My Favorite Bacon Cooker

Do you eat bacon at your house?  I love bacon, but I try not to eat it more than once a week, or so.  At the moment though, we have fresh tomatoes from the Farmers Market, and I decided to make BLT's for our dinner tonight.  Cooking bacon was always time consuming on the stove top; I was glad when we learned to cook it in the microwave.  However, the cleanup was a mess because I used one of those bacon pans with the ridges made just for the microwave.  Afterwards, I'd have to work to get the grease out from between all the grooves and the sides before I put it in the sink.  No way was I going to have that bacon grease get into my drain.  It was a messy job to clean up, and I always dreaded it.

 

Meet our new stoneware microwave bacon cooker.  This was a Christmas gift from my in-laws a few years ago, and let me tell you, it is the bomb!  It looks a lot like a pottery pitcher with an attached saucer, doesn't it?  Do you see the pour spout at the bottom left of the cooker?  There's a small hole at the bottom of the well (tall center portion) and as the bacon cooks, the grease collects in the well and drains out the hole into the "saucer."  Cleanup is a breeze folks -- just pour the collected grease (after it cools some) into your trash can.  I then wipe the saucer and center portion out with paper towels, let it soak a few minutes in dishwashing liquid, and pop it into the dishwasher.

You can see Duncan's treat tin in the background here.  ;)  This picture shows the information that came with the cooker.  A local potter in Lexington, North Carolina, named Clyde Gobble (bless his heart for going through life with that name) invented these.  He passed away in 2014, but the gallery where mine was purchased still carries these.  They're now being made by other potters.  You can purchase one from the New Morning Gallery, located in historic Biltmore Village in Asheville.  Here's the link to the website where you can view the cookers (they offer different colors and glazes) and for those who don't live nearby, you can purchase by phone.

I hope you aren't bothered by the sight of raw bacon; if you're a vegetarian, just look away.  :-D  Anyway, I'm showing this so you can see how it works.  You drape your bacon slices over the center "well" with half the slice inside and half outside.  Then microwave one minute per slice.  Since microwaves and thickness of bacon slices differ, they recommend you try less than one minute to begin with.  I've found that one minute works just about perfect in our microwave.  This was thick-sliced bacon, so I added an extra 20 seconds at the end.  I also like my bacon crispy, rather than chewy.

Here's how it looks after cooking.  If you look closely, you can see where the grease has collected in the bottom saucer.  The website says that the cookers hold seven to eight slices of bacon, but I've found that six is the most I can get in mine.  We like Oscar Meyer Center Cut bacon, and those slices might be a little wider than other kinds of bacon.

Taa-daa!  In less than ten minutes, you've got a perfectly-cooked plate of bacon ready to eat.  Now I don't normally go on and on about products like this, but I just can't say enough good things about these bacon cookers.  They're microwave and dishwasher safe and have a lead-free glaze.  I also think they're attractive enough to leave out on your counter top -- if you like pottery like I do.  I can't speak for the rest of the cookers, but this one is a hand-thrown pot, signed on the bottom by the potter.

The best part is the consistency of these cookers.  Every time I use this, the bacon turns out perfect, which was not the case with other microwave bacon pans I've used.  Maybe it has to do with the cooker being stoneware and having a round shape instead of square and flat.  Anyway,  I love it and wanted to share with you.  This is not a sponsored post -- no compensation here from the gallery.

I found another article online about Clyde Gobble and it's very interesting.  It tells some of his history as a potter and talks about the other kinds of pottery he made over the years.  You can read that Here.

We thoroughly enjoyed our first BLT's of the summer last night.  Actually, I should say BT's; we prefer ours with just bacon and tomatoes.  My husband likes mayo on his, but I don't even need that when the tomatoes are nice and juicy.  As far as the lettuce goes, why clutter things up with all that healthy stuff, right?  ;)

As always, thanks so much for stopping by and reading my little blog; I hope you're enjoying some of summer's bounty at your house.  Have a great week!

Hugs,

Denise