multiple recipes with bacon with only one cleanup

by Jackie Patti

I like it THICK!

We like our bacon chewy rather than crispy, and the thick-cut stuff is much easier to cook that way.

I love bacon in bacon bean soup, bacon breakfast casserole and my favorite bacon quiche recipe as well as plain old eggs and bacon. But it was always a pain to cook and get grease all over everything until I inadvertently discovered this neat trick.

No, it's not baking. Baking bacon seems to me to take just as long, if not longer, and needs close watching.

Once, I accidentally froze 3 pounds of bacon without separating into smaller packages. So when I thawed it, I cooked it all and had a bacon bonanza! There's a few tricks to this though.

frying lots of bacon

ingredients

• 2 TB bacon grease
• 3 lb thick bacon (about 8 slices/lb)

method

1. Make sure there are no husbands in the house else you will suffer severe bacon shrinkage.
2. Likewise, make sure there are no children in the house. Children are bacon thieves!
3. Get out your willpower. Sternly tell yourself you may not sample any bacon until it is ALL cooked.
4. Bacon cooks much faster once some of the fat has rendered, so to jumpstart the process, heat a few tablespoons of bacon grease in a skillet over medium heat.
5. Put about 4 slices in the center of the pan and wait a minute until they shrink. Then slide them to the edges and add another 4 slices to the middle. Place a splatter-screen over the pan to prevent burns.
6. Turn with fork as needed and move around in pan until cooked a bit less than you really like. You will cook the bacon more when you use it, so it's crucial not to overcook it here.
7. Remove bacon as it's ready to paper towels, paper bag or newspaper to drain, then start the second batch. Don't drain the hot grease, it will cook the next batch faster.
8. If you have any more previously-saved bacon grease beyond what you used in step 4, give it to the chickens. Especially if it's winter, they need the calories to stay warm. Then wash out the container while you are frying the next couple batches of bacon so it's ready for fresh grease.
9. I freeze the bacon in 1/2 pound batches, which fits in a pint-sized container. Following rule 3 above, my 3 pounds of bacon yields 5 half-pound batches. ;)
10. Let the grease cool a bit, then pour into a quart mason jar. This stuff is GOLD for cooking all sorts of bacon-flavored stuff. Anywhere bacon flavor would work, use it instead of butter or oil. You'll likely use up most of it before the next time you fry up bacon.
11. Clean up the mess, realizing you have a bellyful of bacon, 5 more batches for later use in soup, casserole, quiche or just a really fast egg and bacon breakfast, plus all that lovely grease - and you won't have to clean the splatter screen until after 5 more recipes with bacon!

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What would YOU do for bacon?