Tippy Tuesday: Bacon!

Mmm, bacon. I have a love-hate relationship with it. Smoky, salty, meaty goodness. Splattery, burny, greasy clean-upness.

Enter: Alton Brown. One of my culinary heroes.

Bake yer bacon, folks!

That's right. Slap an oven-safe cooling rack in a shallow sheet pan. Lay those bacon strips right on top. Crank 'er up to 400 degrees. Stick 'em in. Turn occasionally. Remove when nicely darkened and crisped to your preference. Takes about 10-15 minutes.

AMAZING! Smokey campfire bacon smell will waft through your kitchen -- delicious! NO greasy grime on your above-stove microwave. NO grease freckles on your stove or kitchen floor. NO pops and forearm stings or grease pricks on your shirt. Simply glorious. Bonus 1: the fat renders off into the sheet pan rather than your bacon drowning in its own grease. Bonus 2: your bacon stays flat (so long as you turn it a few times) which makes for easy use in my family's favorite bacon dish...

Breakfast burritos! Back at TMC, the student center's lil' restaurant would make the "California Burrito." We're talkin' one HUGE breakfast burrito stuffed with scrambled eggs, cheese, bacon, and tater tots. Those cafe ladies sure knew how to start your day! I remember Matt always trying to get one of them to smile -- and it worked on a few occasions.

Anyway, you really should try your hand at a hearty breakfast burrito at home. Tortillas, eggs, bacon, shredded cheddar, and tater tots. That's it! I've gotten it down to a science thanks to my two new sheet pans (I'm becoming less of a stone person by the minute...). The great thing about baking bacon for your breakfast burritos is that you can bake your bacon AND tater tots at the same time WHILE making your eggs atop the stove. No baking your tots, frying you bacon, then attempting to use the same (or another) pan for eggs. Scrambled eggs go down the center of your tortilla, cheese, a few strips of bacon, then a nice line of tater tots (salted if desired). Roll up gently so there is no breakage. Let sit to allow the cheese to get all ooey-gooey. In the fashion of Emile on Ratatouille, HORK IT DOWN! (Personal Experience Note: they taste just as good without cheese for my fellow can't-have-dairy-right-now people.)

Ok. Now I want one. Good thing it's on the menu for this week! And last week...and the week before that...

Tippy Tuesday

I'm going to try and start a new thing: Tippy Tuesday. A day in which I just post random tips of things that work for me around the house that may or not be of use to others. I've learned from having a subscription to Better Homes & Gardens (thank you, Brenda!) that I am an idea-lover. Even if I never use a tip or idea, I love simply reading about them! So, I give you the first Tippy Tuesday post.

Instead of having a random stack of kid socks, too small to stack like adult socks but too big to lay neatly like baby socks, I pair mine up and stack them in a criss-cross fashion. That way, it gives a wide base so the tower doesn't fall over in the drawer AND my sons can easily pick up a pair without bringing just a handful of socks.

I love having an egg container in my fridge. But I also know that it is "best" to store eggs upright as they come in an egg carton. I just discovered that an egg carton actually fits in my egg container! So, I snipped off the lid and flap and placed the whole bottom half of the carton with the eggs in the egg container. Pop the lid back on, and stack the next carton on top. Keeps all eggs from being crushed and keeps them upright. The only drawback is that it doesn't look quite as quaint as a bunch of eggs piled in a container. :-)