Candied Bacon!

Seriously…It changed my life!

It was really simple to do this.  All that we used was brown sugar, and maple syrup.

We used one packaged of thick sliced bacon (you can also use thin sliced if you want),  about 1 1/2 cups brown sugar, and 1/2 cup maple syrup. Mix the brown sugar and the maple syrup in a bowl. * You can add more if you want – the more brown sugar and syrup added to the bacon the more gooey it will becomes.

Lay all of the strips of bacon out on a baking sheet lined with foil.

Brush the mixture on one side, and put it in the oven at 400 degrees.

After about 5 minutes pull the bacon out, flip them all over, and brush on the other side.

Repeat the process until the bacon is done to your liking. The entire process takes about 30 minutes.  – But wait there more!

The real excitement comes when you put it on a BURGER!

DON’T JUDGE ME BECAUSE I PUT MY CHEESE UNDER THE MEAT!

PLEASE  hit it with a few slices of avocado, and them some chipotle ranch! It’s life changing!

Banana Pancakes

As a newly married couple we have started a tradition of doing something for breakfast every Saturday morning.  Some times it is rather excessive, and other times we just keep it simple.  This is what we tried this past weekend. Super simple, super cheap, and kind of healthy. All you need to start is:

1 banana and 2 eggs

We did add a few drops of vanilla, just for more flavor.

Mash the two bananas, the squishier the better, and mix in the eggs.

Mix together, with a few drops of vanilla, and this is what you get. You can hit it with some butter, maple syrup, and powered sugar – we won’t tell.

This is what you have.  For every 1 banana and 2 eggs you should get about 4-5 pancakes. Keep then about the size of you palm, they will flip better and wont be so thin.

EAT UP!

 

Now that we are moved!

Now that we are all moved in with MOST everything unpacked, hung on the walls, and rooms painted…we tried these.

I found the recipe online, so we decided to put our own twist on them. 

2 oz Vodka

3 oz Ginger beer

3 oz Limeade, our you can use just lime juice

Ice

Of course it does help to use the moscow mule mugs!

In this one we tried Cherry flavored vodka

        2 oz  Cherry Vodka

3 oz Ginger beer

2 tablespoons maraschino cherry juice 

3 oz Limeade, our you can use just lime juice

Drop in 2 cherries and lime wedge

Ice

In either case you can double the recipe, but please drink RESPONSIBLY!!

Food shoot!

This was my first attempt to photograph some sort of food. Of course like most people I have taken Instagram pictures of my food, but somehow it isn’t same. The picture below was some chicken tacos that we made awhile back, and not bad either. This was taken with my phone in what I would call a food tent. I will post a review later after I have had more chances to use it. 

Photo by Travis

This one was also taken with my phone, but I used just natural light coming from the kitchen window.  I seem to find that the natural light route is the best way to go when photographing food.  

OH! and I used these to make tea with – something I might share later. 

Photo by Travis

I’m going to continue on this food journey to see where it can takes me, and if you want you are free to tag along. 

My new Food!

This is what I decide to throw on the grill this last weekend. 

I took just 3 normal sized pork chops, a little salt and pepper on both sides, and put them in a bowl.  

The seasoning below is what I am most partial too, so that is what I used. I hit all sides with the powered seasoning, then I mixed a few tablespoons of the spicy brown mustard and some Sprite, until they were all swimming. Put them in the fridge, and let them marinate about 6 hours or so. 

I took the chops out at about 4 hours, and injected some Jack Daniels in all three and put them back in the fridge for the next two hours.  

After the chops were done, I mixed about 1 cup of BBQ sauce (I used Sweet Baby Ray’s) 1 cup of brown sugar, and 2 tablespoons of spicy brown mustard (I do love the Spicy brown mustard). Lastly I brought that to a boil until it was nice and caramelized and poured it over the chops! And done!

It was super easy and super simple.  Next time I will share a drink recipe that my wife found. 

Beer Can Chicken

It is likely from this post that you have an idea of where this blog might be going, but I will leave that up to you.  Most of our weekends during the summer are spent outside, with the grill, drink in hand…you get the idea.  Last weekend we tried beer can chicken for the first time, and this is how it went. 

We used the normal stand (which was a wedding gift) and some cheap beer.  More often than not I take recipes and make it my own, so this is what we came up with. 

Take a couple of big swigs out of the beer, and leave about 3/4 left.  I took the rest of the space and filled it with Fireball Whiskey, just to see. Not too bad…it had sort of a cinnamon taste.  Of course, there are other things that you can experiment with.  

I cooked it on the grill for about 2-3 hours (until it tempted right) just over the normal coals. Wasn’t to bad at all, which gives me some other ideas for future weekends. 

Definitely something try if you enjoy the grill.  So now I am off to see what to come up with something for this weekend.  I”l keep you posted!

Food Photography has peaked my interest…

For about 5 bucks I picked up several pieces of tile from Lowe’s and used that as a backdrop.  My egg wasn’t cooked nearly as good and didn’t taste as good either, but it was my first attempt.  (Don’t judge)  I din’t use any flash, but only natural light, my tripod, and a small reflector. Aside from the fact that this was about the only food that I had in house, I really would like to keep working at this.