Bacon Peanut Butter Truffles

I have mentioned a few times my appreciation for all things pork, I really am fond of the pig!  It is one of the things that reminds me that there must be a higher power because, well in one  package you have:
ham
chops
tenderloin
hocks
ribs
heck I have even seen their feet in a pickle jar at some of the bars that I used to go to and don't forget that yummy fatty stuff from around the belly BACON. 

Bacon is one of those things that transcends any course of any meal; there is always bacon with breakfast,  Spinach salad with bacon dressing(mmm bacon vinaigrette dressing) bacon wrapped pork tenderloin, bacon on any sandwich.  Then you can't forget beverages or dessert...  yes folks this one is about dessert.

I have talked about my friend the cookbook dealer a few times, he made another visit not to long ago and dropped off a few magazines for me, a couple of issues of Food and Wine, (from 2006 and 2008) one issue of Whole Living from 2009 and a copy of Saveur from March 2005.  Since the whole cookbook/culinary magazine thing is kind of an addiction for me I try to keep the gravity of it hidden (is there a 12 step program for that?)  I tossed these in the back of my car so nobody would find them and there they sat there with the other 30 or so cookbooks and magazines until a few days back when I took Miss Lu to dance I was looking for some reading material for the hour I was about to spend sitting in a folding metal chair.

On our way to dance class

I ran out to the car and riffled around for something to spark my interest... then there it was in the upper right hand corner "Seduced by Bacon"  I couldn't pass on that!  inside was "Peanut Butter Bacon Truffles" Ok if you have read even a few of my posts you know I had to follow up on this one!

6 strips of bacon cooked until crisp well drained
1/2 cup salted dry roasted peanuts
4 tsp sugar
1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
8 oz chocolate chips
1/4 cup cocoa powder

Coarsely chop bacon then put into a food processor with peanuts and sugar... pulse until  mixture is ground to medium fine texture.  Pour into a bowl then add peanut butter and mix well.  Cover and refrigerate until the mixture is firm.

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.  Roll the peanut butter mixture into balls 3/4 to 1 inch in size and set them on the sheet, when it is all used lightly cover and refrigerate for about an hour.

Before you take them out put the refrigerator melt your chocolate chips in a double boiler stirring often to keep it smooth, then set aside until cool enough to touch.  Then take your peanut butter balls out of of the refrigerator and drop them a few at a time in the chocolate to coat then toss in the cocoa powder.

The article said that you can set them in a sealed container with some cocoa powder and they keep for about a week in the refrigerator, just bring them to room temperature before serving.  these guys only made it overnight, yes the breakfast of champions!

OK these little peanutbuttery baconey balls of chocolate really did it!  The salty sweet chocolaty candies were as good as they sound!

Genius

Genius, there is a word that we bandy about a lot... there was Newton, an apple dropped on him and he started to consider gravity. Then that Einstein fellow with the whole relativity thing that he came up with and that E=Mc2 equation, a lot of people have tried to explain that to me... since I am not a genius I don't really get it. Shakespeare, he could really turn a phrase, I watched a high school performance of Hamlet last year and thought how cool it was that 400 years later it is still a gripping almost current story. In the world of art, Chagall made a stained glass window that gave me the shivers every time that I walked past it.


There are genius' out there that we don't always think of or can't put a name too...

Once someone said something along the lines of, "After we let these old potatoes ferment in that water and yeast mixture, why don't we heat it in an enclosed container then take the essence of that distilled beverage and drink it? I think that we should call it ’Vodka!'"

Somewhere else in the world someone said, "Say I have a great idea! why don't we take that fatty meat by the pig's stomach then smoke it in your shed for a couple of days, once that is done I will brine it for a while then in the middle of Winter we can slice it thin, throw it on ma's iron skillet and have it with some eggs."

I always wondered what would have happened if the "potato vodka" genius and the "bacon guy" (tell me that wasn't genius) had got together... what kind of idea would they have come up with. See these are the twisted things that go on in my mind.

Anyway I was at the liquor store a couple of days ago wandering through the Vodka section. When I was in College I only remember about three maybe four kinds of Vodka; Stolichnaya, Smirnoff, Absolute and that rot gut stuff on the bottom shelf that usually made it into my basket. The liquor store that I frequent these days has at least 150 different vodkas to choose from; some infused with lemon, currants, mango, heavy cream, clementine, cotton candy, blueberry, buffalo grass well you get the idea just about anything imaginable. Then I start to wonder what makes a bottle of hooch worth $499.99 not that I will ever shell out five hundred smackers for that bottle in the glass case but someone must. While all these thoughts are going on in my head I see it a few bottles at the end of the aisle, something new, "Bakon" yes folks a BACON flavored VODKA! There was absolutely no way I could pass this up.


I took it home to show my lovely bride my prize, oddly Kris was not as enamored as me with the idea. Add to that my boozy oddity shelf is getting a little crowded. I corked my bottle of bacony hooch and was struck at first with a smoky aroma as I poured it into my glass. The first taste, the thing that I got was the smoky bang then there is a subtle, hard to describe (because it is in a liquid form) meaty finish to it. On the rocks it wasn't my favorite but at room temperature the flavors could bloom and I could taste the full round richness of this drink. Kris described it as inhaling smoke from the fire pit while drinking vodka. The bottle came with two recipes; a chocolate bacon martini (I doubt that I will make that one) and a bacon bloody Mary.

So my friends, here it is Breakfast in a glass:
Double shot of Bacon flavored vodka
5 oz Vegetable juice
dash of Worcestershire sauce
dash of hot sauce
pinch of salt
shake in a cocktail shaker the serve over ice
garnish with celery and cracked pepper

The vegetable juice and the liquid bacon flavor worked well together, instead of obscuring the meaty smokey flavor they  were almost amplified.  Now if I can only think of how to get some fried eggs and I would have the true breakfast of champions.