not martha

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

follow up: bacon cup, bacon basket, bacontainer

Well! The post about making cups out of bacon got quite popular on teh internets. It was linked to from a bunch of sites and I had a nice little spike of traffic. The fifteen minutes is over now, and life can continue as usual.

I have a bunch of bacon cup things I wanted to follow up with:
  • Alternate name suggestions: bacon basket and, my favorite, bacontainer.

  • From Laura: "If you run bacon under cold water before frying, it won't shrink. I bet if you refrigerate or put the bacon cups in the freezer to get really cold before baking, it'll reduce shrinkage."

  • From Luke: "To reduce shrinkage, you need bacon that has not had water injected into it following the curing process...Ideally you want properly dry-cured bacon. only this will not shrink when cooked."

  • Lots of suggestions for using turkey bacon since it will shrink less while cooking.

  • Kim advised: "According to America's Test Kitchen, a generous amount of salt in the pan to catch the drippings will help cut down on the smoke."

  • William suggested putting a tray or dish with cold water below the bacon to catch the drips, that way the won't flare when they hit and the oven won't get smoky.

  • DavidG suggested using the non-stick foil from Reynold's.

  • Kara wondered if something could be set up using carefully molded parchment and those silicone tying bands.

  • Jamaila considered using silicone baking cups. I have some of these but I feared that they would never get clean afterwards.

  • A few people suggested using the microwave - either forming hot bacon after it comes out of the microwave or making it on paper cups. I don't have a microwave (tiny kitchen, no space) so this will go untested.

  • There were a few mentions of bacon clothing, and somewhere out there I found a picture of a bacon bikini which I will not be linking to from here. It looked slimy.

  • Filling suggestions included: pecan pie, scrambled eggs, mini quiche, chocolate ice cream, mashed potatoes, meat loaf and a number of requests for simply more bacon.

  • Doing a little post-creation research I found examples of using a slice of Canadian bacon or pancetta in a muffin tin as a cup for a baked egg. In San Francisco I had the baked eggs at Doidge's a few times, it came in a ramekin that had a ring of bacon on the inside. All this to say, I'm certainly not the first to make shaped pork prodcuts.

  • Annaramma made a very successful bowl out of veggie bacon (more photos).

  • I came across some photos of scrambled eggs in small bacon cups on Flickr, made by getthebubbles.

  • Pancetta Cups with an egg baked inside at Iron Stef, see also eggs in a Canadian bacon cup.

  • I also found Beer Cheese Cupcakes W/ Bacon Cheddar Cream Cheese Frosting, and the Bacon Cheese Baconburger.
The excuse I had to make bacon was because I was invited to a delightful bacon themed pot luck held by Gluten-Free Girl and her husband, The Chef. You can see pictures of all the bacon-y food on her site. It was all absolutely, amazingly delicious. A few people in the comments suggested adding croutons to my bacon bowls as the bread part of the BLT, and keeping it gluten-free was my reason for not doing that. Though, somebody else was smarter than I and bought gluten-free croutons at Whole Foods for their fabulous BLT on a romaine leaf.

categories: food

27 Comments »

  1. As amazing as all this bacon blogfest is, I am simply blown away that you can function without a microwave.

    Comment by Tess — March 5, 2008 @ 10:19 am

  2. You go girl! I read your posts all the time and really enjoy them. I'm glad others found out about you and you got your 15 minutes of fame. Congrats! BTW-I'm making your bacon cups for Easter filled with(of course)eggs. Have a great day.

    Comment by mary — March 5, 2008 @ 10:25 am

  3. I don't have a microwave either. It drives my boyfriend crazy, but I don't see the point of them.

    Comment by susan — March 5, 2008 @ 10:53 am

  4. Wouldn't putting a pan of water (cold water will get hot anyway...) underneath to catch hot grease drips increase the risk of smoke?

    I cannot wait to make up an excuse to make bacon cups. So amazing.

    Comment by Emily — March 5, 2008 @ 10:59 am

  5. Yay for the microwave-less! We don't have the space either, but when I've had one in the past I hardly used it anyway, so I don't usually miss it. Just as Tess above can't imagine living without a microwave, I can't imagine needing one that badly! :)

    Comment by greta — March 5, 2008 @ 11:06 am

  6. How exactly would you cook shaped bacon chunks other than in a microwave? You can't pan fry it that way. Bake it?

    Anyway, seriously, get a microwave. I can't imagine doing any serious cooking without one. Make the space. Get a small one and put it on top of the fridge or something.

    Comment by Otto — March 5, 2008 @ 11:32 am

  7. Check out my awesome Bacon Pods! http://phaedo.cx/archives/2007/08/04/speaking-of-bacon-check-out-this-cool-way-to-make-bacon-eggs/

    They are super delicious :D

    Comment by Clint Ecker — March 5, 2008 @ 11:35 am

  8. I guess it is time to invest in pork bellies! bacon is a wonderful thing...who knew you could make crafts from it.... I also like the name bacontainer.

    Comment by hag — March 5, 2008 @ 11:38 am

  9. Yay, you linked to me :) Thanks for the inspiration, the deconstructed bacon egg and cheeses went over like, well, hotcakes! Thankfully I didn't have any left over, because after baking 5 packages worth of bacon for the brunch, I still haven't been able to smell or eat bacon without my stomach turning a bit (it's been 2 weeks).

    We are making these again, in April for another brunch. I'll post some pics of that when it happens.

    Love your blog!
    Lori (getthebubbles)

    Comment by getthebubbles — March 5, 2008 @ 11:53 am

  10. You're missing bacon waffles. They're amazingly good. Use Mark Bittman's Buttermilk Waffles recipe, putting the bacon down on the waffle iron first and frying it in there until it's just crispy, and then put the waffle batter on top.
    Delicious.

    Comment by Amy — March 5, 2008 @ 3:21 pm

  11. It's not gluten-free by any stretch of the imagination, but falls under the category of: more things that bacon belongs in.

    Comment by Amy — March 5, 2008 @ 3:21 pm

  12. Megan, I thought of you this morning when they were talking about Ancho Bacon Chocolates on the radio this morning. It's from some local cookbook (vancouver local that is). The recipe is here, (warning it's a PDF).

    Comment by emira — March 5, 2008 @ 3:48 pm

  13. I immediately thought of ranch dressing rather than mayo for your little salad - they look fun!

    Comment by mar — March 5, 2008 @ 4:27 pm

  14. bacon themed potluck...great idea! i'll have to try that.

    Comment by Prasti — March 5, 2008 @ 5:27 pm

  15. I was surfing Archie McPhee's "What's New" page just now, and thought of this post (and how appropriate for decorating a bacon theme party. If it's appropriate to decorate for a bacon theme party. Hmmm!).

    http://www.mcphee.com/items/11769.html

    Comment by Jennie — March 5, 2008 @ 6:34 pm

  16. My husband's best friend made it into a Forbes.com photo slide show with this:

    http://www.peppersandsmoke.com/bbq/burgers/index.html

    And followed it up with this:

    http://www.peppersandsmoke.com/bbq/deepfried/index.html

    Similar to some things you've already received, I'm sure, but sheer brilliance nonetheless. Additionally, the husband is particularly captivated by your love of bacon! Thanks for sharing!

    Comment by Susan (Plum Texan) — March 5, 2008 @ 7:40 pm

  17. Speaking of bacon waffles, there's also bacon & cheddar waffles, which recipe I had a while back. Made partially with corn meal for crispy-goodness. You can feel your arteries clogging as you eat them, but soooo good...

    Comment by Wibble — March 6, 2008 @ 6:51 am

  18. we often make "ham and cheese eggs in a cup" in the oven. you take a cupcake pan spray the cups with non stick spray, lay a slice of ham or canadian bacon in the cup, crack an egg in it (or pour beaten egg into it), add some cheese and bake. they are perfect to keep in the fridge for quick morning heatups for breakfast on the go. and the cheese and egg baked together gets all puffy and souffle like. yumm

    Comment by lauren — March 6, 2008 @ 7:58 am

  19. Hey! I made a BLT-ini with homemade bacon vodka, tomato water and bacon curls based upon your straw curl experiment. They weren't pretty, but it was dang tasty!

    http://luckwithacapitalf.blogspot.com/2008/03/blt-ini.html

    Comment by Debra — March 6, 2008 @ 8:34 am

  20. I loved reading the comments on your last post nearly as much as I loved your bacon ideas!

    Comment by Susan — March 6, 2008 @ 10:34 am

  21. I missed this post the first time around so I'll be reading up on your bacon adventures, but so far, I love this idea!

    Comment by Kimberly Ann — March 7, 2008 @ 9:04 am

  22. The only thing I use the microwave for is to make popcorn - we have an oil free microwave popper that works great. Other than that it just sits there and looks sad... I loved your link to Gluten Free Girl's site and to read about the potluck parties you guys have. You and your friends are inspiring people all over the country!

    Comment by DCguy — March 7, 2008 @ 9:17 am

  23. We haven't had a microwave for two years! My husband occasionally complains (heating up stuff takes a little longer) but all I'm missing out on is Lean Cuisine...!

    Comment by Mary T. — March 7, 2008 @ 11:27 am

  24. You can add mrbaconpants to the list of people that talked about you! I new about it sooner but since I was a bacon fest I just now go time to write about it.

    Keep up the good work the bacon community loves you!

    Comment by Mosley — March 7, 2008 @ 1:43 pm

  25. I followed the link to the beer-cheese-muffin/bacon-cream-cheese frosting recipe.
    I rounded up some guinea pigs and as culinaryly confusing as it sounds, they were actually really good.
    My testers weren't alerted to what they were eating and once they found out, they were deeeeellighted.

    I will HAVE to try the bacon cups.

    Comment by Stephanie — March 9, 2008 @ 7:51 am

  26. (Sooner than I ever expected) I've ran across a party where bacontainers will suit perfectly! (A mostly male business student party calls for fancy/unique, yet partially carnivore-specialized, heh.)

    I'm just curious if you've happened to run across the perfect mayonnaise dressing for these gorgy BLTs...

    Thanks!

    Comment by Erica — March 14, 2008 @ 6:00 am

  27. [...] Instructables.com teaches you how to make your own fashion-forward bacon placemats, the inspiration for NotMartha.org’s famous bacon baskets and breadless BLT. [...]

    Pingback by Virtual Collection: Bacon Bits - Part 2 - so you wannabee a Domestik Goddess? — June 10, 2008 @ 5:31 am



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