Bacon Week

Oh the greatest of all weeks, Bacon Week. I love Bacon Week. It only exists because of Costco. They sell the center cut bacon that's lower in fat and low enough in sodium for me to have two precious slices. That's supposed to be two slices for the day, not per meal like I've been doing it. Of course there's enough bacon to make breakfast for my entire block twice in each of the two vacuum sealed packages. It would make more sense for me to me to open up each one, divide it up into smaller containers and then freeze them. Instead, half goes into the freezer, the other into the oven.

A lot of love goes into my bacon. First, I trim off as much of the fat from the edges as I can. I used to carefully trim the edges until they were more tapered, like a carrot, but now I just chop off an inch from the end. The fatty end, not the nice bacony one. Why is there always a more fatty end? Second, I soak the bacon in a cold water bath with potato slices. I do this in hopes of removing more sodium from it. I then take the water logged bacon and place it on a wire rack that is set inside of a casserole dish. Third Step, baking commences. Fourth step, carefully removing the hissing bacon from the oven, gently placing it on paper towels and then smothering it to death. The bacon is then transferred to another set of paper towels and left to rest and contemplate how it really should not be so full of fat. The bacon can now be layered with fresh paper towels and stored in tupperware.

This week I have made BLTs, corn chowder, breakfast, spinach salad... I can't remember what else. If I could just figure out how to make it work with a Girl Scout Cookie then I would be the happiest girl.

The BLT was my favorite. I ate 3 the first day. Throughout the day. The corn chowder was fabulous yummy, and I did feel a special victory with this one because I had never made it before. The breakfast wrap was a no-brainer. The bacon was the star but the Laughing Cow Cheese made it a legend. I thought I might have finally met my match with the spinach salad with warm bacon dressing. Then I remembered who I was and it was so good that my salad hating husband ate every bite.

So what could possibly be wrong with such a fabulous week? Well for one, my house still smells like bacon. It has been several days since I baked it up, and the aroma is still here. Secondly, I have put on weight. It could be because I forgot to take my water pills... again, but maybe not. I had to take the heavy weight pill to make up for so many missed ones, so hopefully tomorrow morning's weigh in will say that Bacon Week may continue. Those are my only two complaints. Everything else about bacon week is awesome.

So please, please Water Gods, say it's the forgotten pills that have put on the four pounds. Please, don't let Bacon Week end yet. I have some brie and I know there's yumminess there just waiting to be made.