With Super Bowl Sunday right around the corner I knew it was time to share my stuffed jalapeño wrapped in bacon with you!
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bacon
Hasselback Potatoes with Bacon & Cheese
Do you know what a “Hasselback Potato is”? I didn’t until I spoke to my sister for inspiration on a new recipe, she recommended me looking it up, when I did, it didn’t take much for me to convince myself to try it out!
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Stuffed Dates Wrapped in Bacon
Back in September I attended a social gathering and met some really amazing women. I was asked if I would be opened to hosting a gathering at my house to watch the bachelor and of course I said yes. When Monday came and I realized it was time for the show, I also realized I needed a great appetizer to go with the show and knew exactly what to make.
This recipe for dates wrapped in bacon was introduced to me by my friend Susan, she and I taught some cooking classes back in October and she made this dish as an appetizer and I was sold! If you are on a budget, stuff the dates with walnuts, if you can splurge a little use pecans and if you want to go all out try blue cheese. For my party I used pecans because I already had them in my house and I didn’t want to go out and buy walnuts.
You are going to start with dates, that are pitted which leaves a hole in the date, then you insert your filling, for this recipe I used pecans
then you wrap the date in a small piece of bacon, I cut my bacon into 4th’s and you sprinkle some brown sugar on top
you then put them on a baking sheet, lined with foil and I ended up placing the dates on a rack
bake for 20 minutes or until the bacon is cooked through and remove from the oven
if you don’t put the dates wrapped in bacon on a rack, they will cook in the oil and be super greasy as you can see from my first go around and even though I over cooked them, they were still amazing!
here they are on a plate, these are the bacon wrapped dates from the rack
Everyone loved this appetizer, let’s face it, who wouldn’t…you get the sweetness from the dates, a secret surprise middle and the salty bacon on the exterior…hello yummy!
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Thank you again ~ Patty Limatola-Tanenbaum
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Stuffed Dates Wrapped in Bacon
Ingredients
- Pitted Dates (plan on 3 per person)
- Pecans, enough to stuff your dates
- 1/4 cup Brown Sugar
- 1 package Bacon, each piece sliced into 3-4 pieces
Directions
- Preheat oven to 375, line your pan with aluminum foil and place your baking racks in each pan
- In each date, put a piece of pecan in the date, this is very messy and sticky so you can wear gloves if needed.
- Wrap a piece of bacon around the date and place on your rack.
- Sprinkle brown sugar over the dates and bake for 20-25 minutes or until done.
- Serve warm. Enjoy!
Recipe belongs to Patty @MmGood.com, please contact me to use for personal use
Venison (Deer Meat) on the BBQ
I know that living in California it is not frequent to go to a friends house for dinner and have venison. For that matter, even to go to a restaurant and find venison on a menu is not common, people don’t even talk about venison or recipes for venison out here.
I grew up around hunters and my grandmother was a farmer so we pretty much tried everything from rabbit to venison. What I do recall in eating venison as a child are the following 3 things:
- I didn’t like it
- It was gamey (I didn’t know that term back then but I knew I didn’t like it)
- If I never ate it again, it would be too soon
Going to culinary school, we had a session where we had to make venison and of course anything we made we had to eat or try…did you just read my number 1, 2 and 3??? I did prepare a recipe for venison and I tried it and immediately I claimed that I did not like it. I really didn’t have a chance to like it because of my memory from my childhood so I barely took a bite and immediately shared with the chef that it wasn’t good.
Boy have things changed for me…in the last year, I have been exposed to venison and I have to say, if prepared correctly, it is amazing! I was visiting Mississippi and Brannon (a 19 year old son of a friend) was so excited to share some of his venison sausage for me as he just had the meat processed. I was freaking out as I knew I did not like venison, so what was I going to do???? Because Brannon was so excited to prepare it for me that I knew I had to try it and guess what? I ended up LOVING it!!! He gave me a sausage link which had pepperjack cheese mixed in with the meat. So in my mind I thought “maybe the cheese disguised the meat as the meat did not taste gamey” and honestly, if I didn’t know better, I wouldn’t have known I was eating venison.
Recently I was in Mississippi and was fortunate enough to try the “back strap” of venison, the back strap is the most tender and desired piece of meat on the animal. I did take photos of how they prepared the meat but I have to say I was not prepared to do a post on it so the photos show you an idea of how the back strap was prepared.
The “head chef” at the camp was “Frog”. Here is Frog removing the silver muscle lining from the back strap, it’s really important to remove the silver lining on any meat. In this photo of the back strap, Frog is using the knife to remove the silver muscle lining on one of the two pieces; he had already removed the lining from the other piece as you can see from the photo
Frog then cut the meat in half and tenderized the meat, using the end of a beer bottle. I thought it was pretty creative in using the beer botter and I found that the beer bottle did a better job tenderizing the meat than any tenderizer I had ever purchased
Peyton then did a weave pattern using bacon, because venison has no fat in it the bacon adds the fat to keep the meat tender and moist
they put the venison on top of the bacon and put cream cheese in the middle
they rolled up the meat nice and tight (sorry about the blurry photo)
and put it on the BBQ…along with all kinds of other meats…Frog took care of the BBQ and gave some great tips (I’m a newbie with BBQ’ing)
He cooked it until it was cooked through
While it was cooking, I got to go on a “mud ride” and so when I returned everyone was so excited for me to try venison. I have to be honest, I was a little nervous as what if I changed my mind and I didn’t like it again and what if it was gamey, I didn’t want them to feel bad if I didn’t like it. I walked over and looked at the cooked meat, sliced a piece off and figured “no matter what just chew and swallow”. I took my first bite…OMG…it was amazing, I even ate some more of the venison as it did not taste gamey, it was moist and very flavorful.
While I am not posting an exact recipe, as the meat cuts vary, just follow the steps above and cook the meat until it’s cooked through. For those of you who are new to exploring cooking venison or a regular at cooking venison, please email me at Patty@MmGood.com and me know what you think of this recipe.
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Thank you for visiting my site.
If you enjoyed this recipe, please leave a comment and if you enjoy my site, please subscribe to my site. To subscribe, go to the box listed on the top of the page “Subscribe Via Email” and input your email address.
**In subscribing, you will be emailed a link to confirm the subscription, be sure to click on that link to activate your account.
Thank you again ~ Patty Limatola-Tanenbaum
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Spinach Salad with Poppyseed Dressing & Poached Egg
So it’s “Tasty Tuesday” and I have an amazing salad recipe for you…I have to warn you to keep your mind open for this one as it sounds far out but I will also say that this salad is one of our favorite salads ever. The first time I made it at home, I did a video tape of my daughter Kelsi eating this salad and all I heard from her was MmMmmmm…she couldn’t even talk. With the awards on on Sunday, my daughter requested the salad.
When I mentioned to have an open mind, I have to share my story. When I went to culinary school, our first class was all about salad. Who would think there was so much to think about in making a salad and that there could be such diversity in a salad. I realized in that first class that I had to have an open mind when it came to trying new things and that I really needed to embrace this new experience.
I know what you are thinking “what’s this have to do with salad and trying new experiences”. Well, let me tell you. When we first started off, we started with basic ingredients, spinach, bacon, tomato, goat cheese and hearts of palm. Then out of know where we put a poached egg on top and we drizzled the poppyseed dressing on top. I initially thought “no way” then I thought, i’m spending enough money on this culinary class that I better try it. With the yolk dripping into the spinach and the sweet dressing, I thought “no way”. Others tried it and liked it so I dipped in and tried it…it was like a “party in my mouth” lol, You had the salty flavor from the bacon, the sweet dressing, the rich yolk the tomato…OMG, my mouth is watering just thinking about it again (lol).
Basically you take your ingredients and you take it from here…
to here…
As weird as this salad sounds, I promise you that you will love it…if you have the courage to try it. While I didn’t post our poppyseed dressing, you can purchase your favorite one at the market or you can use your favorite poppyseed dressing you make at home.
Enjoy!
Thank you for visiting my site and I hope you enjoy this recipe along with others. To make sure you are being kept up with all my new posts, please make sure to subscribe in the box listed on the top of the page. You will be emailed with a link to confirm you are interested in the subscription so be sure to click on that link too. Thank you again!
A French Spinach Salad with Poppyse
Ingredients
- A handful Spinach, pre-washed
- 1 Hearts of Palm, drained and cut in fourths lengthwise.
- 2 ounces Goat cheese, crumbled
- 1 small Tomato, cluster vine ripened, cut into wedges per salad (leave seeds in)
- 1 large Egg for poaching
- 1 teaspoon White wine vinegar and a pinch of salt for poaching the eggs
- 1/4 cup Dressing per salad
To poach the eggs
Directions
- To poach your egg(s), put water in a pot with the vinegar and salt. Bring the water to a soft boil, create a small "whirlpool" with your water and with a perforated spoon, drop eggs 1 at a time and poach for 3 minutes you want that yolk so don't over cook it!
- In large mixing bowl add spinach, goat cheese and your poppyseed dressing...toss well.
- Arrange salad on your plate, add your chopped bacon, hearts of palm and tomato.
- Place you egg in center of the salad. You can drizzle extra poppyseed dressing if needed. To eat this salad cut into your egg and allow the yolk to fall into the salad as extra dressing. YUM!
Recipe belongs to Patty @MmGood.com, please contact me to use for personal use