Category: bacon

Bacon & Sweet Potato Jalapeño Boats

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This was an experiment that Heather and I have been tossing up back and forth for about two weeks now.  We weren’t sure exactly how to execute it, but we finally pulled the trigger yesterday morning when we decided we were going to attend our first meat-up hosted by Stacy and Matt, of Paleo Parents fame.  We have lived in this area for some time and always had or found an excuse to not go, but it was absolutely amazing!  We also spent some time chatting with The Domestic Man.  Both of these blogs are great resources, if you’re not already aware of them.
If you are in the Northern Virginia area, I highly suggest you attend. If not, try to get together with friends monthly–the positive reinforcement and social gathering is very powerful.


Ok, enough preaching.  We threw these together for the gathering, and while I’m not sure they were perfect, I was pretty happy with the outcome.  The idea started as another “bacon-wrapped jalapeño” fill-in-the-blank, but then grew into a twice-baked sweet potato fantasy.  Here’s what you’ll need to make your own:

  • 2 large sweet potatoes
  • 6 strips Whole30 friendly bacon
  • 10 jalapeños, halved and cleaned
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp pepper
  • smoked paprika (for sprinkling)

 Preparation:

1.  Chop bacon into small chunks, peel (and shred) sweet potatoes, and halve and deseed jalapeños.
2.  Sautee bacon over medium heat to soften (no more than 2 minutes) and then add shredded sweet potato.
3.  Cook for 5 minutes, stirring regularly.
4.  Once cooked through, allow to cool and then place into blender or large bowl to mash.  Add salt and pepper.  At this point, preheat oven to 375ºF.
5.  With a spoon/spatula, fill jalapeño shells with mashed bacon and sweet potato mixture.
6.  Bake for 10-12 minutes.
7.  Remove and sprinkle with roasted paprika.
These were very hot, I think in large part due to the fact that Whole Foods only had gigantic jalapeños. Smaller sized peppers would definitely help.  Also try this mixture in mushroom caps or non-spicy peppers.  It is a great flavor finger food that’s also pretty filling.  We hope you enjoy!

Bacon, Leek, Zucchini and Tomato Frittata

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As you all probably know by now, we eat scrambled eggs and bacon A LOT. Like, nearly every morning for breakfast. We love eggs and bacon. Still, we like to switch things up sometimes, so last Sunday I created this delicious frittata with the spare ingredients I had laying around the kitchen.

Honestly, I was on a roll that night. I made a whole rabbit stew, chicken and leek soup, and this frittata. The rabbit stew was the only thing I made from a recipe. The other two–yep, that’s right! I made them up. Why? What sparked that surge of creativity? And was I seriously successful?
Well, to the latter, “yes!” The soup was way better than I thought it would be, and the frittata… well, I really believe it’s hard to mess up frittata. It’s like a pizza–you take leftover whatever, toss them together, add a few standard ingredients and poof! You have a yummy dish. 
To the former questions: I’ve never used leeks before, and in order to make the rabbit stew, I had to buy some. After setting up the stew to cook low and slow, I googled “what to do with leeks?” I can’t tell you how many potato-and-leek soups I passed over, looking for something Paleo and delicious. Fortunately, someone somewhere on the webs said that leeks can be used in place of onion. “Well that’s handy!” I thought to myself. I didn’t have any onion left in the house. 
I was staring at the other food in the fridge, and saw my eggs. Wouldn’t it be nice if I made something interesting for breakfast this week? Frittata was the first thing that came to mind. I knew it would make breakfast for the week easier (cooking at one time for five meals instead of cooking five separate meals, one per morning). 
Plus, I was excited to switch things up a bit. (As an aside: we should probably watch how much egg we eat. I’ve heard if you over-do it with any food item, you can develop allergies to it. But eggs are so easy, yummy, and good for us, it’s not been easy to take “breaks” from them. We have for a week here or there, but it’s not something we feel we could sustain long term. We love our eggs too much, lol.) Anyways, we had plenty of zucchini and small tomatoes. So, I decided I’d make a frittata with the those and the leeks. Oh, and of course bacon. How could I not include bacon?! 😉
Alright, so here it is. I hope you enjoy it!


Bacon, Leek, Zucchini and Tomato Frittata
Ingredients
  • 10 eggs, whisked in a large bowl
  • 6 slices of bacon, chopped
  • 1 leek, sliced and well rinsed (white and light green parts only)
  • 1 cup zucchini, chopped
  • 1 cup tomato, sliced
  • salt and pepper to taste
Method
  1. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees F.
  2. In a caste iron skillet or dutch-oven-like pan, cook the bacon over medium-high heat until just before it gets crispy (about 3 – 5 minutes). Be sure to flip the pieces around so both sides get cooked.
  3. Add the zucchini and leeks to the pan.
  4. Cook the bacon, zucchini and leeks together until the leeks are soft, stirring occasionally (about 3 – 5 minutes).
  5. Meanwhile, sprinkle a little salt and pepper to taste into the bowl of whisked eggs
  6. Pour the egg over everything in the pan.
  7. Allow it to sit and cook for at least 2 minutes.
  8. Next, carefully place the tomatoes on top. They will sink into the egg, but since will have cooked a little, they should stay near the top.
  9. Cover the pan and place it in the over.
  10. Bake for 20 minutes.
  11. Check the frittata–if the center is still very soggy/uncooked, give it another 5 minutes.
  12. Uncover the frittata and cook for 5 more minutes to brown the top slightly.
  13. Allow it to cool, flip it out onto a plate and serve!

It looks like a pizza, doesn’t it?

This frittata was a great alternative to our usual scrambled eggs and bacon. I cut it just like a pizza into eight slices and we each took a slice for breakfast Monday morning through Thursday last week. The leek really did act like onion–but it wasn’t sharp or bitter. The frittata had a nice, savory onion flavor complimented by the salty bacon and sweet tomato. I’ll admit, the zucchini flavor wasn’t much to speak of, but it did add good texture. 🙂 Breakfast success!

Apple-Stuffed, Bacon-Wrapped Pork Loin Roast

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We love meat. We love bacon. It’s just so salty and sweet and oh, so delicious (even when it isn’t perfectly crispy and even when it’s a smidgen burnt). You just can’t go wrong with bacon in my book. 🙂

Last week while Brent’s parents were in town visiting, we made a pork fried “rice” dish (using cauliflower), Health-Bent’s Orange Chicken, our Slow Cooker Chili, PaleOMG’s Honey Ginger Apple Pulled Pork, etc. One of the items that remained was a pound of pork loin roast (we had bought a 3 lb roast but only needed 2 lbs for the recipe). So, two nights ago, I set out to cook it before it went bad in our fridge.

Anyways, I was rummaging through the fridge and pantry for inspiration. I came across bacon and apples. Bingo! Ultimately, this recipe needs some tinkering. The overall flavor was good, but next time I’ll sauté the onions and use a few more spices. I’ll be sure to post the improved recipe once I’ve done it. 🙂

Ingredients

  • 1 1-lb pork loin roast
  • 2 small granny smith apples, cored and chopped
  • 1/2 white onion, chopped
  • 6-8 slices of bacon, uncooked
  • 4-6 cloves of garlic, crushed (just press down with the flat of a knife to crack them open)
  • salt to taste
  • pepper to taste
  • coconut oil, bacon fat, or whatever you prefer to grease the roasting pan/baking dish

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
  2. Season the roast with a sprinkling of salt and pepper.
  3. Cut a pocket into the center of the roast.
  4. Stuff the pocket with about half of the chopped apples, chopped onion, and crushed garlic cloves.
  5. Wrap the roast with the slices of bacon. (I wrapped four across the bottom and up the sides, and then four across the top and down the sides.)
  6. Grease the roasting pan or baking dish.
  7. Bake the roast for 30 minutes.
  8. Add the remaining apples, onion and garlic to the dish, distributing them as evenly as possible around the roast.
  9. Bake for another 30 minutes, or until the pork is cooked through.
  10. Slice, serve and enjoy!

Full disclosure: the 1 lb roast smelled a little funny and there were a few greenish spots on the fat. A lot of people I know would have just tossed the whole thing. I hate wasting food, so I salvaged it. How? Check out my post of safety tips on dealing with these kinds of things.

Slow Cooker Chili

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I’ll admit, I wasn’t very disciplined about taking pictures, so please forgive the lack of step-by-step photos. We used to always start our chili with our favorite chipotle salsa and a can of diced tomatoes (sometimes with green chilies, something “zesty” style, sometimes “fire roasted” style). We normally just emptied them into the crockpot, and then got to work on the rest of the ingredients. 
Unfortunately, our favorite salsa and the diced tomatoes are not Whole30-friendly. 

So, instead, I chose to roast my own chopped tomatoes (…perhaps I should have diced them) and I made fresh salsa. Here’s more or less what I started with:

First, I roasted approximately 2 and 1/2 large tomatoes (they were actually left over from another recipe)…

While those were roasting, I turned on the crockpot to low and I worked on making a fresh salsa: 2-3 (small to medium sized) Roma tomatoes, some cilantro, fresh lime juice from half a lime, and 1 little red chili. It wasn’t my best salsa (in fact, my best and favorite to make is a pineapple-mango salsa, but that’s for another day). I had forgotten I’d need to make salsa from scratch and wasn’t prepared to do it; so that concoction was the best I could come up with given what I had in the house. I diced/blended it all really well in the Ninja.

Next, I sautéed 1 green bell pepper, 1 jalapeño and 1 onion (both of which received a quick pulse in our Ninja) with a splash of olive oil…

I put the homemade salsa and the onion-pepper mix into the crockpot. I didn’t put the roasted tomatoes in right away because I know they could overpower the overall dish, so I waited until the end to see how things turned out.

Then, I lightly browned about 2 lbs of ground beef with four good-sized cloves of garlic. We like are garlic, so the bigger the cloves the better. 😉 When that was ready, I strained out the excess grease and scooped the ground beef-garlic mix into the crockpot.

(It’s at this point that I would usually cook up 4 slices of bacon and 6 smallish sausages. But we haven’t found bacon or sausage that’s Whole30 friendly, so those didn’t go in this time.)

Brent then came over to help evaluate the situation. We agreed to add about half of the roasted tomatoes to the crock pot.

Next, he put in the spices. I almost always make the chili, but he always puts in the spices for me 🙂 Here’s what we used:

  • 1 tbsp chipotle chili pepper
  • 1 tsp cayenne pepper 
  • 1 tsp smoked paprika
  • 1 tbsp chili powder.

We gave it a good stir and then let the crockpot sit overnight on low.