Praline Bacon: Deliciousness to Celebrate Every Breath

It's not my recipe.  I'd stumbled upon it on...well...on stumbleupon one evening several years ago.  NPR's John Burnett says it came from New Orleans and that's probably true:  there's not a single city that does pralines any better.  Praline bacon is a quick side to brunch, a delicious appetizer on a reception table, a late night indulgence when indulgence calls for salty and sweet together.  Or when cholesterol, brown sugar and pecans are craved simultaneously.  Even if you don't eat pork, you may want to fix this for someone that does, if only for the opportunity to be close to it just once.

I'd baked this a day ahead.  Once cooked, the bacon will keep in the 

fridge for a week or so.  I've also prepared it well in advance and frozen it

between sheets of wax paper in the big ziploc bags, the only

adverse affect to it being a slow diminishing of quantity due 

to pilfering by the cook!

The recipe is simple.  Three ingredients:
bacon
brown sugar (two cups or so)
chopped pecans

There are (almost) always roasted chopped pecans in 

the freezer here.  It's handy to have them ready to go

in a cheesecake crust or to add a crunch to chicken salad

or for a pan of praline bacon.

Make the clean-up easy on yourself.  Line a pan with foil and place bacon strips in single thickness in it.

If you don't need the whole pack of bacon praline-ated but despise storing a 

partial pack of it (it seems to get forgotten about until too late 

in the fridge here) go ahead and cook it.

And don't forget to save the grease for the potatoes!

Bake in a preheated oven at 425 Fahrenheit for ten minutes.  In the mean time, put the brown sugar and pecans in one of these big ziplock bags for coating the bacon.  You can throw the mixture in the freezer afterward and have on hand for the next batch of praline bacon.

If you're a lover of bacon, there will be another batch.

Drain off the bacon grease and put all the bacon in the brown sugar/pecan mixture. 

Seal the bag and give it all a good shake, flopping as only bag fulls of bacon can, to make sure all the slices are coated.

Return to the  pan.  I like to sprinkle a few more pecans on top.  You can't ever have too many pecans.

Bake for ten minutes more (or less - remember, the oven here bakes a few degrees cooler) and voila!!!

Praline bacon!

For quality control's sake, go ahead and have a slice of it, 

then quickly put it away if cooking for another day. 

Y'all enjoy!

 

Marshmallow Fondant and Late Night Silliness

Starting to WORK work has definitely cut a chunk out of StumbleUpon and Facebook time!  Yikes.  I may actually go into withdrawl (<- that's a Southern withdrawal) in another few days if I don't have some decent set-down-in-front-of-the-computer time.  Perhaps I can sweet talk my employers into letting me use the restaurant computer in their office to feed the addiction?  Nnnnaw.  Best just to get on over it, right?  Right!  It's silly to be dependent upon something that can't reciprocate dependency, isn't it?   No good - no matter which way the situation is looked at.

I have to share with you a funny thing said at church when we were cleaning up after the Family Dinner this past Sunday.  The pastor was whistling "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing."  It was the Hymn of Response i.e. closing hymn to the service and kind of has a way of getting stuck in your head if you're a church going hymn singing sort of person (if you're not, that's strictly between you and the Almighty).  I had been humming it and he was whistling it.  Mama and Mrs. Sally were covering the food on the table to be transported home.  Mrs. Sally starts trying to remember some phrase her mama used to say about a whistling girl.  Well!  Don't you know?   Mama knew exactly what it was.  She said she hadn't thought of it in years, but her grandmother used to say it too:  A whistling girl and a crowing hen are both two things with no good end.  I lol'd a lot!  The preacher was amused, too.  Mama said her grandmother used to kill the odd hens that tried to crow;  they were unnatural and evil.  She also said they always ate them.  Hmmmmm... I think somebody's grandmother was henophobic!

The fondant.  Marshmallow fondant.  I'm so distracted right now.  You can add any sort of flavoring you'd like in whatever quantities and concentrations after the marshmallows are melted.  Or that seems like the logical place to add it.  This marshmallow fondant tastes much better than the store bought packages and I don't use a flavoring in it.  I wouldn't even hazard a guess as to how much to use, although I think 1/2 teaspoon or 1 teaspoon might be sufficient.

You'll need a bag of marshmallows.  Miniature marshmallows work just fine, too.  I had these on the rack.  I didn't count how many were in here to start.  It's roughly 3/4 of a bag of marshmallows.  It's not rocket science.  Confectioner's sugar, you'll need that too.  The only difficult thing in the making of this stuff is kneading the confectioner's sugar in when it won't stir in any more.

There's my big Pampered Chef measuring/mixing bowl.  Oh.  And two tablespoons of water!

Put the marshmallows in the microwave safe bowl and pour the water over them, stirring to coat the marshmallows.

Oh yeahhhh... I also have TWO plastic bags there.  The one thing you'll want to pay extra attention to is the storing of your fondant.  Air, moisture, and heat are its worst enemies.  I always double bag the fondant to take care of the first two items on the fondant hit list after it's made.

Microwave on high setting, set for 2 and a half minutes.

Stir halfway through.  The marshmallows will still be a little lumpy.

OOoooooo... I love cobalt glass.  I found this lemon juicer with measuring cup at First Monday Trade Day and Flea Market in Ripley, Mississippi years and years ago.  That's where my watch stays, Monday thru Saturday.  I only wear it on Sundays.  Go figure!

DING!  It should look like this.

That glass cutting board/heat pad has been there ever since day one of living here.  I don't know what I'd do without it to set the hot things on coming out of the microwave RIGHT there. They're not pricey at all and work a charm saving the counter top.



Add a good half a bag of confectioner's sugar to the melted marshmallows.  I might mention that was a TWO pound bag of confectioner's sugar.  At first it's easy to stir in, becoming more and more resistant until it gets downright belligerent to deal with.  This is while it's still stir-able.

 
Quicker than you're willing to admit you're not prepared to, this goes to the counter to have more sugar kneaded in until it's the fondant consistency.

It's late in the evening at this point in the process.  If you go back up to the watch photo, you'll see it was 11:20 then, and this is another ten minutes or so later.  I amused myself trying to take that photo with melted marshmallow goop all over both hands.

GGGgggrrrrrrrrr!!!!  Did I scare you with that hand?  No?  I scared myself for sure! 

There was no way to photograph the process of continually adding and turning and kneading the constantly-firming-up fondant without wasting a bunch of it by sloughing it off and washing my hands. 

I didn't measure anything to start with but if you needed measurements on the sugar I would say I used five cups total in the making of the fondant, based on what was left (which I didn't measure either {like I said, it's not rocket science - trust your judgment on it and if that's no good, readjust and do over}).

This is what the fondant will look like. 

I double bag mine and leave it out.  If it's going to be a while (like weeks) before use, pop it in the refrigerator.   Tadadaaaaaaaa! 

Those ingredients again were:
Marshmallows
Confectioner's sugar
2 Tablespoons water

Y'all have fun with this.  And thanks for not paying me any mind when the hour is late (or is that early), silliness sets in and bed time is yet to come.  I appreciate it!