I'll Bring Home the Turkey If You Bring Home the...

BACON!

Kevin really wanted me to choose bacon when it was my turn, but I picked mushrooms instead and included bacon in my stuffed mushrooms. Well, someone picked bacon this week, so I get another go, and I chose to bake something.

~Maple Bacon Biscuits~

First, cook 1 12-ounce package of bacon, cut into 1/2 inch pieces, in a frying pan. I used low sodium bacon. Pat dry on paper towels to rid of excess grease.

Whisk together 3.5 cups flour, 2 Tablespoons sugar, 2 Tablespoons baking powder (recipe calls for 1, but my roommate Will told me to routinely double that to make stuff rise better), 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, and 1/2 teaspoon salt.

Cut in 2 sticks of butter "until it resembles small peas", whatever the hell that means. This part was very hard, so do your best.

Stir in bacon, 1/4 cup + 2 Tablespoons maple syrup (I used regular Ralph's brand pancake syrup, because I have a lot of it, which may have been a mistake, but they tasted good to me), and 3/4 cup + 2 Tablespoons of buttermilk. Mix together until the dough comes together; it will still be clumpy. I suggest using flour to help with this process.

Roll out the dough to 1-inch thickness on a lightly floured surface. Cut into 2-inch rounds (I didn't have a cookie cutter, so I used the 1/4 cup measure, and it worked okay). This should make about 24 biscuits.

Chill in the fridge for 10 minutes.

While they are chilling, mix together egg wash: 1 egg, 1 Tablespoon heavy whipping cream.

Brush the egg was on the biscuits and sprinkle 1 pinch of coarse sea salt on each biscuit (I didn't have coarse sea salt and wasn't going to buy it just for this, so I used a salt grinder that had course sea salt inside of it -- salt is salt!).

Place 1-2 inches apart on parchment-lined cookie sheet. Bake for 25 minutes at 350 F.

Drizzle 1 teaspoon of maple syrup (here I think the type of syrup is important...I probably really should have used maple, because mine came out REALLY sticky!) on each biscuit and bake for ~3 minutes more.

You tasted breakfast before you even got them in your mouth -- it was amazing! They were really sticky, which took away from the quality, in my opinion, because I don't like food that is too messy (sticky) to eat, but they were tasty. I brought them with me to LA when I visited Kevin, and he nommed on them pretty good.

~*~

Shroomin'

This week was my turn to pick the ingredient. I really wanted to pick something uber nifty, but I totally forgot it was my turn until 7:44pm on Saturday, sitting in Kevin's room who I hadn't seen in 1 week (and before that hadn't seen for 3 weeks), giving me only 16 minutes to pick something and wanting to get on with my night anyway. Kevin wanted me to pick bacon. I couldn't really think of anything so I went with something pretty versatile: mushrooms. Yeah, yeah, pretty boring, but it will hopefully mean variety in the recipes the girls choose this week.

When I began my recipe hunt, I already knew, before clicking my Google search results, that I wanted to make stuffed mushrooms, because I had never made them before. I flipped through a few pages of recipes on a couple different sites, getting the idea of different things to stuff them with. I kept a few in the back of my mind when I went grocery shopping the other day and came back with what inspired me.

~Stuffed Mushrooms ~
[with bacon, just for you, Kevin!]

• fry 4 pieces of bacon [low sodium, if you're salt conscious like I am]
  - de-grease with paper towels
  - crumble into a bowl [or use Bacon Bits, if you're a cheater]
  
• while the bacon is sizzling, prepare the mushrooms -- 6 medium-sized
  - mine were from a bulk box and smelled like dirt, but I hope you're not moronic enough to forget to wash them...dry them too!
  - remove the stems from the caps/the caps from the stems (you want to keep the caps) -- I twisted and pulled, and kind of dug out whatever clung behind
  
• finely cut green onions -- about 2-3 tablespoons
• finely grate mozzarella cheese -- about 2-3 tablespoons
• combine the crumbled up bacon, cheese, and onions
  
  
  
• brush olive oil on the rounded exterior of the mushroom caps [important! do this before stuffing the mushrooms! I neglected to do so until after, which was awkward]
  
• stuff the Christmas-colored mixture into the bowl of the mushrooms [and I mean really stuff -- the openings are small and you have a lot of filling! pretend you are at the mall getting Mongolian BBQ and cram as much into that bowl as you can! but be gentle -- the mushroom caps can split]
  
  
  
• broil the oiled and stuffed mushrooms for 3-5 minutes, or until cheese is melted
  
  
  
• serve and eat!
  
  
  ~*~