Everything's Better With Bacon, Right? And That's When It All Started!!

Today I was wanting something different, or as I like to say, a naughty treat! After rummaging around in my freezer, I came out with a few slices of a local applewood smoked bacon. Next, I needed something interesting to go with. Having been to my local farm stand the day before I was staring at a nice savoy cabbage, another one of my favorite things. Yes, you guessed it, trying to stick to my recent plan cooking with local ingredients I was ready, kind of....

I am a big fan of savoy cabbage because I find it sweeter and feel the leaves are a little lighter/thinner, and cook faster. I decided I would make some simple bacon wrapped cabbage wedges, sounded good to me. While my oven was preheating, I took out the bacon to soften and wedged my cabbage. I leave the stem on because I feel it helps hold the wedges together, others will tell you to remove the stem, so your kitchen your choice. Now I was ready to wrap the wedges and I suddenly realized I did not have half enough bacon for this to work. Now what? I lightly sprayed with an olive oil spray my wedges and seasoned with dried oregano. I placed the wedges in my lightly sprayed foil lined pan and layered the bacon on top.

Soooo, while that was baking, I realized I had a small dish of local diced fresh tomatoes I had to do something with, and you guessed it, I decided to use them up at the same time. So, I removed the wedges before being finished and placed them in a casserole dish on top of the tomatoes, lowered my oven (didn't trust my glass dish at a 450-degree temp to continue) with more oregano added and finished them off. Took them out of the oven when done and topped with the cheese.

I am happy to say these were absolutely delicious and will definitely be going in my rotation file, probably made a little simpler however!!

Here is what I finally did today:

Made my 4 wedges from one medium size savoy cabbage

Sprayed lightly with olive oil spray and dried oregano, your choice of spices goes here

Placed side down in lightly spray tin foil lined baking sheet

Laid my 5 slices of bacon across the tops covering all wedges

Baked in a 450 preheated oven for 25 minutes (regular cabbage may take a little longer)

Lowered my oven temp to 375

Placed my wedges in my lightly sprayed 8x8 casserole dish on top of 2 cups of diced tomatoes with dried oregano

Baked another 15 minutes, removed from oven and topped with 2 heaping Tablespoons of shredded Colby jack cheese, you would use a favorite cheese of choice

And that is how this recipe was born. Give it a try some time, you will be glad you did!!

Happy Cooking and Be Safe!