Bacon Popcorn Chocolate

20 February 2012

Share this post

And The Lord Said 'Let There Be Obesity': And There Was Obesity.

I made bacon popcorn the other day, and as I was munching away it hit me both bacon and popcorn goes rather well with chocolate. So why has no one made a bacon popcorn chocolate bar? Quite possibly my favourite chocolate in the whole wide world is this salty Norwegian oddity called Smash (for some reason the English product page has no pictures, so you'll have to make do with the Norwegian one) which has asbolutely nothing to do with instant mash potato. Rather, it's a salty cornbased thing not unlike a tortilla chip, dipped in milk chocolate. It's freaking delicious- salt, crunch and chocolate all go ridiculously well together.

So my basic logic was, popcorn is cruncy, bacon is salty, milk chocolate is milk chocolate. Except bacon isn't just salty, bacon is delicious beyond words and superior to salt in every way imaginable, which means that in theory combining the three should lead to the creation of a chocolate bar better even than Smash. With that said, we all know that sometimes ideas that seem amazing in theory simply aren't when you actually put them into practice - I'm looking at you, bacon smoothie - but trust me when I say that popcorn bacon chocolate is amazing. (Cue blowing of own trumpet) in fact it's so good, I wouldn't be surprised to find that old adage "best thing since sliced bread" will become instantly obsolete upon by sharing this with the world. Prepare yourself for a new era, that of "best thing since bacon popcorn chocolate". Or maybe not. Either way, I liked it.

Homemade Bacon Popcorn

19 February 2012

Share this post

Toffee? Butter? Salt? I'll stick with bacon, thanks.

Ever since my review of J&D's Bacon Popcorn, I've wanted to have a go at making some myself. With actual, real, meaty, porky bacon in it (J&D is vegetarian - and no I don't have a problem with that, because they're still delicious. Just sayin'). Finding popcorn kernels that don't come in a plastic bag, with flavouring, reading to be shoved in a microwave turned out to be quite a challenge, however. None of my local grocery shops had any, but in the end I found some in a hippie-wholefoods type shop in town. This was a couple of months ago - after finding the kernels I put them in a cupboard and promptly forgot about them - and now the shop across the street stocks them. Ah well..

Porktastic Bacon Burger With Mustard Onion

15 February 2012

Share this post

The Definition of Sophistication?

 Why hello there, bacon fans. It's been a while, I know - university has been handing my (language warning: sensitive readers are advised to skip the word immediately following this bracket, and in its place think "bottom" or other suitable synonym for arse) arse to me, so I haven't had much time to eat bacon. Well, that's a blatant lie, I've eaten tonnes of it - but I haven't had much time to take pictures of it prior to stuffing my greedy little face. Having been out for a couple of beers last night, though, I decided to take today off and create the manliest porkiest burger I could, and if I may say so myself - which indeed I may - I think I did a pretty good job.

What you see above was inspired by an episode of Man vs Food where Adam visited a burger joint where, in a rather un-American fashion, they had decided to make each patty tiny and serve up lots of them, rather than going for individual bulk. I thought that was a near idea as it allows you much more freedom in getting your patty-to-topping ratio the way you like it. The beast above consists of 1 onion, 3 slices of Edame, 4 rashers of smoked bacon, and 6 burger patties. Oh, and BBQ sauce. Here's how it's done:

Chocolate Bacon Cake

21 January 2012

Share this post

It ain't pretty, but it's good.

As you will know if you happen to be one of the people to follow me on Twitter, last night I hosted a "come dine with me"-inspired meal through the University of Edinburgh's Come Dine With Me Society. For anyone unfamiliar with the show, the basic idea is that you get a group of strangers around and cook them a meal - the TV version includes voting and a cash prize as well, though, whereas the society is just for a giggle. So, I invited 5 people around and cooked them a three course meal consisting of a mushroom soup starter, which was served with cheese straws with bacon (recipe to follow, didn't snap a pic so will have to make them again someday soon), chocolate-rubbed fillet of pork with a root vegetable terrine and whisky sauce for mains, and bacon cake for dessert. The plan was to serve the bacon cake with a salted maple crème, but in the end I didn't really have time to make it and, to be honest, the cake is at least as good on its own.

Chicken and Bacon Pâté

04 January 2012

Share this post

This will, quite possibly, be the least bacony thing I post on this blog. It's certainly the least bacony thing I have posted thus far. That, however, does not mean that it doesn't have a fair old bit of bacon in it; what it does mean is that the bacon flavour isn't quite as dominant as in some of my other recipes.. I actually contemplated not posting the recipe up for that very reason, but at the end of the day it was just too darn tasty not to. For the true baconoholics out there I will do my best to create more pure-bread bacon pâté in the near future, so stay tuned for that if this isn't quite hardcore enough for you. That said, this is cheap, easy to make, and insanely tasty - so I'd definitely recommend giving it a go. You could always serve it with a rasher or two if you wanted to.

Chocolate and Bacon Shortbread

26 December 2011

Share this post

Bacon, Chicken & Strawberry Pizza

11 November 2011

Share this post

Between university work and even more university work I haven't had the time to post anything on here for ages, and chances are that I won't in the near future. When I came across this recipe for a strawberry and bacon pizza by Chris over at the Cafe Sucre Farine, though, I knew that there was no point in trying to resist the temptation of making it - and since I was trying it out anyway, there's no reason not to write up a short post on it as well, right? 

The idea of putting strawberries on a pizza may strike some of you as odd - I'd certainly never heard of it before - but as it turns out, it's absolutely genius. If only my pizza base had been better (my first attempt was too soggy, the second rather too bready, gah!) this would be right up there in my top-5 all-time favourite pizzas. The only problem is that strawberries are darn expensive in the autumn/winter! Anywho, here's Chris' recipe (converted to metric measurements for my fellow Europeans; if you prefer cups and to ml, head on over to the original post which I linked to above) - 

Bacon Guacamole

05 September 2011

Share this post

A couple of weeks ago Dane and fellow bacon enthusiast Kasper Wendelboe somehow stumbled across my humble blog, and decided to share with me and my readers something magical: his recently perfected recipe for bacon guacamole! I've finally had a chance to make it and trust me when I say that it is utterly delicious. For anyone who speaks Danish or fancies getting their google translate on, you can check our Kasper's blog and the original source of the recipe here: Music for People - Bacon Guacamole.

As you can see I decided to serve the guacamole in a bacon bowl alongside some delicious chilli made by Mrs Bacon (not sure she would appreciate that nickname - don't tell her), paired with a cold bottle of Desperados (a Tequila flavoured beer). In other words, my dinner consisted of meat served in meat with a side of meat, and a bottle of beer: good times. For anyone who fancies making some (and you all should!) here's Kasper's recipe:

First Attempt at a Bacon Bowl

04 September 2011

Share this post

Review: J&D's Bacon Popcorn

03 September 2011

Share this post

Update: I've just posted a bacon popcorn recipe, for anyone who fancies making their own.

It's been a while since I posted anything now - between going on holiday and having been a bit ill, I basically haven't had the time to cook/take pics/write lately. That will all change soon (with the Bacon Guacamole recipe I mentioned on Twitter, which was sent to me by one of my visitors - but more on that later); until then, here's a quick review of some Bacon Popcorn I found in TK Maxx (of all places!) a short while back. They're made by J&D, whose other creations include the infamous Baconnaise and Bacon Salt (I still haven't had the pleasure to try either, but will definitely order some in and review them, too, later on).