New Homes and New Ways (AKA: Best Bacon Sandwich Ever)

 

Kind of fitting that the cover of Southern Living this month is a picture of a front door. Because as of this week, we can finally officially announce...

We are moving to Jacksonville, Florida!

(Also perfect timing after all this winter weather)

Jonathan got a great job offer doing exactly what he wants to do, I'm working on a job offer of my own (stay tuned), we're starting to look for a place to live, and best of all, we get to live in the same city as Gran! We cannot wait to start something new together.

But since I don't have a front door to share with you yet, I decided to recreate something even better than the cover from this month's issue. It is, quite simply, the Best Bacon Sandwich Ever.

The recipe starts with BBQ Bacon. When I first read it, I thought, hmmm...bacon is kind of a perfect food. Do we really need to go messing with it?

Yes. The answer is yes.

I wouldn't want bacon served this way every day, but for this specific sandwich, it is awesome. Thick sliced bacon, rubbed in brown sugar, chili powder, cumin, and cayenne.

Here it is after the rub-down, before going in the oven:

 

 

Here's the bacon when it came out of the oven:

In general, I tend to avoid deviating from the ways my grandmother taught me to cook. And bacon is prepared in a frying pan on the stove. Because Nanny said so.

But this bacon is cooked in the oven on a rack. And it was great. I might be a convert. I can't even do justice to the smell. Sweet brown sugar caramelizing in the oven, layered with the smoky cumin and chili rub, layered with...the smell of BACON. My mouth is watering all over again just thinking about the smell in my oven.

So maybe there's room in this world for two methods of cooking bacon.

Next up were two fried eggs per sandwich. This time, I stuck with Nanny's advice to always fry eggs in butter, even though Southern Living called for olive oil. Olive oil? No. Butter.

But Southern Living did have an interesting suggestion for how to fry the perfect egg: Two minutes on top of the stove, then into the oven under the broiler for one minute. No flipping required, perfect yolks. I'm all in on this one. Best new cooking method, ever.

 

Next up was the assembly.

 

Southern Living did American cheese on white bread, with mayo, lettuce, egg and bacon. All due respect, but cheddar and sourdough are clearly superior choices. Also, I think the addition of a well-salted and peppered heirloom tomato was pretty essential. We also opted for some avocado.

 

 



 

I regret that my yolk placement on the bread was not as perfect as the Southern Living photo. Their food stylist nailed it with the sandwich getting sliced perfectly through the yolk, so it was a little runny down the sandwich

So next time, I'll do a better job on the photography. But otherwise, I'm pretty happy.

Happy with my dinner. Happy with my new ways of cooking bacon and eggs. Happy with the outcome of what has been a long process. Cheers to new beginnings!