A little greasy for holding hands

Lately, the food blogs I frequent seem to be hardcore pushing this Valentines Day thing. I can get behind stacks of red velvet pancakes for a "Valentines Day" breakfast or any number of random, ridiculously rich, indulgent desserts, but do they have to be exclusive to one day in mid-February? Is the food blog world trying to tell me that I shouldn't be eating French toast with chocolate sauce (heart shaped or otherwise) for breakfast the other 364 days a year? Also, it seems that they aren't drawing the line at only heart-shaped, chocolate, or champagne themed food items. Any food can be romantic so long as it's posted about in the one and a half month period following New Years but before February 14th. One blog offers cheddar biscuit sandwiches as the perfect Valentines breakfast in bed. And for the perfect Valentines dinner another blog suggests flank steak with mushrooms. I have a feeling I could enjoy these items just as well alone with my cat on any old Monday night (although I guess since my boyfriend's the one who likes steak, I wouldn't stage something that ambitious on a night he was out).

I think too many food bloggers are overlooking the bigger food holiday coming up that allows--nay demands--foods with the highest possible contents of fat, sugar, and salt. Even non-football fans such as myself can appreciate the unhealthy food opportunities presented by Superbowl Sunday. But I don't think it should really matter about having an excuse, be it romance or pigskins, to eat poorly. (And yes, I realize this goes against everything I said in my last food post about baking healthier.) To that end, a week ago I had a true stroke of inspiration: maple bacon caramel corn.

I know, right?

This genius was the product of having an overabundance of bacon in my fridge and a love of sweet and salty combos, especially on popcorn. It might need some fine-tuning, but here's my process thus far:

Ingredients:

1/2 unpopped popcorn

3 slices bacon

1/4 cup butter

1/2 cup maple

a couple of dashes of salt

Preheat oven to 375.

Then cook the bacon to the crispiness you desire and move it to some paper towels to cool. Make sure to reserve the bacon grease.

Add the bacon grease to a large pan with a cover. Turn on medium high and add the popcorn. Cover with the lid and shake until most of the kernels are popped. Remove from heat and transfer to a large bowl.

In another pot (or if you're like me, the same one, rinsed and dried), add the maple syrup and butter and heat over medium heat. When bubbles start to form, stir vigorously with a whisk for 4-5 minutes until thickened. Remove from heat.

Crumble the bacon and add it to the bowl with the popcorn. Pour the caramel sauce over the popcorn. I then tossed it with salad tongs to evenly distribute. Pour the popcorn onto a cookie sheet lined with foil or parchment paper (or one of those slipat mats if you have one). Put in the oven for around 10 minutes until the caramel is dry and delicious.

Separate any globs of popcorn that may have become stuck together and enjoy!

British food + American excess

Sticky toffee pudding is one of my favorite desserts. You seldom see it on the menu around here because so many American restaurants fail to see the virtue of heavy, date-based cakes sopped in cream. And yet somehow we celebrate the advent of the Oreo pizza. I just don't understand. But at any rate, I make sure to indulge in a nice sticky toffee pudding whenever I'm in any British Commonwealth nation. On my recent trip to England, I managed to eat one in every city I visited. Naturally, when I came across this recipe for Sticky Toffee Pudding with Candied Bacon, I was thrilled to see that it was finally being embraced in a way that Americans can get behind. I also knew that I would have to make these treasures for myself.

This presented something of a problem. After all, I couldn't logically made a whole batch just for me. Well, I could, but I knew that would undo any positive toning acquired in three months of p90x training as all of my muscle cells would have no choice but to instantly turn to bacon grease. Luckily, my boyfriend and I had decided to have people over to show off our apartment this past weekend, providing us a captive audience of pudding eaters. I won't say which came first, the idea for the housewarming or the need to have an excuse to bake pork products into puddings. But you probably already know.

The only problem with this plan was that it wasn't really a sit down party, and everything else we were serving were proper casual party finger foods. I was not to be dissuaded though. We ended up buying plates (albeit plastic ones) expressly for the purpose of having a mid-party pudding feast. It completely clashed with all other food served (everything else was appropriately seasonal, fresh, and summery), and, weirdly, dessert was the only part of the food offerings that wasn't vegetarian. But I still maintain it was the perfect cap to the party.

These photos are from the blog that I found this recipe on, Gingerbread Bagels. I'm posting them because they're far better than any photos I took. In actuality, I took no photos. But they are, no doubt, far better than any photos I would have taken had I remembered to.

I'm not going to post the recipe, because you can no doubt follow the link I posted above if you are so inclined to indulge in some bacon sweets of your own. The only change I made is that I made the candied bacon by cooking it regularly on the stove, draining off the fat, and then caramelizing it (again on the stove) with some brown sugar. I think this was easier than doing the oven method recommended in the blog. That seems likely to lead to the brown sugar running off, burning onto the poorly chosen pan, and causing ones kitchen to be filled with smoke and the smell of burned sugar and charred bacon. Not that I speak from personal experience. But the stove-top method is easier to monitor if you're not aware of the foibles of your oven. And you won't have to worry about the tragedy of accidently ruining a half pound of bacon.