Bacon Week is over, y’all. Are you sad? I’m sad. I’m also a little relieved. It’s gotten to the point where I can actually feel all the bacon grease clogging my arteries. It’s not pretty.

That didn’t stop me from devouring a few of these muffins for breakfast this morning though. That being sad, these were not my favorite breakfast muffins. Don’t get me wrong, they were very tasty. They just didn’t feel like breakfast food. These would, however, be amazing along side a salad or a bowl of soup.

The texture of these was much more like a biscuit, but I hesitate to call them biscuits as they are baked in a muffin tin. Whatever you call them, I’m sure you’ll find they’re delicious. I’m definitely making these the next time soup is on the menu. These would perfect dunked in a bowl of something hot and cheesy.

Now let’s move on to your favorite bacon recipes! I’m feeling a bit sad and lonely and weepy because not too many of you played along for Bacon Week. Where’s the love, people? Where’s the love?

For those of you that did play along, I love you from the bottom of my bacon clogged heart.

To start, we have an amazing recipe for Bacon Stuffed Avocados from How Sweet It Is.  As someone who is just discovering the yumminess of avocados, this recipe just blows my mind. It sounds so tasty! Luckily for me, I have an avocado sitting on my counter just waiting for me to do something tasty with it! I think this may be the way to go.

{photo from What It Is}

I feel like a bit of a failure sharing this recipe for Bacon Salted Caramel Brownies with you from What It Is. I mean, I am a baker. I love bacon. I love brownies. I love caramel. Why, oh why, have I never made these myself?

And up next we have a tasty, cheesy, oniony, bacony recipe by The Balloon Whisk and Pyrex Dish. This dish is getting made very soon. Like tomorrow.

This next recipe is for pizza. I don’t know about you, but I love pizza. Pizza is my life. Pizza with bacon is even better. This pizza is from The Townsend Bakery and I’m pretty sure it tastes divine.

Okay, before I share the recipe for the Bacon, Cheddar, and Chive Muffins, I just have one more thing to share. Have y’all ever heard of a Bacon Takedown? Well, neither had I, but then I received an email with the subject line “Bacon Gladiators Wow Crowds @ Bacon Takedowns Across the Country” and I peed my pants laughing. I’m sorry, but that is the best subject line I have ever read. Bacon Gladiators. I love it!

Anyway, Bacon Takedowns are basically bacon cooking competitions. There is a Bacon Takedown coming to the Twin Cities on July 18 from 4-6pm at O’Gara’s Garage. The cost is $15 to taste and judge all of the bacon entries and a percentage of the sales support Feeding America. Hormel is also matching the donations to Feeding America. (This is not a sponsored post, I just thought I’d share the information!) So, uh, if you live anywhere near the Twin Cities? You might wanna attend the Bacon Takedown. I’m completely bummed that I won’t be there. Imagine the fun blog post that would follow something like that!

Thanks for participating in Bacon Week with me, y’all! It’s been fun!

Bacon, Cheddar, and Chive Muffins
adapted from allrecipes.com

• 8 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tbsp white sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp black pepper
• 2 tsp garlic powder
• 2 tbsp chopped chives
• 1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese (I used the powdery kind)
• 1 cup grated sharp Cheddar cheese
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1/2 cup canola oil

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees. Grease muffin tins and set aside.

In a large bowl combine all of the dry ingredients. In a small bowl combine wet ingredients. Add wet ingredients to the dry and mix just until moistened. Batter will be very thick, wet, and sticky. Spoon into prepared muffin tins.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Serve warm or at room temperature.

I think you all know of my never-ending love of bacon and cheese, but just in case: I love bacon and cheese, forever and ever, Amen.

Potato salad around here usually means cold potato chunks, mayo, boiled eggs, and some pickle relish. It’s delicious like that, it really is. I would never, ever turn down a big ol’ bowl full of my grandma’s potato salad. Sometimes you have to experiment though. Sometimes you have to try new things. Sometimes, just every now and then, you have to add bacon to your potato salad.

I saw this recipe at One Ordinary Day last week and I knew immediately that I was making it for Sunday dinner at my parent’s house. It didn’t matter that hashbrown casserole was already on the menu. If some potatoes are good, more potatoes are better. That’s the truth.

The only thing I changed from  recipe was to use big baking potatoes and actually bake them instead of boiling them. It is, after all, baked potato salad.

Baked Potato Salad
slightly adapted from One Ordinary Day

• 1 1/2 pounds baking potatoes
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise (not Miracle Whip!)
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
• 1/4 cup chopped chives
• 1 pound bacon, cooked and crumbled
• salt and pepper, to taste

Pre-heat oven to 425 degrees. Bake potatoes for 1 hour, or until done. When cool enough to handle, chop potatoes (skin and all) into bite sized chunks. Place in refrigerator until chilled through.

In a large bowl, combine the remaining ingredients and mix well. Stir in the potatoes, coating each piece with the mayo mixture. Garnish with a sprinkling of chives. Serve cold.

I mentioned last week that I have a bit of a thing for Mexican food. I wasn’t lying. I love it. I love cooking it and I love eating it and I love thinking about it.

I also love going to Chipotle, but the closest one to me is a good 45 minutes away. I don’t cry about it too much though. I just recreate my favorite dishes from there at home. Take, for example, this cilantro lime rice. It’s a Chipotle favorite of mine.

This rice is good served as a side with tacos, but it’s really good served inside the taco. Or inside the burrito. Or in a burrito bowl. Or on chocolate cake.

What?

Just making sure you were paying attention.

Cilantro Lime Rice

• 1 cup extra long grain white rice
• 2 cups water
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 lime
• 1/4 cup chopped cilantro (or more, to taste)
• salt, to taste

Pour the rice, water, and 1 tbsp of the olive oil into a small sauce pan. Bring to a boil and continue boiling over medium heat until the water just skims the top of the rice. Reduce heat to low, cover the pan, and continue cooking for 15 minutes. Turn the heat off after 15 minutes and keep covered for 5 more minutes. Remove lid and transfer the rice to a large bowl. Add the remaining tablespoon of olive oil, the juice of the lime, and the finely chopped cilantro to the rice. Mix well and salt to taste.

Every now and then I get a big ol’ craving for Mexican food. This only happens about once every, oh, day or two. I can’t help it. I love Mexican food. In fact, I sometimes regret not marrying an old Mexican grandma. I’m sure her cooking would have been divine. I guess my husband and his lackluster cooking abilities will have to do though.

He’s cute. I like him. Even if he does roll his eyes and say “Mexican food again?” At least he lets me pose him (sit here, turn your head this way, smile, no, not a fake smile, a real smile!) so that the internet can see how cute he is.

That’s enough talk about boys. This is a food blog.

Something that I must have to go along side my tacos, enchiladas, and burritos is this delicious, nutritious (Well, kind of. Maybe.), completely addicting guacamole. Trust me when I say that this guacamole will change your little Mexican food loving life.

The best part is, if you live with onion haters, you can easily substitute onion powder for the chopped onions and you don’t sacrifice any flavor. I like the crunch the onion adds to this, but the flavor doesn’t suffer a bit if you leave them out. And, yeah, that boy up there is the onion hater in my life. It’s a good thing he’s cute.

Guacamole

• 4 ripe Haas avocados
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup chopped cilantro
• 1/4 cup finely diced onion (I use a red onion, but any will work) (or sub onion powder)
• 1 lime
• 2 tbsp sour cream
• 1 tsp cumin (or more, to taste)
• salt, to taste

Chop the avacodos into small cubes and mash with a fork, leaving just a few chunks and add to a medium sized bowl. Add in the garlic, cilantro, onion, sour cream, cumin, and salt. Squeeze the juice of the lime into the bowl and stir everything together. Serve immediately.

The other day I was playing around on my iPhone when I came across an app for allrecipe.com’s Dinner Spinner. It is the neatest little app and I am officially in love. I am in the process of reserving a flight for me and the dinner spinner. We are running off together and never coming back. Goodbye forever.

Before I go, I thought I would share a recipe that I discovered while sitting in the car at the grocery store parking lot wondering what the heck I was going to make for dinner that night. Dinner Spinner totally saved the day.

Country Pasta with Mozzarella is a delicious little recipe that I need to go make again, right this minute, because my husband ate it all before I could stop him. Doesn’t he know that the pasta is mine and he was supposed to eat all the grilled meat and leave me the girl food? It must be the bacon in this pasta that made him forget the rules.

This recipe is simple and quick. I made it as a side dish with grilled chicken, but it’d be a perfect lunch on it’s own.

First things first, let’s boil up about 8 ounces of pasta. I used farfalle. I love the shape. The original recipe called for rigatoni, but, let’s be honest here, rigatoni is boring.

While the pasta is boiling, chop up two cups of fresh broccoli, eight slices of bacon, and a couple cloves of garlic.

Dump the bacon in a large frying pan and cook until it is almost crispy. Dump in the garlic and broccoli and cook them in the bacon grease for 4 to 5 minutes, until the broccoli loses a bit of the raw crunch. Don’t freak out about the bacon grease either. This is Buns In My Oven, you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t love bacon grease.

Dump your al dente pasta right in the pan with the bacon and broccoli (and bacon grease, I SAID don’t freak out!) and top it with 2 cups of shredded mozzarella cheese, 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese (I used the powdered stuff, it was delicious), 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper, and 1/4 cup of fresh chopped parsley.

Stir it all up over very low heat and don’t panic. It will be a big gloppy mess. The mozzarella gets all stringy and melty and it isn’t pretty. Pasta doesn’t have to be pretty though, just close your eyes and take a bite. You won’t regret it.

Real quick, let me tell you about all the different ways you could make this dish your own. You could make this a main dish by adding cooked, chopped chicken. You could replace the bacon with the chicken (you’d need to add a tablespoon or two of olive oil to cook the broccoli in) or you could just use the chicken in addition to the bacon. You could substitute asparagus for the broccoli. You could chop up a bell pepper and cook it in with the broccoli. You could chop up a sweet yellow onion and add it while the bacon was cooking, but only do this if you aren’t married to my husband, because he would probably throw a fit about the addition of onion. You could play with the cheeses, adding different varieties or swapping the mozzarella for something else entirely. I’m thinking cream cheese would be beautiful in this dish.

Country Pasta with Mozzarella
Recipe from allrecipes.com

• 8 ounces farfalle pasta
• 8 slices bacon, cut into 1 inch pieces
• 2 cups broccoli florets
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

1. Cook pasta according to package directions and drain.

2. In large skillet, cook the bacon until almost crisp. To the pan, add broccoli and garlic. Cook until the broccoli is slightly tender, stirring often, about 4 to 5 minutes.

3. Pour in the cooked pasta, mozzarella, parmesan, cayenne and parsley. Stir together over very low heat until the cheese is melted.