Oven Bacon

A quick and easy post while the baby is sleeping (again). She is a cat-napper, so I rarely have more than 20 minutes at a time to do anything in the daytime, then she wakes up screaming and is awake for about an hour to an hour and a half, and it starts all over again! But, at least she is predictable! :-) She is also getting really good a spending ten to fifteen minutes in her swing, so I can have more time to do things around the house. Tummy time does not last long, she starts getting frustrated after about 5 minutes or so, then screams to be picked up. Poor kid :-)

Last week, I got tired of the same old thing for dinner. We are getting in a rut; funds are tight this month and the grocery stash I put away before I went on mat leave is getting low. I had to go to the grocery store for a couple things so I decided to get a package of bacon since it was on sale, and have bacon and eggs for dinner. I have always wanted to try cooking it in the oven, and now I have discovered it is much easier, especially when you have a cat-napper that likes to be held! I will most likely do it this way the next time I cook bacon.

Basically, you foil a cookie sheet or two, lay the bacon out on it and turn the oven on to 400 F. Throw it in (without pre-heating the oven) and about 15 minutes later, ta-da! Cooked bacon:

I gave it another minute or two after this, because we like it crispy. I also had to drain it mid- baking, I just poured it off the corner of the cookie sheet into a small bowl. I had to over-lap the bacon a bit to get it all on two sheets (this is a full package), but it cooked nicely.

One tip I have, though, is to use full sheets of foil. The one on the right is the end of the roll, so I patch-worked it with a new roll. I ended up with a greasy pan; but I suppose not as greasy as it would have been. The one on the left I used a full sheet, and it really did not need to be washed.

So, bacon in the oven, eggs on the stove top. My kitchen is grease free and it did not take 45 minutes to cook a pound of bacon (as it usually does when I use a pan and have to cook 5 pieces at a time). Win-win, I say!

An update in baby Salean, she is getting so big! We went to the Doctor's last week for her first shot (poor baby screamed!) and she weighed in at 9 Lbs, 4 oz. She is also 3 inches taller than when she was born. It has been a few very bitter cold weeks, so we have been pretty house bound until Daddy gets home from work and takes us to the mall to go for a walk. This week, however, the temperature swung upwards, so we went for a walk today to mail off our Valentine's cards. Here is a picture of Salean when she was 4 days old in the snow suit her Auntie bought her:

So big! And she was curled up in a little ball. We tried it on again today, at six weeks old and it fits so much better. Here are a few pictures I took:

Much better, albeit still a bit big! Hopefully it will still fit for a bit next fall when it starts getting cool again!

Well, I hear baby chirping in her crib, a sign she is waking up! Hope everyone is having a wonderful February!

~Natasha.