Bacon Wrapped Chicken Bites

Forgive me for my belated post.  I’ve been dealing with computer issues (don’t put a quarter in me about Best Buy at the moment).  To make up for my absence, I bring you bacon wrapped chicken bites.  Not only are they amazingly delicious, but they’re perfect for everything from dinner to game day finger food for the guys. 

Here’s what you’ll need: 

• Diced chicken breasts
• Bacon
• ¼ cup brown sugar
• 2 Tablespoons lime juice
• ½ - 1 teaspoon salt (depending on how salty your bacon is)
• ½ teaspoon pepper 

The first thing you need to do is par-cook the bacon.  If you skip this step you’ll either have dry chicken or soggy bacon, neither of which is allowed in my house.  The easiest way to cook bacon, is in the oven.  Just line a sheet pan with foil and lay the strips bacon on it. 

Slide the pan into a cold oven and turn it to 325°.  I think it took about 15 minutes for my bacon to get to this stage.  You want it to be basically cooked, but still quite limp.

Remove the slices to a plate lined with paper towels and set them aside. 

Up next is the chicken.  I find the easiest way to dice chicken is with a pair of kitchen shears.  KitchenAid makes some pretty decent ones that are affordable.  For me, affordable is a good thing in the shears department, because I’m pretty tough on them.  I throw them in the dishwasher frequently, cut open packages and all kinds of food stuff, and I’d rather just replace them once every year or so than have to worry about sharpening them. 

Cut your chicken into something resembling one inch cubes. 

Now for the seasoning.  In a small dish, combine the brown sugar (I used coconut sugar, but regular brown sugar will work just fine.) salt, and pepper. 

Stir them together and add the lime juice. 

Stir that all together.  Now it’s time to make a little assembly line.  Cut your bacon strips in half and line a sheet pan with parchment.  Now is also a good time to preheat your oven to 375°.  Wrap each piece of chicken with a half slice of bacon. 

Dip it into the brown sugar mixture, coating the whole thing.  Allow the excess to drip off. 

Place it, seam side down, on your pan. 

Repeat until you run out of chicken.  I was able to get 17 pieces from 2 chicken breasts and 1 package of bacon, and still had some leftover sugar mixture. 

Bake at 375° for about 20 minutes.  While mine was in the oven, I got distracted by a little squirrel out the back window. 

I know exactly what you’re thinking right now.  And yes, I am a bit like this. 

So, after 20 minutes, you should have bacon wrapped chicken perfection. 

We had ours for dinner, with macaroni and cheese (Trader Joes has some in their freezer section that’s surprisingly awesome) and zucchini.  You could also serve them with toothpicks as part of your football snackies. 

What’s your favorite thing to do with bacon?

There's pizza in there!

Up here in the frozen north, we have something called a "pizza pop." And despite the ridiculous cold and perpetual snow, a pizza pop is not a pepperoni flavoured ice cream treat.

Why they're called pops we'll probably never know, since they're really more of a calzone. But they are a staple junk food on this side of the 49th and unbelievably easy to replicate.

Home Made (is best) Pizza Pops

• 1 batch of biscuit dough
• 1/2 tin of plain tomato sauce
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp marjoram
• 1/2 tsp oregano
• pepperoni
• mozza
• other stuff you like on pizza
• an egg and a bit of water

A note on the cheese: while a soft squishy mozza is nice, it doesn't work well in these. It liquifies too much, and escapes out of the pop to make a lovely cheesey mess all over the baking sheet. I strongly recommend a firmer, drier mozza for these.

I used the garlic salt in the biscuit dough (in place of the regular salt, which is in the picture, but which I didn't use), and then I found the garlic powder (not pictured) in the cupboard and so used it instead of the fresh garlic. And there's no egg. Or biscuit dough. This picture is all kinds of fail.

So, first thing you have to do is make your biscuit dough. I know, I know, it's not pizza dough and calzones are usually made with pizza dough. I don't care. Biscuits are fast, easy, and do not contain yeast. I am really not good with yeast. I seem to kill the poor things with my bare hands. I swear I can feel them dying as I knead.

So, I used biscuit dough, and frankly, it's more like the pop dough anyway. And I'm making pizza pops here.

The pizza sauce is probably the toughest part of this... Put it all in a bowl. Stir. Holy hell, I'm exhausted and I need to sit down for a few minutes.

So, you can either roll out the dough into one big blob and cut circles out of it, or you can roll small blobs of dough into circles. I've done it both ways, and I find that the big blob works best for smaller ones and small blobs work best for larger ones.

Since I was at Recipe Guy's house and making insta-lunches to stock his freezer with, I opted for small blobs to make big pops.

Roll the dough to no more than 3 mm thick (metric, Canadian, plus, looks better than 7/64 inches) and spread it with pizza sauce, leaving about a 1/4 inch (about 6 mm if you're playing along at home) edge all the way around.

Lay on the pepperoni. I only used one layer in this batch, but I think two would be okay. Make a small pile of cheese on one half. Add whatever other toppings you like, and then another small drizzle of sauce.

Fold the non cheese side over the cheese side and proceed with some form of joining of the edges.

Me, I like to roll it by folding the bottom layer up over the top layer. If you prefer to press, (edges of pizza pops are pressed with a fork-like indentation) I suggest you use some kind of fastener, like water, or a bit of egg wash. You're going to have to make the egg wash (beat the egg with the bit of water) anyway, and it makes a pretty decent pastry glue.

Brush them with egg wash and poke the top a few times with a fork. If steam can escape this way, it won't try and bust open an edge to get out.

I baked these at 400 for about 17 minutes.

The pastry is flakey, and handles both the freezer and the microwave well, and the filling is just enough pizza for a quick lunch. You could even eat it one handed.

What else should I stuff my biscuits with?