I know that tacos with shells made out of bacon have been done before, but none of the ones I’ve seen looked very appetizing to me. It seems like people sort of took the easy way out when making them and just tossed their bacon over a metal object, made sure the strips overlapped a little so they’d stick together and either baked or deep fried it like that so their shells just end up looking like squares of bacon that had been folded in half. Long story short, most of the bacon taco shells out there just don’t look very taco-shaped.
For my bacon taco shell I started off the same way I did when I made my Bacon Weave Quesdailla, by creating a square bacon weave, cooking it in my oven at 400° for about 15 minutes and then placing an upside down bowl over it and tracing around it with a knife until I was left with a circular bacon weave. After that I hung it over a couple kabob sticks that were balanced across empty beer bottles and left it like that for a few minutes so it would keep its shape. I’m sure that there was probably something better I could have draped it over, but you’ve gotta make due with what you’ve got right?
Since I wasn’t quite sure if beer bottles were safe to put in the oven I swapped them out for a couple pint glasses, put them on a baking sheet, hung my bacon weave taco shell between them and slid it back into my oven for another ten minutes so it could finish cooking.
Granted, I’m sure the beer bottles would have been fine, but I didn’t know if the labels would burn or if the glue that holds them to the bottle is toxic. Then again, when you’re eating stuff like this on a regular basis a little bit of toxic glue should probably be the least of your worries….
In the end my Bacon Weave Taco ended up looking — and tasting — way better than I ever could have imagined. Once it was done baking I filled it to the brim with seasoned ground beef, sour cream, lettuce, tomato and shredded cheese and took a bite. It was completely amazing, and aside from that the shell actually looked exactly like a real taco shell!
This is another dish similar to the Cheddar Bacon Ranch Pull Apart Bread that I made back in December where I can’t even remember where I originally came across the recipe. All I know is that I’ve wanted to try making these Eggs in Clouds for a long time now, and a couple weeks ago I finally gave it a shot!
What’s really cool about Eggs in Clouds is that the only ingredient you really need to make them — aside from the slices of toast that I put mine on — is eggs. What you see in the photos here are simply egg whites that are beaten and then baked in the oven with egg yolks on top of them. The egg white portion of Eggs in Clouds is basically meringue without the sugar.
To start things off you’re going to want to separate a few egg whites from their yolks, combine all the egg whites in a bowl and beat them until they have about the same consistency as whipped cream. If you don’t have an electric mixer you might as well not even bother trying to make these, because they would take WAY too long without one.
Even with my sweet KitchenAid mixer it still took about five or six minutes of whipping the egg whites before they were ready. About half way through you’ll probably even want to give up because it’ll look like nothing is happening to the egg whites, but just hang in there because it WILL happen and you WILL have an awesome breakfast because of it!
Once you’re done whipping your egg whites grab a couple slices of toast and spoon them onto it. Then you need to create an indentation in the middle of your “clouds” for the egg yolks that you separated out earlier. I used an upside down shot glass and it worked perfectly, but I’m sure you could use your fingers just as easily and get the same result. All that’s left to do after that is to bake your Eggs in Clouds in the oven at 450° for five minutes. If you like your yolks a little runnier you can also wait until half way through the baking process to add them.
I’ve also tried making Eggs in Clouds with a couple added ingredients. Diced bacon and shredded cheese for instance taste amazing when mixed in with the egg whites. I’m guessing that you can basically take whatever it is that you normally like to eat as part of your breakfast and toss it in and I’ll taste pretty good. Red and green peppers? Why not! Chopped up breakfast sausage? Sure! The sky, or should I say the clouds, are the limit!
A while back I discovered bread cheese, or Juustoleipä as its been known for over 200 years in Sweden and Northern Finland where it originated. It’s a pretty unique cheese in the sense that it’s baked during the cheesemaking process, which caramelizes the sugars on the outside of the cheese creating a brown crust.
The thing that I love most about bread cheese though is that it doesn’t melt quite like regular cheese does and is actually meant to be heated or sautéed prior to serving.
I first used it to create a grilled cheese that was made completely out of cheese. After that I made a few more of my 100% cheese grilled cheese sandwiches, added a couple burger patties and some bacon and came up with the Bread Cheese Bacon Double Cheeseburger. Since then though I’ve mostly just been frying the cheese and drizzling syrup on it, which is how I came up with my most recent idea — Bread Cheese Waffles!
I once again used cheese from Brunkow and Carr Valley — this time chopping it into squares that were perfectly waffle-sized. I then plugged in my waffle maker, waited for it to preheat, placed the two bread cheese squares into it and pressed down on the lid. 45 seconds later my Bread Cheese Waffles were finished! Now, I know that this isn’t really any different than just frying the bread cheese in a pan and adding syrup but come on, how awesome does it look in waffle form!?
Hormel recently sent me a bunch of bacon — 12 pounds to be exact — and this Bacon Weave Quesadilla is what I did with the first two pounds of it.
Actually, I should clarify that a little, the two bacon weave “tortillas” that I made only totaled about a pound and a half, but when you’re cooking with bacon you’re obviously going to eat some along the way, and that’s where the extra half pound went.
For the bacon weave tortillas I started off by cooking two large bacon weave squares and then placing a bowl over each one and tracing around it with a knife to create a circle. The trick with these bacon weaves is to cook them to the point where the bacon sticks together and is able to be cut, but you don’t want to cook it too much or when you add your quesadilla ingredients and finish cooking it your bacon will burn.
The cooking time will vary depending on which type of bacon you use and how thick it is, but for my original two bacon weaves I just cooked them in the oven at 400° for about 15 minutes. Then, after cutting them into circles, I added some chicken and cheese to them and fried my Bacon Weave Quesadilla in a pan on my stove for about five minutes. Completing my meal was a bowl of fresh homemade guacamole.
Overall I think that this was my favorite bacon weave creation to date. It was completely and utterly delicious. You know what though? Maybe quesadillas just aren’t quite your thing, and in that case you could also incorporate a similar bacon weave concept into Bacon Weave Pizza, a Bacon Weave Grilled Cheese or even a Bacon Weave Breakfast Burrito.
For as simple as a Chocolate Chip Cookie Cone sounds, it actually took me a LONG time to get it just right. On my first try I put a pile of cookie dough in my waffle cone maker, pressed down the lid and expected to be able to roll it into a cone after it cooked. It didn’t quite work out that way however and when I opened the lid half of the cookie dough was stuck to the top grilling plate and the other half was stuck to the bottom.
For my second attempt I took a metal cone, wrapped cookie dough around it and stood it up on a baking sheet in my oven. After about five minutes the dough was running down the cone into a pile on the cookie sheet. On the plus side though, when you’re trying to make a cookie cone and it doesn’t turn out the way you want it you’re left with a bunch of cookie dough to eat, which isn’t a bad problem to have at all!
For my third and final attempt I decided to just bake one giant cookie in my oven and then roll it into a cone the second it was done baking, before it could harden. Well, I guess sometimes the simplest idea is the best, because this worked like a charm. To roll mine I used the cone-form that came along with my waffle cone maker, but any cone-shaped object should work just as well. Then, once the cookie cone cooled and hardened it was all set to eat!
Now, my Chocolate Chip Cookie Cone was awesome on its own, but do you know what really took it to the next level? The chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream that I filled it with! I’m not normally a huge dessert fan, but this cookie cone was delicious and was ten times better than any other ice cream cone I’ve ever eaten. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I think I might need to try making an Elvis Cookie cone next!
I know that tacos with shells made out of bacon have been done before, but none of the ones I’ve seen looked very appetizing to me. It seems like people sort of took the easy way out when making them and just tossed their bacon over a metal object, made sure the strips overlapped a little so they’d stick together and either baked or deep fried it like that so their shells just end up looking like squares of bacon that had been folded in half. Long story short, most of the bacon taco shells out there just don’t look very taco-shaped.
