Baconated Potatoes

So, I've been meaning to make Spätzle, photograph it, and write up a nice recipe.

The problem is, tomorrow is Hitler's birthday. It's not really the time of year to be celebrating German things. So, even though I have relatives names Braunscheidel, it is going to have to wait.

Instead we'll do Baconated Potatoes. These things work for pot-lucks, brunches, Christmas or the Fourth of July. They re-heat well if you return them to the frying pan.

The rules are really loose here and dependent on personal tastes. This is a recipe of "some"s and "about"s. I use about 4 pounds of potatoes and about a pound of bacon. That makes enough for a party, so your mileage may vary

1. Remove blemishes from some potatoes and chop them. (You can peel them, but the skins won't hurt you unless you eat a whole lot. Just make sure there aren't ugly spots or eyes.)

2. Bring a nice big pot of seasoned water to a boil for the potatoes. (Salt and pepper make everything better. A little oil in the pot helps keep things from boiling over.)

3. Drop the potatoes in when the water is boiling. (Be careful not to burn yourself.)

4. You are going to want to boil the potatoes until tender. It usually takes about 20 minutes, but may take longer depending on the size of your chop and the age and breed of potato.

5. While those boil, fry up a pound of bacon in a big frying pan or skillet. Get it nice and crispy. (Wait for the pan to be hot before you drop the bacon. It might take a few batches if your pan is small. If you pan is small, though, you might want to get another one going because you are currently boiling a lot of potatoes.)

6. Pull the bacon out of the pan, set it aside and save the grease in the pan.

7. Drain the potatoes and set those aside. (If you are super cheap, you can save the potato water for soup or bread-making.)

8. Now fry up some minced, crushed, pressed or otherwise smashed garlic in the bacon grease. Just a little, don't burn it. (Feel free to throw in some chopped onions, too. I don't like them, but they work well here.)

9. After you've garlic-ed up the bacon fat, put the potatoes in there and fry away. (The potatoes are already cooked, so you just want them to 1. get color, 2. get crispy, and 3. soak up that bacon grease.)

10. After the potatoes have sucked up all the bacon grease, the bacon should be cool enough to chop. So, chop it.

11. Throw the chopped bacon into the potatoes, and toss it around till mixed.

12. Salt and pepper to taste.

Multiple Warning Cookies

As fun as it is to have "secret" ingredients, today's fancy pants modern world tends to have a lot of folks with "dietary restrictions." Some of these are self-imposed, like those irritating vegans who aren't Daniel Bryan. Others folks have genuine allergies or intolerances, which makes revealing certain ingredients necessary. 

Even if you think they are whiners. 

At any rate, the following is my recipe for peanut-butter cookies. Beware peanut allergy sufferers and vegetarians. 

This recipe was reverse-engineered from legends of a family recipe, and creates a a very crumbly cookie with a rich flavor. It tastes fine plain, or with added chocolate chips.

1.  Turn on the oven to 375. 

2. You want to beat half a stick of butter until it's nice and soft. 

3. Beat into the butter 1/4 cup of bacon grease. (Did you know that there are perverts who throw away bacon grease? If you don't have any bacon grease, I suppose you could use some grease from prosciutto or pancetta.)

4. Add to this 1/2 cup of white sugar and a 1/2 cup of packed brown sugar. 

5. Mix it until it is good and creamy. 

6. Mix in an egg, 1 cup of peanut butter (I like Jif), 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda and a touch of vanilla. (You want to get a sense of the flavor here, despite the risk of salmonella. If your bacon grease was good and salty, you're set. Otherwise, you'll want to mix in 1/2 teaspoon of salt.)

7. Add about 1 1/4 cups of flour to the dough and mix until combined. (If it looks oily, add up to 1/4 cup more flour. At this point, feel free to throw in some chocolate chips or chunks and fold them into the dough.)

8. You want to roll the dough into balls that are about an inch in diameter and place them onto a cookie sheet. This recipe should make about 5 dozen cookies. (If you have a seasoned cookie sheet, it wont take much grease to keep these things from sticking. Just drop in some vegetable oil, and push it around the pan with a paper towel.  If you've got nice, new cookie sheets, buy some parchment paper. Cut the paper to fit the inside of your cookie sheet, spray it with a little Pam and put the cookies on top of that.)

9. When the balls are on the cookie sheet, take a fork and use its tines to push the cookie down. Then turn the fork 90 degrees and do it again. (You can't have peanut butter cookies without those little squares on top.) 

10. Toss them into the oven for about 10 minutes or so. 

You can impress all your hipster friends with the bacon products inside your cookies! 

(I should have some photos of these from the Mosquito Song release party. Sadly, I never got those pictures from my brother-in-law.)

Pork Chops with Apples

I've neglected pork for far too long on this here blog. No more!

The following recipe is for 1/2 inch think pork sirloin chops. Loin chops will also work. Chops of differing sizes will work to some degree, just adjust the cooking times as necessary. Trichinosis isn't is common as salmonella, so under-cooked pork isn't as scary as under-cooked chicken.

Still, I don't want you bothering me with your hospital bills.

I imagine most people have most of these ingredients in their kitchen already. Maybe you need to buy the pork chops and the apples.

1. In a large ziplockish bag, mix 2 Tablespoons flour, 2 Tablespoons cornmeal, 1 tablespoon dried rosemary (crushed between two spoons), 1 teaspoon of salt and a bit of pepper.

2. Put 2 Tablespoons of olive oil and 2 Tablespoons butter in a frying pan, and heat to medium high.

3. Right as the butter starts to smoke, cook pork chops. It will take between 10 and 15 minutes. You only want to turn them once, so wait about 6 minutes before you do.

4. The pork should be nice and brown. Move it to a dish and keep it warm. Put a lid on it, or foil or an upside-down plate.

5. Now dump 2 apples cut into wedges into the same oil in which you cooked the pork. Sprinkle a teaspoon of sugar over them.

6. Cook for a minute, flip them, cook for another minute.

7. Garnish the pork with the apples, either on the platter or on individual plates.