"Bacon Goes with Everything" - says the vegetarian

What do you give to a sports-loving, uber-manly (I'm talkin' pitchers of beer and steaks the size of my head - preferably for breakfast), food-blog lovin' man on his 26th birthday? Perhaps...some Peanut Butter BACON cookies? I know that J. really likes his red velvet cake (mascarpone cheese frosting?!!) and I really wanted to make it for him, but as you all know, my shoe box of an oven just can't take the height of a cake - of course I could continue to "experiment" but I'd likely end up with a third thigh, and with the holidays rollin' up next week, I don't have much room for that sort of dilly dallying.

Anyway, I went for Peanut Butter Bacon cookies, which I had been dying to make for a really long time. The cookie really has his name written all over it. As for the whole idea of savory and sweet, sorry to all the slow-food folks, but McDonalds did a wonderful job at mass producing McGriddles (at one point I was calling them McGirdles - sexy eh? In my defense, I had jet-lag and had been up for hours watching Cantonese gang-films). Griddle cakes with tiny (or not so tiny) pockets of warm maple syrup that pop and mix together with the greasy juices of the sausage. I obviously wasn't a vege-head at that point in my life.

Some notes on this recipe, the ingredients are so simple, I had to check the article quite a few times, I couldn't believe there was no BUTTER or FLOUR involved...insane, I know. I didn't want to trust it. But, I soldiered on, browning and crisping the bacon (I almost threw up...apologies - the "aroma" was too intense for my oh-so-delicate nose, which is used to the floral fragrance of steamed...spinach. *sigh).

I also folded in a quarter of a stick of cream cheese, which I chopped into teeny-tiny cubes so there would be creamy surprises snuggled up with the bacon.

I used Joy the Baker's recipe.

Preheat to 177C

6 slices of bacon (maple infused bacon would be quite lovely too)

1 cup peanut butter, either smooth or it's chunkier cousin are fine for this

1 cup sugar (half brown sugar, half granulated white sugar)

1 egg

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 block of cream cheese - tiny cubes (optional)

1. Cook the bacon slices until they are crispy.
   
   Cool on a paper towel until it's cool enough to handle. If you have scissors you use for cooking, cut up the bacon into tiny squares, like bacon-bits! If not...like myself...grab a chair and hunker down, the cutting takes a bit of time. All I can say is, good thing I'm not a meat eater, or there wouldn't be much bacon left after the half hour of strenuous square cutting.
   
2. Mix together the peanut butter and the sugars until they are well combined. No need to sift here! This is a man-ly cowboy cookie aiiiite?
3. Add egg and baking soda and mix for around 2 minutes.
4. Fold in bacon pieces (this is when I added the cubed cream cheese).
5. Roll the dough into walnut-sized balls and press down on them with a fork to make a criss-cross pattern. The original recipe gives the option of rolling the balls in granulated sugar before criss-crossing them, but really...more sugar? At this point I have my dentist on speed dial.
6. Bake for around 10 minutes or until they start to brown a bit.
7. As usual, the hardest part: wait for them to cool (five minutes should be enough right?) These end up being a bit crumbly, so handle with care - especially when gifting!