Lately, I've been on a bacon spree. I've scored some darn good sales at several local grocery stores.
A lesson I learned long ago is to never be without bacon. After all, who doesn't love the stuff?
If you have impromptu overnight guests, bacon is the answer if you need to prepare a quick breakfast or brunch. When you have bacon on hand, you can fry it up for sandwiches or crumble it into in salads. You can bacon-wrap shrimp and scallops and fry those up, too. Bacon-wrapped dates stuffed with goat cheeses are phenomenal.
After hitting all those sales, I ended up with more than six pounds of bacon in my freezer. I never freeze a whole package of bacon because I don't want to have to cook the entire package when it's thawed. Instead, I flash-freeze slices individually so that I take out only what I need. To freeze, roll up slices and then place on a plate and put it in the freezer. Once bacon is frozen, place in a freezer bag, label and date. Flash-freezing also ensures that the bacon slices don't stick together.
My bacon-buying binge and last week's frigid temperatures bring me to today's recipes.
In October, country music singer-songwriter Martina McBride released "Martina's Kitchen Mix: My Recipe Playlist for Real Life" (Oxmoor House, $30). It's her second cookbook, and it features more than 150 of her favorite recipes.
Chapters run the gamut from breakfast and brunch dishes to main-course offerings, and the recipes call for mostly standard pantry ingredients. Nearly every recipe has some sort of tip from McBride and a suggestion for how to put a different twist on the dish or serve it in a unique way.
Perusing the pages, I came across a cream of tomato soup recipe and a suggestion from McBride that you pair it with grilled cheese sandwiches made with bacon. Recent weather already had me in the mood for soup, and, of course, you can never go wrong with tomato soup and grilled cheese.
Both of today's recipes are easy and provide a hearty comfort meal in an hour. The sandwich features havarti cheese, thick-cut bacon, sourdough bread and a sweet and spicy spread. The soup, which uses canned tomatoes, isn't creamy and thick but has a thinner bisquelike consistency.
