Apple BACON Pie!

It's Porky pie...

Last weekend I went to a harvest party and thought it would be a good time to try something new in the kitchen. Guests were supposed to bring pies. I knew there would be a lot of apple pies, so just for fun I threw in a "special" ingredient... something I recently got to try featured in ice cream. BACON goes well with anything. It's kinda like cheese. And just FYI, I did forgo the cheddar pie crust. Maybe next time.

The crust was my grandma's recipe- which I may post here sometime-, but I didn't have nearly enough butter, so I used about 70% BACON GREASE for the fat. Then I mixed the sliced/peeled apples with sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and flour, and put it in the crust-lined pie tin. I fried up one pound of bacon, put 75% in the pie, and kept out some choice bits for the topping.

Here was the best part of the whole thing: the topping! Everyone knows that you can make food that tastes like cardboard, but if it looks good, people will eat it and probably like it (or else why do people eat store-bought baked goods?). Thus, it's always good to have a garnish on what you serve, just in case the food doesn't turn out. I used a mixture of bacon bits, cane turbinado sugar, and fresh-cracked hickory nuts. It was perfect. The hickory nuts perfectly complemented the bacon, and the turbinado sugar gave it a "professional bakery" look. When topping things with sugar, always use the biggest crystals you can find. Small crystals will melt into whatever you're baking, and what's the point of ornamental sugar if you can't see it.

So there it is... BACON. This Sunday I'll be test-driving a variation at church, and if it passes, a recipe will be forthcoming. :)