Bacon Haricots Verts

THIS RECIPE IS A LIE! Well, not really, but I wanted to start off with something dramatic. I am a meat and potatoes kind of guy, and the fact that this is a vegetable recipe makes it seem untrustworthy to me. Damn vegetables and their damn vitamins and minerals. Damn them. Ever since I started shopping at Aldi, however, I find myself buying and eating more fruits and vegetables. This may have to do with Megan always adding them to our cart, but I can't be sure.

My grandmother was from Alabama. She had a certain way to cook green beans that was extremely southern. As in green beans + bacon = cooking them together all day. The result was very tasty, but mushy. This recipe keeps the bacon, but leaves you with crisp beans.

There is wisdom in cooking vegetables with bacon (or deep frying them, but that's another post) especially for people like me who are not of the vegetarian persuasion. If you asked me to eat a bowl of nails, I wouldn't do it, but if you told me they were cooked with bacon...I still wouldn't eat it, but I'd consider it. There it is. Bacon makes you eat healthier.

BACON HARICOTS VERTS:

16 oz. fresh green beans ($1.39)
2 slices bacon diced ($2.99 for 16 oz.)
1/2 small onion diced ($0.99 for 2 lbs.)
1 tbs butter ($2.29 for 1 lbs.)
Salt and pepper to taste

First rinse off and prepare the green beans. By prepare them, I mean snap off both ends of the beans, and get rid of any that look like you might not want to eat them. One thing about Aldi produce is that it goes bad quickly. Do not expect to buy green beans and then cook them a month later. I have been assured by numerous people who have no background in agriculture whatsoever, that the fact that the produce does not last indefinitely is a good thing. I invite these people to go live on an organic farm and use ancient Chinese medicine that led to an average life expectancy of 40 and an infant mortality rate of  50%. I prefer my apples irradiated.

 Now, boil enough water to cover the beans, and set up a bowl big enough to fit all the beans with some ice water in it. You can boil the water in a pot, but if you do it in a large saucepan, you will have to clean fewer dishes later. Once the water is boiling, add the beans for 1 minute. Then drain the beans and put them in the ice water bath. Take them out of the bath once cooled and pat them dry with paper towels.



Next heat up that saucepan again over medium heat. Once hot, throw in the diced bacon. Cook until there is enough bacon grease to work with, we don't want the bacon crispy yet. Add the onions and 1 tbs butter as well as salt and pepper. Start cooking those onions until they start to brown stirring frequently.

Now, add the the beans. You will only need to cook the beans until they are heated through, a couple of minutes. You can add more salt and pepper if you like. Just make sure it tastes the way you like, unless you're making this for someone else, then make it taste the way you like anyway. They're getting a free meal and shouldn't complain.

 There you have it. Green beans with bacon and onion, or Bacon haricots verts if you're feeling fancy. Seriously, call it that and most people will think it's some superb French masterpiece, assuming of course you didn't screw up the recipe. If they don't think it's a superb French masterpiece, I blame you.

Hot Candied Bacon

So, I hopped on Pinterest after being absent from the internets for a time, and I found something amazing, and by amazing I mean important to absolutely no one but me. Aldi is following my board for this blog. Megan immediately indicated that it probably wasn't really Aldi, as Dwight Schrute is apparently following her. In truth it isn't Aldi, but the PR company ALDI US has hired to run their Pinterest board (Weber Shandwick). This excites me. Not because I believe that Aldi will somehow sponsor me or become involved in any way (seriously, have you read this blog?), but because I can picture the PR folks coming to this blog, finding it amusing, then realizing they can never tell their client about it.

It's been about a week, so I expect the cease and desist letter anytime now.

I've also been told I do not blog enough. It's true I've been posting about once a month for the past two months, but I promise to post more. I have a whole bunch of microwave based posts coming up, and even bumped into someone who wants to guest post. I am so on the ball that I managed to not get any of her contact information. Yeah.

Anyway, how do you follow up two posts about eggs? A post about bacon. Megan calls bacon "meat candy" for good reason, because it is everything that is awesome about meat. It's crispy and it melts in your mouth. We use bacon to make great meats taste even better. Bacon is the official meat of your mom, it was also the first meat in space, and is so good it is now considered vegetarian by PETA. These are all facts that you should in no way attempt to verify. Facts.

HOT CANDIED BACON:

8 slices of thick cut bacon ($5.69 for 24 oz.)
1 cup brown sugar ($1.49 for 32 oz.)
1/4 cup hot sauce ($0.99 for 17 oz.)

Preheat the oven to 350 and line a baking sheet with foil. Fill a bowl with the hot sauce and another bowl with the sugar. If you have metal racks that fit on the baking sheet, I find that those are very useful. If you don't, use a broiler pan.

Take a slice of bacon and dip it in the hot sauce until it is fully coated. Lift the bacon and allow the excess to drain back into the bowl. Now put the bacon into the brown sugar and coat the strip of bacon with it. Now place the strip of bacon on the rack or broiler pan. Keep doing this until you run out of space for the bacon. Sprinkle any excess sugar over the bacon. If there isn't any excess sugar, the excess sugar is in the bag marked "brown sugar." Put the bacon in the oven and let it cook for 20-25 minutes or until done to your desired doneness.

 I used the thick cut bacon, but you can use thin if you like. Maple flavored bacon is great for this recipe. Once the bacon has cooled a bit (it will crisp up as it cools) use some kitchen shears to cut the bacon into bite size pieces. We put this out at parties, and it tends to disappear. The spicy and the sweet mixed with the salty and that it's bacon makes this one of our favorite snacks. Megan was extremely happy as I tried to get the recipe for this right, because we had a lot of sugared bacon around the house. This puts most people in a good mood. That's it. Now go make bacon.