Bacon-wrapped Loaded Baked Potatoes

Bacon-wrapped Loaded Baked Potatoes give bacon almost equal billing with the wonderful fluffy potato inside. Bacon-wrapped and bacon-filled, they're a bacon lovers perfect baked potato. (Seriously good.)

I have probably mentioned this before, but in my family we have a game we play called Last Meal. And it goes like this: We go around the room (or car, as this game is often initiated on a long road trip, where stops are infrequent and the passengers are getting fractious, hungry and tired of snack foods) and each person regales us with what their final meal would be. You know, if they were somehow scheduled for execution. (Wrongly convicted, natch.) The only rule is that you have to name specific, finite dishes. You can’t just say "a buffet," for instance. 

When it gets to my mother’s turn, she goes all Forrest Gump's Bubba on us and names just about every kind of potato dish every created with the exception of fries, which are somehow not her favorite. (I know, right? Who doesn't love fries!) Boiled baby new red potatoes with butter and chives, hasselback potatoes, loaded baked potatoes, smothered potatoes with pork chops, potatoes au gratin, creamed potatoes, spicy potato curry, Jersey Royals with fresh mint, potato salad. She does go on but I think you get the picture. 

The point of this story is that I grew up with a woman in charge of my daily meals who adores potatoes. This can affect a child one of two ways: you drink the Kool-Aid or you develop an aversion. I drank the Kool-Aid. 

While my love of potatoes is not as well documented as my love of bacon, I feel the two often go hand-in-hand. What potato au gratin or hash brown is not improved by the addition of some crispy bacon? Bacon-wrapped smashed potatoes, yes, please! And that goes double for baked potatoes with the works! 

Bacon-wrapped Loaded Baked Potatoes

My inspiration for this recipe came from a menu item served at Lambeau Field during Green Bay Packer games called The Pigskin. I read about it online when it was introduced back in 2016 and I couldn’t resist attempting my own. Theirs also includes chili inside the potato, as if the bacon and cheese inside and bacon outside weren’t heart-stopping enough! I think these potatoes are perfect as I make them though because the bacon "crust" is my favorite part. This recipe is easily scaled up or down, depending on how many people you are serving. 

Ingredients

For baking the potatoes: 

4 medium-sized russet potatoes (about 11 1/3 oz or 320g each)

1 lb or 450g bacon (not thick cut) - about 4 slices per potato

toothpicks

For loading the potatoes:

1 lb or 450g bacon, crisp fried, drained and chopped

8 oz or 225g extra sharp cheddar cheese, grated

1 cup or 245g sour cream

Large bunch chives or green onion tops, chopped

Butter - we like lots. You do you. 

Method

Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C.  Scrub and rinse the potatoes. Dry thoroughly. 

Wrap the potatoes with bacon. Overlap the slices and use four per potato. I used three here but next time, I’ll do four so that's what I put in the ingredients list. More bacon = better. Remember that the bacon will shrink as the potatoes bake. Poke a few toothpicks in to hold the bacon in place and pierce the baked potato. 

I remember being told that baked potatoes need to be poked so they don’t blow up in the oven. Perhaps that’s just an old wives’ tale but why take chances? Anecdotal evidence says it can happen. These toothpicks take care of that, just in case. 

Bake the bacon-wrapped potatoes in your preheated oven for 55 – 60 minutes or until the bacon is lovely and crispy and your potatoes are tender and fluffy inside. 

When baking time is up, remove the bacon-wrapped potatoes from the oven and carefully remove the toothpicks.

Allow to cool for about 10 minutes or until they are cool enough to handle. Cut a slit in the top of each potato and push on the ends to open them. The insides will still be very hot so be careful! Add a generous pat of butter.

Let each person add the other toppings they love. I want it all, baby! Who's with me? 

This is a full meal deal. Serve with a side salad or some veggies, if you want to feel more virtuous. But, fair warning: you may not be able to eat the whole thing if you do. (Hot tip: Warm your leftover half potato in the microwave the next morning. It's a fabulous breakfast.)

Enjoy! 

It's Sunday FunDay and I am pleased to share the following links with you! I love this group and all my baked potato-loving fellow bloggers! If you are a fan of baked potatoes like I am, you are gonna LOVE this list. 

• Bacon-wrapped Loaded Baked Potatoes from Food Lust People Love
• Baked Potatoes With Butter & Goat Cheese Filling from Sneha’s Recipe
• Cheesy Shrimp-Stuffed Twice-Baked Potatoes from Making Miracles
• Crock Pot Loaded Baked Potatoes from Karen’s Kitchen Stories
• Leftover Turkey and Gravy Stuffed Potato from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Thanksgiving Dinner Twice Baked Potatoes from Amy’s Cooking Adventures

We are a group of food bloggers who believe that Sunday should be a family fun day, so every Sunday we share recipes that will help you to enjoy your day. If you're a blogger interested in joining us, just visit our Facebook group and request to join.

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Roasted Brace of Guinea Fowl (Sous Vide)

Roasted Brace of Guinea Fowl means two guinea fowl, well spiced and stuffed with clementines, cooked by sous vide then blasted to crispy skin in a very hot oven. The perfect lip-smacking, finger-licking main course for any holiday meal!

N.B. This recipe must be started one day ahead of when you want to roast and serve your guinea fowl. 

One of the things I love about the holiday season is that unusual game birds sometimes turn up in the neighborhood grocery stores or butchers. I’ve found pheasant, guinea fowl, goose and even partridge on occasion and always leap at the opportunity to try something different. If you follow me on Instagram, you know that duck has been on our Christmas menu a couple of years as well. 

Guinea fowl are considered a game bird but, in fact, there has been a great increase in the number of farms that raise them. According the USDA, there are more than 14,500 guinea fowl farms in the Unites States. They are the fourth best selling poultry after chicken, turkey and duck. 

They are relatively small birds, weighing roughly 2-3 lbs or 900-1.4kg, with slightly darker meat than chicken and way more flavor. If you can't find guinea fowl, ask our local butcher to order some for you. Most will oblige.

Roasted Brace of Guinea Fowl (Sous Vide)

Some essential items for this recipe are 1. a sous vide machine aka immersion circulator 2. A vessel large enough to hold the two birds and water to circulate around them and 3. Two heavy bricks or tiles to hold the birds underwater in said vessel. Don’t worry, I provide a photo of the set up below.

Ingredients

2 whole guinea fowl (approx weight each 3 lbs or 1.4kg)

2 tablespoons dry salted spice rub (I used my dry java concoction) 

1/2 teaspoon same spice rub

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

4 small clementines

Method

Clean the guinea fowl, removing the top part of the tail and any stray feathers inspector 12 might have missed. (One of mine had what appeared to be one side of the bird’s head skin as well, connected to the neck skin, top feathers and all. Cooking meat is not for the faint-hearted and this is a reminder to me at least, to appreciate the living beast that I am cooking and eating.)

Spoon the dry rub inside the birds and all over the outside skin, making sure to get some between the legs and body, wings and body, and in the top cavity by the neck as well. If the guinea fowl arrive already trussed, just work your fingers between these bits. If your fowl are not already tied up, do this after seasoning. 

Mix that extra 1/2 teaspoon of dry rub with the 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda and sprinkle it on the top of the bird from a great height, so you get an even layer. According to Serious Eats, this helps the skin dry so it will super crispy when roasted. It does get moist again in the sous vide bag but I like to think that if the skin is really dry when we start, it will dry out again quickly with the application of intense heat.

Place your birds in a casserole dish, breast up, uncovered in the refrigerator for 24 hours. 

The following morning, stuff two whole clementines in each bird cavity.  This helps displace air and conduct heat through the birds as well as adding flavor. 

Place each guinea fowl in a gallon bag. Submerge them carefully in water to remove as much of the air inside as possible and seal tightly.

Because there is still some air inside of the birds, they tend to want to float. Cover a couple of bricks or tiles with plastic bags and lean them against the guinea fowl to keep them submerged but make sure water can still circulate around them. I also clothespin the guinea fowl bags to my cooking chopsticks to help center them in the water.

Sous vide at 150°F or 65°C for four hours.

When the timer goes off, remove the bags from the water bath. Carefully remove the guinea fowl from the bags, holding them legs down so liquid can drain out of them and back into the bags. Reserve any juice left behind to add to gravy later. 

Heat your oven to as high as it will go. Pat the birds dry with paper towels, being careful not to break the skin. 

Heat a large iron skillet on the stovetop and place both birds in it. Turn the oven temperature down to 450°F or 232°C convection, if it was higher than that to preheat. Roast the guinea fowl in your very hot oven for about 10 minutes to brown the skin, turning the pan around midway through to ensure even browning. 

Let rest for 10 minutes, cut into joints and serve.

Enjoy! 

Anybody tired of turkey and ham every holiday? It’s Sunday FunDay again and this week we are sharing main course recipes that are anything but ham and turkey! Check out the links below. Many thanks to our host, Sue of Palatable Pastime. 

• Beef Pasanday - Rajasthani Style With a Twist from Sneha’s Recipe
• Cornish Hens Marbella from Palatable Pastime
• Mughlai Egg Curry from Mayuri’s Jikoni
• Roasted Brace of Guinea Fowl (Sous Vide) from Food Lust People Love
• Roasted New York Strip Loin from A Day in the Life on the Farm

We are a group of food bloggers who believe that Sunday should be a family fun day, so every Sunday we share recipes that will help you to enjoy your day. If you're a blogger interested in joining us, just visit our Facebook group and request to join.

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Cider Spice Bundt Cake #BundtBakers

This cider spice Bundt cake will fill your house with the most wonderful aroma as it bakes. The tender crumb lives up to that promise. Delicious!

If you’ve ever perused New York Times Cooking, you know that one of the most useful features of having a subscription is access to the notes people leave when they’ve made a recipe. “Did it work as written?” being the most important. 

In the case of this cake, many agreed it did not! The most frequent comment said that the batter was thick, not thin as described in the instructions. Also, the cake didn’t rise and was very dense. Well, most people would step away quickly and scroll on to another recipe. But I am not most people! I decided that the “bones” were good and those were problems I could fix. 

I’m pleased to tell you that I did. By adding extra liquid in the form of orange juice and another egg, along with baking powder and more baking soda, this cake turns out light yet moist. It’s the kind of cake you keep on the countertop in the kitchen and it just disappears because your family keeps cutting themselves a small slice as they pass by. So good! It would be perfect for the holidays.

Cider Spice Bundt Cake

For this recipe, I used Strongbow Original, a traditional dry English cider, which contains alcohol. Substitute another dry alcoholic or non-alcoholic cider if you can’t get Strongbow in your neck of the woods. Here in Houston, we buy it at Total Wine. This recipe was adapted from one in New York Times Cooking. 

Ingredients

2 1/4 cups or 281g all-purpose flour, plus extra for the pan

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, plus extra for the pan, if desired

1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1 cup or 227g unsalted butter, softened, plus extra for the pan

1 cup, packed, or 200g light brown sugar

3 large eggs, at room temperature

2 teaspoons freshly grated orange zest

1/4 cup or 60ml orange juice

1/2 cup or 120ml unsulfured molasses (not blackstrap)

1 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 cup or 180ml dry apple cider (I used Strongbow Original.)

Optional: icing sugar to dust

Method

Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and prepare a 9- or 10-cup Bundt by brushing it generously with melted butter and flouring it liberally. Sometimes I dust with a little extra ground cinnamon as well after the flour, putting it in a tiny strainer to distribute it evenly. I did that for this cake because more cinnamon is a good thing.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt and spices. Set aside.

Working in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment (or using an electric mixer), cream together the butter and brown sugar on medium until smooth. 

Add eggs, orange zest and juice, and beat on medium-high speed, about 1 minute.

In a separate large bowl or liquid measuring cup, add the molasses and baking soda. 

In a small saucepan, bring the apple cider to a boil over high; pour it very slowly over the molasses and baking soda and whisk until combined. The mixture will froth up a lot so make sure you use a big enough vessel to contain it! 

Beat in half of the flour half the cider mixture to the butter mixture on low until combined. When it’s blended, scrape down the bowl with a rubber spatula, then add the rest of the flour and cider, beating again till it's well combined. 

Carefully pour the batter into your prepared pan. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.

Let cake cool in pan for about 10 minutes, then turn the cake out onto a wire rack to cool fully.

Once cool, dust with some icing sugar, if desired. 

 

Enjoy! (With a glass of cider, if you'd like. Someone's got to drink the rest of that can, after all.)

It's time for Bundt Bakers and this month we are sharing recipes with spice! Check out all the links below!

• Apple Bundt Cake from Palatable Pastime
• Carrot Cake Bundt from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Cider Spice Bundt Cake from Food Lust People Love
• Leftover Cake Spiced Bundt Pudding from Sneha's Recipe
• Kiss of Cherries Bundt Cake from Patyco Candybar

#BundtBakers is a group of Bundt loving bakers who get together once a month to bake Bundts with a common ingredient or theme. You can see all of our lovely Bundts by following our Pinterest board. We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme/ingredient. Updated links for all of our past events and more information about BundtBakers, can be found on our home page.

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