Bacon Lettuce Roll-ups

So the hubster came home from a visit at Sam's Club with three pounds of bacon. Not on the list, so I take this as a not so subtle hint. Out comes the big cookie sheet to bake up a batch of bacon. I generally try to get three dishes out of a pound. That is sometimes hard to do when we keep nibbling. Oven baking is awesome. None of that curling or spattering grease in your face when it pops. Ouch. Besides, I like my bacon crisped, so I hate those undercooked curls that never make contact with the skillet. Yuck. Oven baked bacon is easiest to crumble into salads too. Even the fatty parts crisp up. I get the edge pieces since I prefer crisp. The aforementioned husband gets the bendable slices from the center of the pan. The kids get whatever. They are not as picky.

This time I was successful in getting three dishes from a pound of bacon. First, I made a wonderful scramble with bell pepper, mushrooms and spinach. (And duh, the eggs and bacon of course.) We also added a sprinkle of Jack cheese to melt on top. Next, I made the roll ups for my guys' lunch.

The fun thing with these is trying to get the lettuce to stay rolled. For my bottom leaf, I was using iceberg lettuce. It was thick and already curly. I roll in the direction of the curl. There is no arguing with lettuce. Over that, I put some fresh from the herb garden specialty lettuce leaves for color and a few more vitamins. Then a layer of cream cheese. I put one down the center, then a blob on the edge to act like glue. This morning, I put these wonderful tiny grape tomatoes in a line down the roll. Then, on with the bacon slices. Roll 'er up and use the extra cream cheese to glue the lettuce together. I admit one worked better than the other. But then one roll up was actually two leaves, so it fought me a little bit. All ends up the same in the tummy they say.

I had just a couple of bacon slices left over, so I made a broccoli salad. I love adding a tablespoon of the bacon grease to my mayo dressing. I also sweeten our dressing a tad, and add dehydrated onion flakes. Seriously delicious, even though John is not a huge broccoli fan. Bacon makes most anything better. Good thing since I have two more pounds in the fridge. Ah, the joys of the wholesale club!