, especially if the pork has dried out a bit while it morphed into leftovers.  If your pork is still fork tender and juicy, I prefer to skip this ingredient.

OK... The sandwich is very simple to make...

Roll out a rectangle shape pizza

Top with your ingredients

gently roll the rectangle to form a tube

Moisten the edges either with water or an egg wash

Brush the egg wash on top, add some decorative tasty toppings... Me, I used my beloved SODOM and GOMORAH low salt substitute of equal parts coarse sea salt, garlic flakes, white and black sesame seeds.

Bake at 375 for about 15 minutes checking to make sure the dough is turning golden brown and delicious!

Like this...

Pulled Pork Savory Bread Pudding from Left Overs

Left overs... My very favorite ingredient!

Omelets and pizzas come to mind as something that is usually (at least for me) something I never shop for.  Time to clear out the fridge... Time for an omelet party.  Just enough meat for a sandwich left... make a pizza instead.

But for this dish, I was inspired as I was hollowing out a Big roll of sandwich bread.

If you saw my post on, You've seen this sandwich before; you read where I hollowed out the bread in order to add more of the good stuff to a sandwich.

This is what I did with the leftover bread....

A trick to a great bread pudding is to use stale dried out bread.  If you have to, cut into small pieces and dry it out in a warm oven for awhile.  The Alton Brown science of this makes sense... If the bread is still moist tender and delicious, there is no room for the bread to absorb additional moisture.  There is already saturated moisture in the bread.  Once it has dried out, the internal moisture evaporated into the air, the bread is ready to absorb the creamy, eggy, custard mixture.  If you have ever had a bread pudding where you can make out bread cubes, the cook used fresh bread.

As to a savory bread pudding... They are GREAT!  Bread Puddings, They are not just for dessert anymore.  Just skip the Rum Sauce ;)

I do not really measure anything for this dish.  If you have more meat, GREAT
If you have more egg than cream... GREAT
If you make this with just vegetables... GREAT

But, for this particular one, here's (my best approximate guess) on what I did...

2 cups Stale Bread
1 cup Minced Pulled Pork
4 Eggs
1 cup Heavy Cream
1 diced tomato
1 small minced onion
1/2 cup grated Provolone Cheese
4 large Basil Leaves cut into strips
Salt and Pepper (and garlic flakes and some toasted sesame seeds)

1. Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees
2. Spray a baking dish (Pie plates work great for this, or a 9X9 pan would work as well)
3. Whisk together the Egg, Cream and spices.  Soak the bread.  It should be the consistency of a wet stew, not too soupy, but wet.  If you need to, add milk to the mix.
4. Add the Pork, vegetables, Cheese and 1/2 of the basil
5. Mix well and pour in the pan.
6. Bake for 40 minutes until the center is almost set, add the remaining Basil and bake for about 10 minutes more.

A good breakfast

A better lunch 

and a WONDERFUL Supper!

Saturday Garden Photo - Cherry Tomato in the Rain

You've seen this sandwich before, but I improved on it...

Today's post is a tip, tomorrow will be a recipe

 Dramatic presentation...

Ooozing and gushing with...

Pulled Pork
Lettuce
Provolone Cheese
Pickles
Cole Slaw
Raspberry Chipotle (my own) BBQ sauce
on a fresh made Bread Wreath

What could be better???

Look close at the next two photos...

See the difference???

I hollowed out the top of the "bun" so that it was an easier to eat sandwich (and held more of the good stuff).

BUT  with the bread, it was just enough to make a...

Pulled Pork Savory BREAD PUDDING from the leftovers!

Now THAT's a BETTER SANDWICH when you make it easier to stuff more of the good stuff in, make it easier to eat AND have a beauty of a breakfast...

Come back tomorrow for the recipe to the puddin!