Saturday, June 2, 2012

Bacon! It's for Breakfast!


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As I promised a day or so ago when I was talking about bacon from Rainbow Meadow Farms through Carolina Grown, I'm back with pictures and the cooking steps for baking the bacon instead of pan frying.  If you don't eat bacon because you don't like the mess cooking it in the skillet makes, give this a try.

I set my oven on convection bake 350.  My friend Patricia says regular baking at 375 works too.  For a pound, I line two cookie sheets with parchment paper (well one is a cake pan, but you get the gist).  Whatever the pan, it should have an edge on it to keep the oil contained as the bacon cooks.  I used scissors to cut the paper to fit just so after watching Donnie do it so carefully last time.  Lay the bacon on top of the parchment paper in a single layer.  Bake on a middle oven rack for 10-25 minutes depending on your oven and whether or not you want any bacon wiggle or just like it crunchy.  Use tongs to move the bacon to a plate with paper towels on top to drain and then serve.  I drain the very pure looking oil into a glass jar to use in seasoning something else later on and store the jar in the fridge.  Throw the parchment paper away and let the dishwasher take care of the cookie sheets.  No fuss, no muss, and everyone is happy to have bacon with their eggs!  Donnie said this AM it was the best bacon he ever had.  Yum!    

Note, you can cook up a pound over the weekend when you've got extra time and just gently reheat during the week.  Make in advance and enjoy!

Also note how flat the bacon is.  With this method, you avoid the bacon curling up on you too much!

1 comment:

The Vollmers said...

We love the flat bacon, the clean bacon drippings and the hands-off, less-mess way to cook it the oven!

What I DID learn from your post is that I should line the pan. I cook my bacon on a cookie cooling rack on top of a cookie sheet. I'm always scrubbing my cookie sheet, but DUH, perhaps if I line the cookie sheet with foil, cleanup would be that much easier!