I’m quirky.
If we’re going to be friends, you should probably know that right off the bat.
Particularly when it comes to food.
For starters, I’m pretty anti-condiment. No judgment if you enjoy your meals slathered in sauces and relishes and vinegar-based accouterments. I just can’t do it.
Same goes for almost all dips, dressings, and the like.
I’m claiming it’s because I’m a redheaded super taster.
Okay, what do this have to do with end of the month groceries?
Well, most people probably doctor up their last bits of this and that with all the condiments and sauces they’ve acquired over the past few months. With the exception of sriracha, some salad dressing for the husband, and some jelly for the kiddos, there’s not a lot of things like that to work with at our house.
Thankfully, the answer to our dinnertime woes is usually no further away than a well-worded Google or Pinterest search.
When I looked in my fridge the other night, I saw two basics: turkey bacon and chicken breasts. I generally don’t like bacon wrapped meat (unless you’re searing it first) because it never gets crispy enough. But I wondered if it might work if I used bite-sized pieces and if I used my cold oven trick (start bacon in a cold oven rather than pre-heated).
I’d say it worked!
Most people would probably use these for Super Bowl food, rather than dinner, but whatever you use them for, they will be delicious!
Okay, so here’s the other problem with food blogging: I’m not always a measure-er.
Here’s the gist of what I used/did:
Chicken Bacon Bites
1 large chicken breast, cut into bite sized pieces (we got 13 pieces out of 1 breast)
Onion Powder
Garlic Powder
Pepper/Salt
Turkey Bacon, 4-5 strips
Brown Sugar
Chili Powder
- DO NOT turn on your oven.
- Sprinkle your chicken breast bites with onion powder, garlic powder, pepper/salt.
- Cut your turkey bacon into thirds.
- Wrap each piece of chicken with a piece of bacon and secure with toothpick.
- In a small bowl, mix a couple of tablespoons of brown sugar with a sprinkling of chili powder (maybe half a teaspoon? depends on the kick you want!)
- Roll chicken wrapped bacon bite in brown sugar/chili mixture.
- Place all pieces on a lined cookie sheet (this will make for easier clean-up as the brown sugar is going to caramelize). You can sprinkle a little more brown sugar on each bite if you’d like.
- Put in oven. NOW, turn on your oven to 400 degrees.
- Bake for 25-30 minutes or until as crispy as you’d like (the chicken should be safely done at 25 minutes)
The great news for your condiment-lovers is that these are really versatile! You could dunk them in BBQ sauce, whip up something with honey mustard, or some jalapeno craziness.
Oh! I almost forgot!
You can see there’s arroz con gandules in the background of the picture.
We almost always have sofrito on hand.
That stuff’s the best.
Like I said…
I’m quirky!