now that’s some twisted bacon!

Never once, in all my years of eating bacon, had I considered even once that it could be improved upon.

Nothing on the planet is better than bacon!   Butter and chipotle come close, or maybe a  flourless chocolate cake with fresh raspberries.  Perfectly cooked kobe beef and a garlicky escargot with lots of bread to soak it all up is right up there, too.  But of all these delicious dishes, bacon is the only one that I can eat right after rolling out of my toasty warm bed first thing in the morning, and the only thing that I can enjoy just as it is, in it’s perfectly delicious fatty state. Baking bacon, frying bacon, Kevin Bacon, wrapping something with bacon and then baking bacon…it really doesn’t matter. It’s bacon.

Until now, I’ve never given much thought to bacon other than I prefer it thickly-sliced and crispy.  So I did some poking around and found a few fun bacon-related things you might enjoy:

Here’s a fun list from Bacon Magazine:

• 3 million pounds of Bacon would be worth 3 million dollars if Bacon was worth a dollar a pound.
• Bacon is formerly known as the artist Prince.
• In 1992, Newfoundland scientists discovered that Bacon was made from pigs.
• Bacon has been known to give people psychic powers. Usually the only future they can see is their own demise, from consuming mass amounts of Bacon.
• It is scientifically proven* that consuming mass amounts of Bacon lowers your risk of death. (* Not scientifically proven)
• 99% of pigs believe Bacon is made from cows.
• 1% of pigs believe Bacon is made from werewolves.
• When mixed with TNT, Bacon makes a powerful explosive.
• When mixed with eggs, Bacon makes a powerful breakfast.

What about this article on Bacon Vodka?

Or how about some Bacon Bandages?

My really awesome cousin Britt, who knows all about my love affair with all things chipotle, emailed me a couple of months ago with a recipe for chipotle bacon.  I don’t remember all of the ingredients – there were a few – but the one I do remember was, of course, chipotle.   I tried to find the recipe over the weekend but had apparently inadvertently deleted it, soooo…I decided to try it anyway but keep it super simple with just the chipotle and a little brown sugar.

It…was…heavenly!!  Seriously, I ADORE bacon, but this simple mixture of brown sugar and adobo sauce put it over the top!

It’s easy to do – just mix a bit of brown sugar with some of the adobo sauce from a can of chipotle peppers inside a large plastic bag, add bacon and “smoosh” (<—-real word) it around until all the bacon is coated. I used approximately equal parts of both, although you can adjust this depending if you prefer your bacon sweeter or spicier – I like it a little bit of both!

And this is where it gets really twisted (HA!).  Hold each end of the bacon and twist in opposite directions until twisted as much as you’d like.  Place on a broiler pan and cook at 400-ish until the bacon is nice and crispy.  No flipping or turning, just pop it in the oven until it’s done! It will retain the “twist” and you’ll have yourself some twisted bacon. Or spiraled bacon. Or curly q bacon. Whatever. Call it what you will, but it will be bacon that’s better!

Tip: The thicker your bacon, the harder it will be to both twist it and have it retain the twist. You may want to use metal skewers threaded just through the ends of the bacon to help it to hold its shape.