Cheesy Bacon Crescents

You know what's good?  Cheese.  You know what else is good?  Crescent rolls.  Also, bacon (Can I get an Amen?).  Finally, you know what else is good?  Onions.  Doesn't it then stand to reason that crescent rolls with cheese, bacon, and onions all wrapped up inside would be...kind of amazing?  I think it does.

These bad boys are really, really tasty and pretty fast.  They will make you the star of any Superbowl party, they do not require years and years of work, and they are far more interesting than one more bowl of salsa and yet another bag of chips.

I love Superbowl parties because I love snack food.  I mean, isn't that the main reason anyone goes to a Superbowl party?  It's not.  Oh.  Well, it's why I go.  One year (I won't say which) we went to a pretty big party and I was quite excited but the food was disappointingly...lame.  Seriously, there were more chips and salsa than any 50 people would ever need aaannd... not much else.  No wings, way too many vegetable trays (Vegetable trays during the Superbowl?  Really?), and a whole lot of store-bought whatevers.  I was so disappointed the whole night.

On a related note, we have not yet been invited to a Super Bowl party this year.  No, I don't know who is playing or who isn't or who might be or whether or not anyone knows any of that yet.  I will not interrupt you when you are really into the game.  I will be very disappointed if we don't watch the halftime show (whether to enjoy it or make fun of it, doesn't matter to me).  I will be really annoyed if you talk through the commercials or forget to call me in when they are back on.  Like, really annoyed.  Really really.  Just trying to be honest.  But anyway, we are open for invites.  And whether my above list pleases you or makes you roll your eyes, I promise that if you invite me I will make these crescent rolls AND my awesome guacamole.  Any takers?

Cheesy Bacon Crescents
All measurements below are estimates, and can and should be adjusted to your tastes

• 2 packages Crescent Rolls
• 1 8-oz. package of cream cheese, softened
• about 1/4 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
• 1 package of thick-cut bacon
• about 1/4 cup diced scallions 

Cook the bacon.  (By the way, have you ever cooked bacon in the oven?  Because if you don't want to get all greasy and smokey and you have a little extra time, this is the way to do it.)  

While bacon is cooling dice your onions and mix the cheese and onions together.  Crumble bacon and stir it in.  Cut crescents in half lengthwise (they will be very skinny on the bottom).  Spread some mixture down each one, roll them up, and bake according to package directions.

Notes:  You can use onion-flavored cream cheese and omit the onions, if you want.  You could also use mini-crescent rolls if you can find them.  It's best to keep the crescents in the fridge for as long as possible - if they get to room temp they are much harder to work with.

Use It Up Day 10 - Buttermilk Cornbread

When I started this project I really thought we'd end the two weeks eating things like bean and noodle tacos or corn casserole or something.  But honestly, I feel like I've been more creative and made some really good food as a result of trying to use stuff up.  It actually has been two weeks already, which is crazy.  But I'm going to try to spend one more week without buying anything that's not necessary.  We did make a couple exceptions - I was nasty sick all weekend and had a serious craving for macaroni and cheese.  Since I wasn't feeling well enough to make it homemade, Jeremy bought me some instead.  =)  Other than that, though, we've done really well.

A couple weeks ago Jeremy asked me, "What happened to all our tupperware?  Does it seem like it's disappearing?"  I have had to throw away a few plastic containers lately because they just gave up the ghost (note to whom it may concern: glass tupperware is on the Christmas list now).  But I also realized that about half of our tupperware was in the freezer.  Ha!  We had a lot of meals or random sauces/sides frozen because I tend to always make too much.  One of the nice things about this project has been using up all the frozen stuff in our freezer.  There's a lot more space in there now!  And I feel better because I'm not constantly thinking, "We need to eat that sometime, ugh."  Now we've pretty much eaten it all.

On day 10 we ate frozen leftover Brunswick stew.  I felt like it needed some kind of bread and I LOVE cornbread.  Love it.  But only good cornbread and I'm a little picky.  If it's dry, no.  If it has real pieces of corn in it, no.  I usually buy Jiffy mixes and just doctor them up until I like them, but I decided to make them from scratch this time using this recipe I found and oh. my. word.  It was AMAZING.  It was good even four days leftover.  So here you go!

Perfect Buttermilk Cornbread
Adapted from here, only to change it from a loaf to muffins.
It should make 12 muffins, but as per usual, I only made 11.

Warm and Golden

• 1/2 cup butter
• 2/3 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs 
• 1 cup buttermilk (about 1/5 of mine was white milk because I ran out)
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup cornmeal
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Melt butter in a skillet.  Remove from heat and stir in sugar.  Quickly add eggs and beat until well blended.  Stir in buttermilk and baking soda.  Stir in cornmeal, flour, and salt until well-blended with few lumps.  Grease a muffin pan and fill cups (tip: use an ice-cream scoop to make each muffin the same size).  Bake in a 375 degree oven for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out dry.

Homemade Bread Crumbs

All my life I've been really driven.  I like to work, and I like to work well.  I had a high GPA in college.  At my first job, I completed my work for the day in less than a few hours.  When I became a teacher, I typed out all of my lesson plans including down-to-the-minute time expectations.  If I needed to cut and paste paper documents together, I'd re-type them instead because it looked better.  I loved teaching and working, and now I don't do it anymore.

But, all my life, I've also known I wanted to be a homemaker.  I wanted to stay home with my children once I had them and cherish every minute of that time with them.  Jeremy and I both knew how important this was, and so we worked to make it possible.  And although I miss my job, I wouldn't trade a minute of this time being home to go back to it.  (Okay, maybe a few choice minutes here and there, but you get the picture...)

So, it should come as no surprise to you that I am a driven homemaker now.  Here's what that doesn't mean:  It doesn't mean that I get up and dressed and fed by 8:00 every morning. **snort**  It does not mean my house is always clean, or even usually clean.  It doesn't mean dinner is on the table by 5:00 every day.  It doesn't mean I look like this:

It does mean a couple things.  It means I don't sit around and watch soap operas while Malachi is napping (although sometimes I eat a snack and watch Family Feud).  It means I applied my type A personality a little too much to my early months of child-rearing (i.e. OHMYGOSHHISNAPSAREONLY45MINUTESWHATAMIDOINGWRONG???!!!).  It means I've found new ways to stay involved in the things I love.  And it means I find new projects around the house for myself all the time. 

One of those new projects is making things homemade either to save resources or because it's healthier.  I tried homemade baby wipes, and I will not repeat that!  (If you have tried it and succeeded let me know in the comments - maybe my paper towels weren't good enough quality, but if I'd spent any more I would have paid the same for those as I do buying wipes).  I've been working on homemade artwork for a while (OOOHHHH how I want to have a link there that goes to an Etsy page or something but, sigh, I just haven't gotten that far yet).  Anyways, one thing I do all the time is make homemade bread crumbs.  Now,  if you're like me, maybe you feel like you never use bread crumbs.  I didn't either until I started making them myself.  If a recipe called for them I'd either skip it or leave them out.  Do you remember that little problem I have with leftover chips?  Jeremy and I have the same issue with leftover hamburger and hot dog buns.  I hate wasting them, but I also am really particular about fresh bread.  So we end up with a shelf-full of freezer-burnt buns.  Well, not anymore.

Home-made Bread Crumbs

• Bread

Put all your bread on a cookie sheet.  If you have buns, split them.  You can use any and all variety of random bread.  You can do this with frozen bread or thawed, as long as it's all thawed or all frozen.  You'll see I have quite an assortment of buns in this batch:

Put them in a 300-350ish oven.  The trick here is to keep it warm enough to dry out the bread, but not so hot that the outside gets toasted while the inside stays soft.  I'm not sure how long it takes - maybe 10 or 15 minutes?  Keep your eye on it and when your bread seems pretty dried out (but not brown and crusty), take it out.  Rip it into thirds or quarters and run it through a food processor.  My bread crumbs usually come out somewhat course - I'm not too particular about them all being the same.  If you are, this method may not work for you.  

Dump all the breadcrumbs in a bag and stick it in the freezer.  You can measure out what you need frozen, and I don't bother to thaw it before I cook with it - everything always comes out fine.

Recipes with bread crumbs:
Salmon Cakes with Lemon Dill Mayo
Spiced Oven-Fried Pork Chops