McLovin McMuffin's

Hello Readers!

Today's post goes great with my last post, Bacon To Perfection! as it uses bacon as one of the main ingredients. Drum roll please...... introducing Egg McMuffins! This breakfast staple was introduced nationwide in 1972 by McDonald's (thanks Wikipedia!), and was introduced to me a couple of years ago. I never really have breakfast at fast-food places, so my first McMuffin experience was through my old hotel/restaurant job, bussing the morning shift. One of the chefs made these morning sandwiches after a crazy Sunday (summer in wine country) and I've loved them ever since!

Usually McMuffins are made with Canadian bacon, but I prefer real bacon as it is more common to have by chance in the kitchen, it's cheaper, and delicious! The classic round shape of the egg is created through cooking said egg in a ring, more on this later.

Om nom nom nom nom...nom

Here's the recipe!

Egg McMuffins

Prep Time - 5 minutes
Cook Time- 10-20 minutes

Serves 2

Main Ingredients:
- Two Slices of Bacon (or four halves)
- Two English Muffins (I use Oroweat Whole Wheat, so good!)
- Two Slices of Cheese of Choice
- Two Large Eggs
- Medium Sized Cooking Ring or Foil Ring
Optional Ingredients:
- Avocado
- Hollandaise Sauce
- Butter
- Tabasco Sauce
- Anything Else, Be Creative!

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Split English muffins and toast to desired level. In the meantime, start cooking bacon (Bacon To Perfection!), and grease your cooking ring.

If you don't have cooking rings, take a piece of foil about 5 inches in width and fold lengthwise about 3/4 of an inch in, repeating this to the top. Take one end and fold in the corners, forming a tall triangle. Insert the folded end into the other end and there you go, a cooking ring!

Can you see me in the reflection?

Turn element onto medium. Place cooking ring on Teflon pan and crack egg into it. Hold down the ring lightly so the egg doesn't all leak out the side. Once egg has cooked for 30-45 seconds and is no longer leaking, poke yolk with a fork* and throw a hood on top for quicker cooking. Once egg is mostly cooked on the bottom, remove ring and flip, cooking the other side.

Finished egg

Once the bacon and eggs are cooked, place cheese, bacon, egg, and any optional ingredients into the English muffins. Cook for 6-8 minutes in the oven. Serve and enjoy!

To make more McMuffins just scale the recipe up, fairly straightforward conversion, and don't tell McDonald's about this!

Anything you like to add to your McMuffins? Tell me in the comments!

Stefan

* I don't recommend whisking the egg before cooking in the ring because if this is done, it leaks from the bottom of the ring much more than it normally does.

Bacon to Perfection!

Readers!

Today's post is on something so delicious, satisfying, and sinful that it is something most people try to resist, but can't. It's Bacon! Loaded with fat and so good it's hard not to have only one slice, bacon is the bane of anyone trying to lose weight or eat healthier. Don't worry though, everything can be had in moderation, even bacon*!

So, your reading this and you decide to yourself, "Yeah, everything in moderation...I'm going to have some bacon tomorrow morning!" That's great, and that's why I'm here to guide you. This post will give you the knowledge to cook bacon to perfection because if you are going to indulge in some bacon, lets make it the best bacon you've ever had.

While bacon is fairly easy to cook, it can be cooked incorrectly. Bacon is ruined primarily in three different ways. First is the microwave. I've never had bacon that tasted good after being cooked in the microwave, and I never will. Second is the overcook. Bacon that's been overcooked is hard, brittle, and so dry it's tasteless. Third is the undercook. Bacon that hasn't been cooked long enough tastes good, but is so chewy and tough that it is a pain to eat.

Let's Begin!

Bacon Perfection

Prep time - 0-5 minutes
Cook time - 5-10 minutes

Main Ingredients:
- Bacon (Pepper bacon is my favorite, try it!)
- Paper Towels
Optional Ingredients:
- Pepper to season

If your bacon is frozen, thaw in microwave for one minute on power 1-2, just enough to peel it apart. Sometimes on the side of bacon is huge hunks of fat with no meat, I trim this off as it's unnecessary and will just curl up when cooking. I also cut my bacon in half so it's easier to cook, and more will fit in a pan. Once prepped, place bacon in a Teflon pan and turn heat to medium-low.

Uncooked pepper bacon

Watch the bacon, but for the first 2-3 minutes it shouldn't require much attention. Once you hear it start to sizzle, flip to the other side. Your bacon should look like the picture below once it is halfway cooked.

So Close...

Keep flipping at your discretion to keep sides evenly cooked, and slightly after this point you should notice a lot of grease pooling in the pan. Secure bacon and dump the grease into a grease can (the proper way) or down the drain (the not so proper way, run hot water). This step is the secret to perfect pan-cooked bacon as the grease, if left in the pan, the grease flash cooks the bacon till it's super crispy and brittle.  Use the paper towel to wipe grease from side of pan, we don't want any grease fires! Return bacon and pan to the burner and cook until done, which should look like so.

It's that easy!

Serve and enjoy!

On a side note, a few of you might be thinking, "But Stefan, you forgot to mention cooking bacon in the oven!".  It's true, bacon can be cooked in the oven, and generally it's the superior method, as it is harder to screw up, the grease drains itself, and you can cook more at once, but there is one catch! The reason I choose the pan method is because it is so much quicker to cook bacon this way, and when you have class in 20 minutes, the oven isn't an option. Hmm, maybe I'll cover oven cooked bacon in the future.

Thanks for reading, and if you have your own method to cook perfect bacon, please leave it in the comments!

Stefan

* Bacon contains a lot of saturated fats, but saturated fats are in fact required by the body for your everyday diet (to the disagreement of popular diet fads). Eat bacon, get your saturated fats, be happy!