My Easter Menu

I just noticed that WordPress is adding advertising into my content in links which are not mine. How to tell the difference is that my links have a dotted underline and the ad links are solid and dotted together. Not cool at all.

Last week I was blown-away flattered by my Hungarian friend Zsuzsa (Zsuzsa is in the kitchen) when she invited me to participate in a blogging event to post your Easter Menu! You can read about Zsuzsa’s Easter here; she grew up very close to where my Mom grew up in Budapest. It’s really just a round up of past post recipes and a little bit about your Easter memories. How could I say no?  Thank you Zsuzsa, I would be honoured. Zsuzsa is taking part with the following Hungarian ladies: The author of this event, Éva from Takarekos Konyha (this blog is in Hungarian) and Elizabeth from Food and Thrift.

Growing up, Easter was always about bunnies for me. Yes, we went to church and all that but let’s be honest, it was about the bunnies! At eight years old, my very first pet bunny was an albino Dutch whom we called Boom Boom (he was called Boom Boom because he stomped his hind feet loudly). Sadly good old Boom Boom only lasted 3 years, but he made such an impression on me that I’ve only ever had bunnies as pets! I cried so much when he died that my Dad swore he would never let me have another pet because losing them made me too sad and he just couldn’t bear it. I was sixteen before I was permitted to have Boon, another albino Dutch but smaller than Boom Boom (no, we weren’t very imaginative with the names!). But I digress, back to Easter.

Mom and Dad in Edmonton with the Chrysler Tour in 1960

You already know that my Dad was a Puppeteer (and if you don’t, you can read about it here) and we had a family business with the puppet shows. Easter was a big time for us, these holidays meant that the malls, schools (note that this link is NOT mine) and some companies needed entertainment for their events and what’s not to like about a puppet show? So many of our Easters were on the road with the show. In fact, Boom Boom was first adopted because my Dad needed a live bunny for the show (he was the star, don’t worry, it was all very humane).

Believe it or not, the Show was about Bunnies.

And there were singing Eggs too

But Easter also had a serious side: FOOD! Chocolates, coloured eggs and of course, ham. I don’t have many of the recipes that we had at Easter but I’ve gathered a bunch I am going to have this weekend when we have JTs family for Easter Sunday lunch. I hope you enjoy them.

My Mom only used Canada Grade A Large size eggs

Hors D’œuvres were usually Deviled Eggs (here and here) and French Salad (Francia Saláta). I don’t have a post about Francia Saláta, but you can see Zsuzsa’s recipe here (my Mom never put potatoes in her version). I may do a new hors d’œuvres recipe I saw on my friend Lorraine’s blog of her recent trip to Amman, Jordan. It involves cheese and phyllo pastry, that’s all I can give you!

A wonderful addition to any Easter table

We usually had an Easter kalács (Zsuzsa made a gorgeous one here) but I’m making John’s Easter Cheese Bread instead.

The most succulent tenderloin ever

We’ve decided to go nontraditional and have a beef tenderloin for lunch. This recipe is my favourite way to serve this special cut of meat.

The only place you’ll miss the potatoes is on your waist-line!

I’m going to serve it with my traditional Celeriac Cauliflower Mash. And a wonderful lemony Asparagus from my friend Greg’s Rufus’ Guide.

It’s a symphony of colours

And a little tangy German Purple Cabbage Slaw.

Now if you had any room for dessert, I’m going to make Charle’s Sweedish Apple Cake (from Five Euro Food), which totally looks like the perfect ending to a rich and heavy meal. It’s really just all apples and then there’s more apples. The only flour in this is the use of the breadcrumbs as the base, thickener and likely adds a little texture. I love that I can make it sugar free too, since I have a diabetic and a hypo-glycemic in the house — I like to make only one dessert that everyone can enjoy and not make the person feel odd that they have something else.

I may not be able to comment on your blogs for the next few days but I’ll definitely read up when I get back into civilization with internet. Thank you for reading my blog and leaving comments, you really, really make my day. Thank you to every one of the blogs I read, you provide me with the inspiration for my blog and it really wouldn’t be the same without you!

Happy Easter to All!

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Super Bowl 2013 Appetizer: Bacon & Eggs

You’re probably thinking “she’s gone mad” bacon and eggs for a Super Bowl appetizer? What could she possibly be thinking? Well, once you taste these babies, you’d wish you had made more of them. Just the perfect size to pop in your mouth (or for more delicate mouths, ehem, one may need two bites). I bought quail eggs for an appetizer for our friend’s Paul and T (post to come soon and I don’t want to spoil it) but I had a few of these gorgeous little eggs left over, so I came up with this breakfast for appetizer treat, and since Super Bowl is on Sunday, why not serve it to your discerning guests?

You can see how small the quails eggs are in comparison to the large Grade A egg.

We spotted this sign walking up to a restaurant on Bloor for lunch last Sunday. Since this post had bacon in it, I thought it appropriate.

A sandwich board sign in our hood which seemed appropriate with this post.

It’s really not a recipe, you can easily see all the ingredients, so I’ll just describe it. You’ll need 1 large slice of German seedy bread (we usually use this brand’s 7-Grain bread), 4 slices of Pancetta, sliced about 3.5 mm or 1/4 inch thick and four quail eggs.

First you want to fry the bacon until crispy, set aside in a warm oven, reserve bacon grease. Then cut four rounds of bread about 4-5 cm or 2.5 inches in diametre, and fry each side of the bread in the bacon fat until slightly toasted, but saturated in the bacon fat (you can hear your arteries bursting, no, wait, those are mine bursting), set aside and keep warm. In the remaining bacon fat, fry up each egg, trying to keep as circular shape as possible. Serve immediately, you want the yolks a little runny. To serve: take one slice of the bread round, put the bacon on top and then the egg, garnish with parsley or cilantro leaves. Serve with a napkin because you will have creamy yolk running down your chin.

A one, perhaps two bite morsel

They turned out so pretty, I had to take two photos.

Oh, you have a little dribble on your chin, let me get that for you.

Go Jays Go!

Oops.

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Pork Loin Stuffed with Fig Preserves and Goats Cheese

This here post is the reason I love blogging and I’m sure most of you will agree. Blogging provides friendship and advice, cooking and sometimes otherwise. Blogging provides support; I haven’t come across a nasty person yet (well, I would delete them anyway ). And last but not least, blogging provides inspiration particularly when you are deathly sick of every recipe you’ve past blogged about and can’t for the life of you come up with an idea for tonight’s dinner.

I have my friend John, From the Bartolini Kitchens to thank for tonight’s dinner: Roasted Loin of Pork stuffed with Fig Preserves and Goats Cheese. Of course, John made his own fig preserves (which I will do next year) but I had to use a store bought version. I find these store bought preserves rather sweet and I certainly didn’t want dessert for dinner so I decided to add some goats cheese to my stuffing to help temper the sweetness. It worked. PLUS it made an incredible jus for the Celeriac Potato Mash I made with it. I only made a few minor changes to John’s incredible recipe. This was definitely a dinner for the recipe books. Thanks John, again, I might add.

Come on pork, it’s your turn to shine. Work it, work it.
(It’s that time of year when the light SUCKS big time. Sigh.)

 

Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 400 g Pork Tenderloin, butterflied
• 100 g goats cheese
• Fig preserves (home made or store bought)
• 4-6 slices prosciutto
• butcher’s twine
• 2 tbsp high flash point oil, such as canola
• Sherry for deglazing (I used cooking Sherry, but feel free to use the real thing)

Directions:

1. Pre heat oven to 350° F.
2. Spread a thin layer throughout the butterflied pork tenderloin. Crumble the goats cheese evenly throughout.
3. Roll up the pork and wrap tightly with the prosciutto, wrap tightly with the butcher’s twine.
4. In an oven proof roasting pan, heat the canola oil until almost smoking. Add the pork and cook the prosciutto until crispy on all sides. Remove pork for a minute and deglaze pan with the Sherry. Return pork and bake in a hot oven for 15-20 minutes or until pork has reached a minimum of 145° F. Allow to rest before cutting into slices.
5. If the pan has juices from the fig preserves and bits of goats cheese you will want to heat on the stove and press through a fine sieve for serving. Serve with Celeriac Potato Mash.

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Celeriac and Potato “Mash”

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad
(today would have been their 52nd anniversary)

We don’t often buy potatoes; it’s not because I don’t like them, I do, but they are carbs and I would prefer to eat other vegetables with less carbs and a lower glycemic index. But I bought two medium sized potatoes two weeks ago and only used one for a recipe. I had that potato sitting on my counter for another week before I figured out what to do with it.

I also had a 1/2 celeriac (celery root) in the vegetable crisper just waiting to get brown and tossed so I decided to take my celeriac cauliflower “mash” and change it up a bit with the potato. Since I didn’t have a head of cauliflower either I just made Celeriac Potato Mash. Now I love roasting vegetables because it really brings out the sweetness, so I simply roasted the celeriac (and a few cloves of garlic), boiled the potatoes and presto; what a “mash” this turned out to be! LOVE it!

Celeriac has fewer calories and carbohydrates than a potato as well, it is lower on the glycemic index than a potato so keeping the celeriac ratio higher than the potato was the right decision for me. The potato adds creaminess that you expect from mashed potatoes. This is a bit more labourious than normal mashed potatoes, but I promise you it is worth it. I hope you enjoy it. To see a whole mess of mashed potatoes head on over to Greg’s blog, he has gone all out with this savoury dish.

The star of this photo is the mash, not the pork. The pork is a Primadonna!

Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 1 medium yukon gold potato, peeled and diced
• 1 medium celeriac, peeled and diced
• 4 medium cloves of garlic, peeled to the outer skin
• 2-4 tbsp EVOO
• salt to taste
• chicken stock or milk or cream, depending on how healthy you wish to make it.

Directions:

1. Pre heat oven to 400° F. Spread the celeriac evenly on the pan and very lightly coat with olive oil and salt.
2. Put garlic cloves into a small ramekin and add about a finger’s depth of EVOO and salt.
3. Bake the celeriac and garlic until both are fork tender. About 30-40 minutes into the roasting, add about 1/2 cup of water to the celeriac roasting pan and give the celeriac a good stir. When the water evaporates, they should be fork tender (if not, then add another 1/2 cup of water and repeat until fork tender)
4. While the celeriac is baking, in a large stock pot add enough water to cover the potatoes entirely, salt generously. Cook until they are fork tender.
5. Drain potatoes and allow to sit for a minute so that all of the water evaporates. Either rice with a potato ricer or mash gently with a fork (you don’t want to develop the starches so for heavens sake, don’t blend this with an immersion blender). Don’t add any liquid as the celeriac mash will be a touch wetter than necessary and we’ll need the potato on the dryer side. Set aside
6. When the celeriac is fork tender, remove from the pan into the immersion blender container, squeeze out the roasted garlic, pour in the oil from roasting the garlic and blend. Blend until it is smooth, smooth, smooth, adding chicken stock, milk or cream to achieve a mashed potato consistency. Celeriac doesn’t have the same level of starch as the potato so this is the only way you will get it smooth. Push through a fine sieve and fold the mashed potatoes into the mix. Keep warm over a bain marie. Serve with the most amazing Fig Stuffed Pork Tenderloin ever (link won’t be active until Nov 21).

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A Healthier Pulled Pork, by Cooking with Corinna

I’ve been following a blog called Cooking with Corinna who has been doing the Ducan diet (you know, the French diet). Corinna has been very successful in losing weight following this diet and has decided to try and healthy up some of her favourites so that she doesn’t fall back into old bad habits and jeopardize her success. The first recipe she ‘healthed up’ was pulled pork. JT loves pulled pork but it’s not something I ever make at home, mainly because it is so unhealthy, or so I thought. Corinna’s method was relatively simple and frankly quite obvious but, for some reason I never thought of it myself. She simply chose a leaner and healthier cut of pork — pork tenderloin instead of pork shoulder. Genius! I was inspired to make this pulled pork for dinner the other night and boy was it a success! Corinna used a slow cooker, but I chose to get my roasting pan on the grill outside (it was so hot and humid that day, I couldn’t bear even the slow cooker!). The trick is low and slow; I cooked our 300g tenderloin for almost four hours on 121°C (250°F). I turned it a few times and made sure it was always covered in BBQ sauce. You can use a store bought BBQ sauce, or you can throw one together in minutes like I did. Soooo easy. You will be surprised that you won’t be able to tell the difference from the unhealthy version! And if you want to keep it even healthier, choose a BBQ sauce based with fruit instead of sugar.

Thanks Corinna, this one will be a keeper, that’s for sure!

A Healthier Pulled Pork

Serves 3, 100 g portions

BBQ Sauce Ingredients:

Original recipe can be found here.

• 1/2 cup ketchup
• 1/4 cup vinegar, preferably red wine vinegar
• 1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1/4 cup finely chopped onion
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tbsp prepared mustard
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1-2 cloves garlic, finely minced
• 1 tbsp espresso coffee powder

Directions:

1. In a small saucepan, combine all of the ingredients and bring to a slow boil. Reduce heat and simmer for about 5 minutes or until the flavours have blended well. Remove from heat and set aside.

Pulled Pork Ingredients:

Original recipe can be found here.

• 300 g pork tenderloin with silver skin and excess fat removed. This is a great video on preparing pork tenderloin. I removed ALL of the fat to keep it healthier.
• 1-2 tbsp canola oil (or an oil with a high flash point)
• 1 cup BBQ sauce, home made or store bought.
• 1 cup water

Directions:

1. Preheat BBQ to 121°C (250°F).
2. Heat the roasting pan on the stove with the canola oil until almost smoking. Sear all sides of the tenderloin. Remove the pan from the heat and allow to cool for a minute or two. Add the BBQ sauce and make sure that the tenderloin is brushed evenly with it. Place the covered roasting pan on the BBQ and turn off the heat directly below it. You’ll have to watch your BBQ so that the temperature maintained for the 4 hours is around 121°C (250°F).
3. Turn the tenderloin 3-4 times making sure it is always covered well with the BBQ sauce. I kept about 1 cup of water near the BBQ and added water as the sauce became thicker and evaporated. Eventually around 3.5 hours, the meat will literally fall apart and you will be able to mix it well with the BBQ sauce and cook it for the last half hour.
4. Serve warm or cold, on a salad, on a bun, or even in a fajita shell. Garnish with chopped cilantro and finely chopped green onions.

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Mediterranean Stuffed Loin of Pork

Beautiful loin of pork was on sale at the butcher this past weekend, and it’s a favourite of ours because it is low in saturated fats (compared to other cuts of pork). I trim off all of the excess fat, to minimize the calories, but you can do as you wish.

Here is an interesting note for Canadians buying supermarket meat (not sure if the same is true in the U.S. or E.U.) that I learned through working for the design firm specializing in food packaging. If a piece of meat says that it is “seasoned” it does not mean that it has spices on it. It means that it has been ‘plumped’ with water, sodium phosphate and salt. They say they do this to retain moisture but in reality, if you cook the product properly, you should have a moist and delicious piece of meat. They do it to make the meat look bigger and plumper. You will also notice that the label, by law, will indicate the meat protein percentage. For example, a similar plumped loin of pork will say “minimum 18% meat protein”. In addition, if you’ve ever bought this type of product, you will notice that when you cook it, it shrinks incredibly, and that is because it is plumped and the liquid cooks out of it, leaving you with the 18% meat protein. It kinda grosses me out. Even when I didn’t know this fact, I usually stayed away from a “seasoned” product as I would usually want to season it myself with my own herbs and spices. Strange but true.

This is not seasoned pork

This recipe is really quite simple: meat, cheese, tomatoes, black olives, garlic, lemon thyme, lemon rind and butcher’s twine. Oh, OK, I’ll write it out for you.

Serves 4 (we used two portions for dinner and two for lunch the following day).

Ingredients:

• 400-600g pork loin (not seasoned)
• Handful of crumbled feta (I would have used John’s home made feta, if we lived close-by)
• Handful of black olives (I used a mix of Kalamata and sun dried olives)
• Handful of sun dried tomatoes (I used dried, but you can use the ones in olive oil)
• 1 tbsp lemon thyme
• 1 tsp lemon rind
• 2 cloves garlic, minced finely
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 375°F.
2. Get the stuffing ingredients prepared first. Pit the olives and cut in half. Crumble the feta and gently mix in the lemon rind and lemon thyme. Slice the sun dried tomatoes into thin slices.
3. Now for the meat: remove all sinew and fat from pork. Cut down the centre but not all the way through; try to cut the pork so the thickness is relatively even.
4. Spread pork out flat and rub the garlic into it.
5. Add the sun dried tomatoes, olives and feta. Press the feta down to help it stick to the other ingredients. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste.
6. Roll up the sides so that the stuffing stays put in the middle. Wrap butchers’ twine around it, nothing fancy, you just want to hold the sides in place so it cooks wrapped and keeps its shape when sliced.
7. Heat a cast iron pan on the stove with a little oil. Sear the pork on all sides. Place the pan and pork into the hot oven and bake for about 30 minutes. The inner temperature of the meat should be 150-160°F, depending on how well done you enjoy your pork.
8. Remove from oven and allow the pork to sit covered for 10 minutes. Slice into 2cm thick slices.
9. Serve on greens or with a starch. Enjoy.

Delicious creamy feta, sun dried tomatoes and black olives makes the filling special and ensures the pork will be tender and juicy

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Pork Medallions in a Sweet Red Pepper and Caremalized Onion Coulis

Ann at Cooking Healthy for Me and Kelly at Inspired Edibles have proven time and time again, that you need not suffer eating healthy, just a few smart choices in the kitchen will take your recipe from high in fat, to low in fat and full of flavour. Today’s recipe chooses a pork loin over pork chops because the loin is far less fatty and the fat that it does have can be easily removed before cooking. It can also be easily measured for portion control (we are using 100g (3 ounces) for a portion size). Today we are using the vegetables as thickeners so that we need not add a roux, or cream or butter saving you oodles of fat intensive calories (you should actually try writing down everything you put in your mouth over one day, and you would be surprised! and then you’ll thank me for this recipe).

That's not butter chicken, it's Pork Medallions in a Sweet Red Pepper and Caramelized Onion Coulis

Pork Medallions in a Sweet Red Pepper and Caramalized Onion Coulis

Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 400g loin of Pork, all fat removed, cut into medallions about 25g each
• 1 yellow pepper, roasted, skin removed (see notes and tips)
• 1 red pepper, roasted, skin removed (see notes and tips)
• 4 shallots, finely sliced
• 1/2 sweet onion, finely sliced
• 2 tbsp white vinegar
• 1/2 cup low sodium vegetable stock (I like to use Pacific)
• around 1 1/2 cups water
• 1 tbsp Dijon mustard (or slightly more to taste)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• Non-stick cooking spray
• 1 green onion and jalopeño pepper finely diced as garnish.

Directions:

1. Lightly spray a medium sauce pan (large enough for the onions to be about 3 cm thick on the bottom). Add the onions and shallots and cook over medium heat until they are golden, add the white vinegar to deglaze the pan. Add the vegetable stock as required so that the onions and shallots don’t burn or stick to the bottom of the pan.
2. When the onions and shallots are caramelized, add the roasted peppers and heat through.
3. With an immersion blender, blend very well until silky smooth. Add the Dijon, salt and blend. If the consistency is too thick, add water until you have your desired consistency (should be the thickness of butter chicken sauce).
4. Pre heat the oven to 350°F.
5. In another pan lightly sprayed with non-stick cooking spray, sear the pork until you get a nice caramelization on the crust. Once done, add to the sauce and bake for about 10-12 minutes or until the desired done-ness of the pork (in Canada you can have pink pork as they have bread the salmonella out of it).
6. Serve over greens or rice or use a flat bread to scoop it up. We’re keeping this on the healthy side, so we’ve put it on greens.

Notes and Tips:

• If you were not able to peel your peppers, push the finished coulis through a fine sieve to remove the tough skin bits of the peppers.
• By adding a bit more stock or water, this would make a lovely soup, perhaps with a dollop of fat free Greek Yogurt.
• We roasted our peppers on the BBQ for a nice smokey flavour.
• I added smoked paprika to the sauce for my lunch the next day…YUM!
• As an alternative flavour, I think one tbsp of garam masala and one tsp of meat masala would be fantastic in this sauce.
• If you’re down right convinced this is not a good sauce, then add a 1/2 cup of cream or a 1/4 cup of butter and be done with it.

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Chorizo with Tomatoes and Balsamic Vinegar

Happy Thursday everyone. By now I am sure you have read Barb (Profiteroles and Ponytails) had a Tapas dinner party on the weekend and we were kindly invited; we had such a variety of food and it was soooo good. I made Chgo John’s Cheese Bread again (how many times do I have to make this bread before EVERYONE sees that they MUST make it?) and some devil’s on horseback and the Chorizo with Tomatoes and Balsamic Vinegar. I had a few leftover red and yellow peppers and decided to add them to the recipe, so below is the updated recipe, with photos this time. It’s such an easy tapas to make, just add what you have on hand, and you can make it in advance, as I did and just reheat in the oven or you can do it all right away. I would suggest, however, not to make it in cast iron unless it has an enamel coating as the vinegar will remove any seasoning you have diligently worked so hard on. We just served the dish in these adorable cast pans.

The martini with more in it is mine.

Serves 4 if you’re having other tapas courses

Ingredients:

• 1 cup 1/4″ sliced and halved chorizo sausage
• 1/3 cup grape tomatoes, quartered
• 1/4 cup chopped onion (I prefer Mayan sweet onions or vidalia)
• 1 clove garlic finely chopped (I prefer to use my microplane)
• 1/2 cup mixed sliced yellow and red peppers
• 1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Heat olive oil in a small pan, add chorizo and caramelize each side.
2. Add onions and garlic and sauté for a minute, add the peppers and sauté for another minute.
3. Add balsamic and allow balsamic to reduce slightly 3-4 minutes (this will thicken the balsamic a bit)
4. If you are making this in advance, I would add the tomatoes when you reheat so they maintain some shape. If you make this to eat now, add tomatoes and sauté for another minute.
5. Serve immediately or reheat (adding the quartered grape tomatoes) with that gorgeous Cheese Bread I cannot stop making and bragging about.

I wish you had smell-a-vision like I do.

I feel like Grover in the "near".... "far" episode

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Boston Rubbed Ribs — a Tex-Mex dry rub

Continuing the week with the Super Bowl food, I’ve decided to do a dry rub on the ribs mainly because I am not a hug fan of sloppy BBQ sauce dripping all over. I was originally going to do a Chai inspired rub, but then changed my mind to a Tex-Mex rub because it was such a success the last time. Again the photos did not turn out well, so I apologize for the absence!

I’ll assume you have your favourite cooking method for the ribs, whether it’s boiling them first, or just grilling them or even baking them and then grilling them. So prepare those babies as you would but finish them off with this rub instead. You can use this rub effectively for salmon and chicken.

You’ll thank me. You will.

Tex-Mex Dry Rub

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 tbsp granulated garlic or dehydrated garlic (not garlic powder)
• 2 tbsp dehydrated onion flakes
• 1 tbsp smoked paprika (you can use hot, I used sweet but add a pinch of cayenne)
• pinch of cayenne pepper
• 1 tsp salt

Directions:

1. Add all of the above to a spice grinder* and grind until fine.
2. Dry off the ribs and sprinkle the ground spice mix onto it, both sides.
3. Grill but be ever so careful, the sugar can catch flame very easily.

*I purchased an inexpensive electric coffee grinder which I have labelled as my “spice grinder” after all, who wants coffee that tastes like garlic?

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New England Bacon Wrapped Scallops and Bacon Wrapped Dates

Well, it’s past Super Bowl and we all know how that turned out…. Of course, I have such little interest in it (sorry Jed) that I can’t even be bothered to insert the winning team name in a blog I set up on the weekend. Sigh.
Although Super Bowl Sunday was our feeding frenzy theme my excitement wasn’t exactly for the New England Patriots or even the New York Giants, it WAS ABSOLUTELY about the feast we prepared. We started with the New England Bacon Wrapped Scallops and Bacon Wrapped Dates; now honestly, what isn’t better wrapped in bacon? It’s a mind numbing easy recipe, so hold on tight.

Can you smell the sweet scallops and the salty bacon?

New England Bacon Wrapped Scallops

Ingredients:

• 12 Nova Scotia New England Scallops (I like this size because they are small enough to pop into your mouth – about 1″ in diametre)
• 6 strips smoked bacon (nothing fancy) sliced in half cross-wise to give you 12 slices
• 12 toothpicks

Directions:

1. Par cook the bacon between a few sheets of paper towel in the microwave (2 minutes on high should do it). This is to get some of the water of out it and start the fat to render. Set aside and allow to cool.
2. Pre heat the oven to 375°F / 190°C
3. Take a slice of bacon and wrap tightly around a scallop and secure with the toothpick. Repeat until done.
4. Bake until scallop is no longer translucent and bacon is crispy.
5. Serve warm.

Better claim one now, before it's too late!

Bacon Wrapped Dates

Ingredients:

• 12 Majule dates
• 6 strips smoked bacon (nothing fancy) sliced in half cross-wise to give you 12 slices
• 12 toothpicks

Directions:

1. Par cook the bacon between a few sheets of paper towel in the microwave (2 minutes on high should do it). This is to get some of the water of out it and start the fat to render. Set aside and allow to cool.
2. Pre heat the oven to 375°F / 190°C
3. Take a slice of bacon and wrap tightly around a date and secure with the toothpick. Repeat until done.
4. Bake until scallop is no longer translucent and bacon is crispy.
5. Serve warm
   

   The dates get all creamy and sweet when baked. Watch-it, that one has MY name on it!

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