The first thing I heard today on the morning news was about a new food item being served at the Minnesota State Fair called Chicken-Fried Bacon (thick-cut bacon battered, breaded and fried and served in a boat covered with gravy). Why doesn’t that surprise me? Last year, it was chocolate-covered bacon, which was actually pretty tasty. And we all know about and love bacon ice cream and Kristen’s Brown Butter Cereal Bars with Candied Bacon.
Bacon is “hot” in the media and online. Cookbooks using bacon as the main ingredient are becoming popular. So why not combine our favorite ingredient with some fresh, garden tomatoes—so plentiful and delicious at this time of year? I found a recipe for Bacon and Tomato Jam online and we cooked up a batch in the test kitchens because it sounded so good.
We loved the jam for its bright red color, slightly tangy flavor (from the vinegar) and the chewy, salty bacon in it. We tried it on some sliders and decided it was a nice change from ketchup! It was a bit sweeter than ketchup but very shinny and pretty. The one thing we would recommend changing in the recipe would be to blanch the tomatoes and remove their skins before cooking them with the rest of the ingredients.
In this Easy Chicken and Garden Veggies dish, bacon and tomatoes are combined to make a nice, late summer meal.
