Bacon fried rice!

After spending a week with a couple of weeks with some pretty hard core vegan and vegetarian friends, I ended up with some leftover bacon after a particularly enthusiastic (not matched by said veg-heads) bacon breakfast. No problem, I thought, I'll just have it over white rice for a delicious carby, greasy snack!

After relaying this story to my sister we came up with a great recipe for bacon fried rice, influenced by her Hawaiian friend. Here it is!

Ingredients:
1 cup white rice
6 strips bacon, or as you like it
1/2 sweet white onion
1/4 cup soy sauce
6 tsp. sugar
1 can pineapple tidbits

If you don't have old white rice from last night's dinner, you can make a fresh batch. Cooking it in a rice cooker ensures optimal moisture balance--you don't want soggy rice.

Cut your strips of bacon into little pieces and put into your frying pan or wok. Let the grease melt into the pan a little bit. Put in diced onion and fry until soft.

Meanwhile, heat soy sauce on a little sauce pan, add sugar and stir until it's dissolved. Turn off and set aside.

Put your rice into the wok with bacon and onion and smush around with your spatula to break it up. When the rice is well-coated with bacon grease, add in the soy sauce mixture slowly, and stir until well mixed. Lastly, add your pineapple and cook until the bits are heated through.

You can also add scallions or cilantro at the end if you want some greenery.

And it's done! Greasy lips are happy lips.

Crocheted Bacon: The Light Side and the Dark Side

Well, I may be revealing myself as a total freak with this post, but I truly think bacon is a force--of love, joy, comfort, friendship and community. But like the Force, it has a light side and a dark side. The light side revels in indulgence without a care in the world! The dark side is of guilt, heart disease and zits. So that's why I created my crochet BLT with two different faces--a happy one and a dark one.

I love crocheting food. I love the utter uselessness of this object. Even stuffed animals are somewhat useful--you can cuddle them, playact or display them proudly in a glass case (for those QVC types, that is). This BLT just sits there, perfectly useless; the most you can do with it is mime eating it--which is rather fun.

Here's my pattern--for projects like this I usually use washable acrylic craft yarn, or whatever's laying around, with my trusty pink metal 2.75 mm crochet hook. For bacon, I used a rusty orangey brown color and a light beige for the fatty bits. Inserting the wire is optional, depending on your desire for bacon shape variability.

Bread (you'll need 4 of these):

• ch22, sc for 3.5 inches.
• After 3.5 inches, sc in first 11 st, turn work
• dec 1, sc 9, dec 1, turn work
• continue until you have five st left in your row.
• sc all the way across, bind off.
  
• insert hook in second set of 11 sc, repeat decreases as above, bind off.
  

Crust:

• ch 4, sc in each row until it fits all the way around your bread, measure as you go.

Assemble:

• Sew on eyes and stitch on mouth with embroidery thread and needle.
  
• Line up two white halves, attach crust to one side of your bread.
• Fill loosely with poly-fill
• Attach other side of the bread.
  

Bacon:

• ch 30, sc all the way across.
• join darker color, repeat
• join lighter color, repeat
• join darker color, 2 dc in each st, bind off.
• insert flower wire into the middle of each piece, so that you can form it in the shape you want.

Tomato:

• ch 5, join to make a circle with sl st.
• ch 2, 2 sc in each st
• ch 2, yo, pull up 2 puffy stitches
• pull through, ch 3, skip 2 st
• yo, pull up 2 puffies
• pull through, ch 3, sk 2, repeat until you reach your desired size, connect with sl st.

Lettuce:

• ch 6, join with sl st.
• sc in each st once around
• 2 sc in each st. once around
• dc in each st. for 4 rings
• 2 dc in each st, repeat until desired size is reached, connect with sl st.