Old Fashion Bacon Curls.

"It's been several decades since I've had these, they were a pretty decorative (and pretty tasty) decoration that was used to top things like salads (spinach salad, in particular) and casseroles, and quiche. There's no real "recipe" but in finding another recipe in my mothers collection of her mothers recipes, I found a recipe that called for them. So I made some tonight, and here they are. I do see I need to "tighten up" the curls a bit. Next time!

~~~ Submitted by Lynne D. Perry



INGREDIENTS
Bacon

INSTRUCTIONS
1) Remove excess fat from bacon strips, then cut them first length wise, and then cut the lengths in half.
2) Using a toothpick, secure one end of a strip on the toothpick, then pull it down to the end of the toothpick. Give it a twist or 2, and secure the other end of the bacon strip to the tooth pick. You may have to do a little twisting motion to get the "curl" to look right once both ends are secured. Place curl on a rack on a cookie sheet. (I use foil to make clean up easier)
3) Preheat oven to 350.
4) Bake curls 12-20 minutes. This depends on your oven, keep an eye on them, and when they are nice and crispy looking, take them out.
5) Drain them on paper towels. Once they are cooled, get the bacon curls off the tooth picks by gently and persistently twisting the toothpicks until they are loose, then slide the curls off.

NOTE: I save the excess fat and render it down to a melted fat. Bacon fat is great for things like making bird suet, priming and protecting cast iron cookware, adding flavoring to soup, or even heating up and using in warm salad dressings. I use the bacon that's left from the fat rendering for things like bacon bits in salad, or mashed potato's, or .. anything I want to jazz up with a little bit of bacon.