serves 12


1 pound dried navy beans, soaked overnight
1 ham bone
6 slices bacon, diced
12 cups chicken stock
1 bay leaf
1 tablespoon tamari soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 pound potatoes, cooked and cubed
1/4 cup milk
1 1/4 cups chopped celery
1 1/4 cups chopped onion
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1/2 teaspoon oregano

Drain beans, place in pot and add 12 cups of stock, bay leaf, tamari and thyme, along with the ham bone. Bring to a boil and simmer 30 – 40 minutes, till beans are tender.

Mix potatoes with 1/2 cup milk and set aside.

Cook bacon, remove and set aside, then saute vegetables, garlic and parsley in three tablespoons of drippings. If there are not enough drippings, add a bit of oil or butter. After they’ve softened, add to beans, and simmer, one hour or so.

Remove about one cup of beans, mash and return to the pot, along with the mashed potato mixture.

Remove bone and any chunks of meat, shred and return meat to the pot.

Cook about 10 more minutes to thicken.

Garnish with the bacon.


bacon recipe courtesy of: Frugal Hausfrau's Blog

Ever since I went to my first Brazilian Steakhouse and had this mystery green sauce spread over my steak, I was intrigued. I had never seen something so bright and vibrant spread over a nice hunk of meat and, boy, was it delicious. I enquired with the waiter – the sauce was called Chimichurri (Chim-mee-chur-ree).I [...]

about 2.5 liters of young nettle tops loosely packed, washed
2.5 liters of home made vegetable or chicken stock
50 grams butter
1 large onion, finely chopped
2-3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
50 grams home cured smoked bacon, finely chopped
20 grams dried tomatoes
400 grams risotto rice
125ml dry white wine
salt & pepper

To serve:
50 grams butter, cut into cubes and chilled
100 grams finely grated hard cheese such as parmesan or pecorino
a few nettle leaves for garnish, deep fried until crisp

Blanch the nettle tops in plenty of salted boiling water for 30 seconds to 1 minute. This will help soften them and preserve their glorious green colour.

Drain and refresh the nettles in cold water. Squeeze out excess water and place in a blender and puree.

Melt the first 50 grams of butter in a sauté pan and gently fry the bacon until the fat renders and it's slightly coloured.

Add the onions and garlic and cook gently until softened but not coloured (about 5 minutes). If you need to, add a little more butter or olive oil.

Add the rice and stir around so that it gets coated with the flavoured butter and heats through.

Add the wine, stir and allow to evaporate completely.

Add the warm stock, a ladleful at a time, stirring the mixture constantly over a medium heat. When the liquid is nearly all incorporated, add the next ladleful.

Do this for about 10 minutes, then bring your heat up and add your nettle puree and tomatoes. Mix in well and turn the heat back to medium. The nettle will make things moister so you may not need to add any more liquid from here. Keep stirring for 5 minutes or so until the rice is soft outside and 'al dente' in the middle. You want the risotto moist (not dry but not soupy) at this stage.

Turn off the heat and cover the pan with a lid. Allow to rest for up to 5 minutes.

Add your chilled butter cubes and hard cheese and beat it into the risotto. Check taste and season appropriately.

Serve garnished with the deep fried nettle leaves.


bacon recipe courtesy of: Carl Legge, Permaculture, The Sustainability Centre, Droxford Road, East Meon, Hampshire GU32 1HR, March 17, 2011

It seems that the internet provides us with a plethora of information on the gloriousness of bacon. In fact, it’s such a congested, mind boggling highway of information it can leave a person completely overloaded. Which brings us to a more summarized version of bacon and its magnitude of uses. And when I mean shorter, I mean more like a picture book. Not because I’m lazy, (noooo, not at all!), but mainly because the majority of us bacon-lovin’ internet viewers have the attention span of a two year old… when we don’t have bacon in our hands.

First, take your bacon and wrap it around your food. What food you ask? Anything! Open your fridge, and pull out the first thing you see that’s not a liquid, and wrap the bacon around it. Scallops, asparagus, dates, tater tots, peppers… Most food is not safe from bacon’s wrapping abilities. Magically, bacon makes food tastes infinitely better. If you’re not sure about your recipe, just add bacon!

Food recipes are an obvious place to use bacon. There’s the bacon brownie, bacon cinnamon rolls, bacon pie, bacon balls, bacon bread, bacon jam, bacon soda… holy bacon fat, Batman! I think I just had a brain aneurysm.

But of course it doesn’t stop there. Let’s move on to the pictures! I know you’re excited.

1. Bacon flavored vodka. For those who love bacon so much they want to get drunk off of it. Or throw up so much they can’t stand the taste of bacon ever again. We’re not sure which.

2. The bacon gun (a.k.a. The BA-K 47): Everyone wants to shoot stuff with a gun made out of bacon, right? Makes perfect sense.

3. A bacon mug to drink your beer out of. Of course! One should not go to their local pub with out one.

4. The bacon bowl: Because who wants to do the dishes anyway?

5. Girls in bikinis= Awesome. Girls in BACON bikinis= Epic.

6. The bacon bazooka. Again, shooting things with a weapon of mass amounts of bacon. Just a bigger and badder version.

7. Because nothing says “I love you” more than bacon roses. Who wants to receive some dead plants anyway?

8. Just because. You can never have enough bacon, right?

9. Bacon Ice Cream. Chocolate is for wusses anyway.

10. Lastly, art. Because bacon is just so moving on its own. Beautiful. This brings a tear to our eye.

Bacon is renowned for it’s near magical powers to bring people together. The aroma of bacon wafting in from the kitchen calls a family together more readily than any dinner bell. An offering of bacon is sure to solidify and truce and heal any grudge, and event he pickiest eaters and generally won over by [...]

1 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
14 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon table salt
2 teaspoon vanilla
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
4 oz semisweet chocolate bar, diced into 1/4? pieces
1/2 cup bittersweet chocolate chips
3 tablespoons milk chocolate, grated
1 cup bacon that’s been fried until crispy and diced into roughly 1/4? pieces

Put your oven rack in the middle and heat your oven to 375 degrees. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Whisk 1 3/4 cups flour with 1/2 teaspoon baking soda. Set this aside.

Fry up a few pieces of bacon. You want the bacon to be as crisp as possible without being burnt. Cut the bacon into roughly (and this is very roughly) 1/4? pieces.

Heat 10 tablespoons of butter in a 10-inch skillet over medium heat until melted. Continue cooking until it turns a dark, golden brown and smells divine. Swirl this pan constantly and stir the bottom frequently for good measure. As soon as it’s done, take off the heat and pour immediately into a heatproof bowl. Stir in remaining 4 tablespoons of butter so that they melt.

Put the butter in a large mixing bowl and add 1/2 cup sugar, 3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar, 1 teaspoon salt and 2 teaspoon vanilla.

Add egg and egg yolk and mix until mixture is fully incorporated.

Let sugar/egg/butter mixture stand for a few minutes. Whisk again for 30 seconds. Do this several times–you want to make sure that the sugar has “melted” into the liquid. When ready, mixture will be smooth, thick and shiny.

Chop chocolate. Grate your milk chocolate

Using wooden spoon, stir in the flour mixture until just combined. Stir in grated chocolate, chocolate chunks and bacon pieces. Don’t over mix but make sure no flour pockets remain.

Using a teaspoon, place a heaping teaspoon of cookie dough on the baking sheet lined with parchment paper. I get about 14 cookies per baking sheet.

Bake for 10-14 minutes, until cookies are golden-brown and set along the edges but the middle is still soft. Remove from oven and set baking sheet on a wire rack and let cool for at least 10 minutes, keeping the cookies on the baking sheet.


bacon recipe courtesy of: Kristina, Mouth from the South, August 3, 2009 | adapted from Cook's Illustrated, America's Test Kitchen

Grilling season is approaching quickly (for those of us in the northern hemisphere).  Add this to your list of spring time grilling recipes – can’t get any better!

serves six


8 ears corn
4 slices thick cut bacon
2 tablespoons ubsalted butter
1 medium onion, preferably sweet such as maui, vidalia or walla walla, diced
1 large shallot, diced
8 sprigs thyme
4 sprigs fresh flat-leaf parsley
2 sprigs sage
6 cups chicken stock
1 lb yukon gold potatoes, peeled and diced
1 teaspoon kosher salt, or to tatse
1 teaspoon white pepper, or to taste
1/2 cup heavy cream
3 butter poached lobster tails, coarsely chopped
6 tablespoons chive oil

Cut all the kernels from the cobs. Discard all but 2 of the cobs. Cut the remaining cobs in half crosswise.

Heat a large Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the bacon slices in a single layer and cook until they have rendered their fat, but not yet browned. Add the butter, onions and shallots to the pot, increasing the temperature to medium-high. Sweat the onions and shallots with the bacon, stirring occasionally until they are translucent, about 5 minutes.

Using kitchen twine tie the thyme, parsley and sage sprigs together in a bundle adding them to the pot. Add the chicken stock, potatoes, and the corn cob pieces. Season generously with salt and white pepper. Bring the mixture to a boil then lower the heat to a simmer and cook the mixture until the potatoes soften, about 20 minutes.

Add the cream and the corn kernels, stirring to combine. Simmer about 5 minutes. Remove the soup from the heat and discard the bacon, herb bundle and corncobs. Then, using an immersion blender, blend the soup until completely pureed. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary.

Pass the soup through a fine meshed sieve into a sauce pan. It should be velvety, but not too thick. Adjust with a little water or more chicken stock if needed. Gently reheat the soup.

To serve: Divide the soup evenly between 6 soup bowls. Mound some of the butter poached lobster on top and drizzle each one with about 1 tablespoon chive oil. Serve warm.


bacon recipe courtesy of: Greg Henry, Sippity Sup, June 22, 2010