#Valentine’s Day 2015

from my family to yours!

We woke up this morning to find that the Valentine fairy (aka me) had delivered some goodies to her favorite valentines!

Then I made a very simple breakfast. I planned on getting a little more creative, but it was a late night for me & my hubby being date night & all. A few drops of red food coloring & some sprinkles added a bit of Valentine’s Day flair to a can of Pillsbury cinnamon buns, festive & easy, perfect for a tired mommy. And no Valentine’s Day breakfast is complete without some strawberry milk.

I made a special dinner for my brother, dad, bestfriend, Liz, grandma, & the girls! My mom & hubby had to work so we had to party without them. The stuffed chicken breasts (I’ll be sharing that recipe soon), baked ziti, garlic knots, & fresh green beans were a big hit! Add some hard apple ciders, cherry cheesecake, a heart chocolate chip cookie cake, & dessert kabobs (click here for that recipe on Liz’s blog Got Cache) and you have the perfect family Valentine’s Day dinner party covered!

So that was our Valentine’s Day… I hope you had a wonderful day with your loved ones!! ❤

 

 

#Oven-Baked Bacon

I tried something new today… new year so why not… not really something new exactly, a new way of cooking something. I’ve seen Pinterest pins about cooking bacon in the oven for a while now, but honestly was a skeptic. I mean bacon is supposed to be cooked in a frying pan, right? WRONG! So while I am eating this perfectly cooked, crispy bacon without standing in the hot kitchen for an hour with grease popping all over the place including my fragile arm skin, I wonder what other things in life am I doing completely wrong? I mean for years I thought you had to spend hours around a smoker for a decent pulled pork sandwich, and I learned that wasn’t the case. (I blogged about that  recipe before; just click here.) Anyways…  MIND BLOWN! I will spend this new year questioning the way I do everything! Want to give it a whirl?

Oven-Baked Bacon

Line a baking sheet with foil & lay out your bacon strips out like so. Keep them separate to avoid the pieces sticking together.  Turn on your oven to 375* & place the baking sheet in the cold oven. I cooked mine for about 22 minutes since my family loves extra crispy bacon. I looked at several recipes for this online, & the temperatures, cooking times, & instructions  varied a bit. Some required preheating, & some didn’t. Since I for some reason only have one baking sheet at the present moment, I cooked a half pound on bacon at a time. The first time I didn’t preheat the oven & cooked it for 22 minutes, and then since the oven was already hot, the second time I only cooked them for 20 minutes. Both “batches” turned out perfect so this choice is kinda up to you. Obviously since different bacon brands & varieties might cook differently, you might have to do a little experimenting & just eye-ball it.

Next step is the same as with the traditional (now known as wrong) way of cooking bacon… use tongs to lay your cooked bacon on a pile of paper towels to remove any excess grease.

Add some fluffy pancakes & a nice cold glass of orange juice for a perfect breakfast or in my family’s case, since we are in such a vacation mode, a 2pm brunch. lol

We don’t have bacon that much in this family… partially because “Have you seen the bacon prices?! Completely outrageous!”… mainly because all of the time & effort it takes to cook enough bacon for my houseful of bacon-lovers & clean up all the greasy mess. This new way gives you perfectly flat, evenly cooked, crispy bacon with clean-up as easy as crumbling up the cooled foil & tossing it in the trash. What could be better than that? Have you had any of these life changing realizations that you’d like to pass my way? Obviously I have still lots to learn! I hope everyone’s 2015 is off to a wonderful start! Talk to you soon! 🙂