Deep Fried....what?

In celebration of three amazing years together, Mike and I took the day off of work to be with each other. So far, we have signed up for Scuba Open Water Certification (one of his gifts to me) and travelled to the Arizona State Fair. If you look at the state fair website, you can find a link to everything they have deep fried. This includes: Deep Fried Snickers, Deep Friend Kool-Aid, Deep Fried Pudding, Deep Fried Beer, Deep Fried You-Name-It.

When did our society become so obsessed with deep frying everything? Just splitting Indian Fry Bread with Mike was enough grease to make me sick. It's no wonder such a high percentage of our population suffers from heart-disease, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and diabetes. If we keep pumping ourselves full of grease, fat, and sugar, how do we expect to live long, full, and happy lives?

My October Blog of the Month...

Systems have been acting up at work, so I decided to take a little break, before I unplugged my laptop and throw it through the inoperable windows. Regardless of if they care I was looking at a cooking blog, I decided it was the option least likely to get me promoted to customer. As tomorrow is the halfway point to this month and we are approaching the 2 month countdown line for the holidays, I was considering what to give some of my friends and co-workers for the holidays. As I am flat broke and extremely good at one thing (cooking) I decided to look for fun holiday themed recipes. With that I introduce EggNog Cupcakes and Peppermint Mocha cupcakes via The Ungourmet blog. This blogger introduces us to fun recipes, awesome failures, and tempts us with pictures of delicious food. Check it out, let me know what you think! A new blog to come in November...maybe. The Ungourmet Blog

Hot Grease... Cool Glass..... Bad Idea and a Great BLT Recipe

This evening, Mike decided to make me BLT's (bacon, lettuce and tomato for him; bacon, lettuce and turkey for me). Because he doesn't like getting popped by the grease of the bacon...cooking the bacon naturally falls to me. After cooking 9 pieces of beautiful, thick cut bacon, I was trying to do the smart thing and dump the bacon grease without pouring it down my drain and garbage disposal. I took a glass out of the sink and poured the bacon grease straight from the stove into a nice cool glass.

.... thirty seconds later... POP! The glass split the entire way around the circumference just above the bacon grease line. Needless to say...if you're cooking bacon (or anything that creates grease) wait until the grease cools a bit before pouring it into a container to dispose of.

Since I'm talking about cooking bacon for BLT's, I thought I'd publish Mike's awesome recipe for BLT's

Ingredients:

Bread
Roma Tomatoes
Thick Cut Bacon (enough for 2 pieces per sandwich)
Arugula
Mayonnaise
Fresh Basil leaves

Slice the tomatoes 1/4 inch thick. Cook the bacon until crispy. Mix 1/2 cup mayonnaise with 8 or 9 finely chopped basil leaves. Spread the mayonnaise on one side of the bread. Place 2 pieces of bacon on the bread. Layer with the tomato slices, arugula, and the second slice of bread. Cut in half and serve with your favorite sides.

We used regular white bread, as it was what was in the house, but a stiffer bread like a baguette or ciabatta bread would go well with the sandwich.