It was Father’s Day this past weekend and, if your dad is anything like mine, you grilled up a ton of red meat for him to chow down on. Because you overdid it – because your dad is amazing – there will be leftover steak. I’ve always been intrigued as to what to do with it, besides making a wonderful steak sandwich. Here I’m going to show you how you could eat this at any meal during the day, even breakfast! Hash is essentially a mix of whatever is in your fridge, or at least that’s the way I think of it. Top it with a couple fried eggs and you’ve got a perfectly balanced meal.

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Ah, the sweet smell of bacon. It’s a thing of beauty, no? The way the aroma curls seductively in your nostrils, making your stomach growl and your mouth water. The way that there are few more pleasant ways to wake up on a Sunday morning than to drift towards wakefulness, following the scent of bacon and coffee as someone makes breakfast in the kitchen. Whatever you may be cooking, it’s the moment that the bacon hits the pan, whether to crisp up to be crumbled over a salad or mingling with some onions and garlic as the base of a sauce, that someone in the next room is bound to exclaim, “wow, that sure smells great!” Bacon is unquestionably one of my favourite smells, and I am most definitely not alone in this preference.

Of course, there are some moments when cooking bacon just to enjoy the smell isn’t a practical choice, no matter how fragrant the results might be. As much as I’d like to say I am never too busy or too rushed to take the time and cook up a pan of bacon, sadly this is not the case. Luckily, there are ways that I can enjoy the sweet smell of bacon without heating the oven or getting out a cast-iron pan. Some enterprising bacontrepreneurs have put the time and energy into making some fantastic scented products that give you a bit of your bacon-aroma fix when you can’t quite manage to get yourself in front of the stove.

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Now, I don’t want to suggest that bacon actually needs improving on. This delectable food is perfect in every way, just the way that it is. Despite all the fancy combinations, exciting new bacon products and ever-growing collection of new dishes and recipes to draw upon, the simple beauty of a strip of crispy, perfectly cooked bacon all on its own is still one of my favourite things in the whole world. Whenever I am cooking breakfast for my partner or friends, stealing that first piece of bacon as it sits draining on a paper towel, still warm from the pan, and eating it unaccompanied by anything else is still totally perfect.

There are mornings, however, when I shy away from eating bacon – crazy, I know – for a surprising reason: I am afraid it will make me feel a bit sleepy. Whenever I eat any meat, especially early in the day, I tend to feel a little bit more tired than I do if I eat a lighter breakfast. The bacon makes me feel so full and content that sometimes I want to take a nap instead of getting going with my day.

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The other night I was really craving a taco, but I didn’t have any of the stuff to make it. The more I waited to go to the store, the more my cravings began to change. I started craving a burger: a big, fat, juicy, homemade burger. I didn’t have the stuff to make that either. So it was off to the store. When I began to think about what kind of spices I was going to put into my ground beef, it hit me: taco seasoning. Toppings? Taco-style toppings. A beast was born. So how am I going to incorporate the bacon? That’s an excellent question. I’m going to grind that stuff up, and mix it in right with the ground beef. This will be the juiciest, most flavourful burger you’ll ever have. I’ll even show you how to make a simple homemade salsa for topping!

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There are three foods that I hold above all others, that together form the Holy Trinity of Deliciousness: cheese, bacon and butter. They are each of them delicious on their own, or can be combined together to make truly remarkable and indulgent culinary creations. Today, I want to focus on butter (and, of course, bacon). Whether melted and drizzled over popcorn, used to dunk sweet piece of lobster meat in, or simply smeared on a still-warm muffin fresh from the oven, real butter is simply one of the most delicious things on the entire planet, and also a natural friend to bacon (as we recently posted in our recipe section).

To further draw your attention to this particular match made in culinary heaven, we’ve put together a few of the simplest and most daring ways that butter and bacon can be combined.

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Gosh, if I knew Pad Thai was this easy to make, it would be a staple in my household. Well, it’s going to be a staple now. No longer will I have to venture out into the wild and spend top dollar on a restaurant-prepared version of this famous Thai dish. I’m making it myself! And mine has bacon! Take THAT Thai restaurants!

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Right now, Queen Elizabeth II is celebrating her Diamond Jubilee, a huge, international series of parties being thrown to mark her 60th anniversary as the ruler of England. Imagine it, 60 years on the throne! All throughout the UK, and countries with close ties to the monarchy (like old colonies and dominions), parades, galas and other celebrations are being thrown to mark this momentous occasion. Not only has the Queen ruled for a full 60 years, but she is also very well loved by her own subjects and the international community. The official date of the Diamond Jubilee was June 2nd 2012, and it is only the second such celebration ever to be held in the history of the British monarchy – the only other ruler to make it to their Diamond Jubilee was Queen Victoria, who celebrated hers on June 22nd 1897.

The Republic of Bacon is honoured to do out own part to honour this grand event, and so we present a special edition of this blog dedicated to bacon tea, in honour of the British monarchy.

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Both of my roommates are now gone – both of them off to Europe for separate reasons. I’m left here to fend for myself. Both of them will be in Italy at one point or another and I am extremely jealous. It’s really not fair. One of them had mentioned that he was going through Genova, Italy and I immediately stopped him. I told him that it was IMPERATIVE that he stopped in Genova and ordered some pesto of any kind. Genova is the birthplace of pesto and it is impossible to replicate here in North America. It’s gotta be the air over there or something. Everything just tastes better… especially the pesto. So in honour of this, I’m making my own home-style pesto… with bacon, of course.

What makes this pesto home-style, you ask? Well, I’ll be chopping everything by hand, the way Nonna used to make it. No food processor here. You’ll wind up with a more heterogeneous texture where you’ll be able to distinguish all of the flavours within the pesto. This is in contrast to making one homogeneous paste where all the flavours meld into one. I much prefer the first.

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Here at the Republic of Bacon, we do our best to celebrate the local heroes of bacon in our towns and cities. All over North America, in hugely successful businesses and struggling start-ups, bacon innovators are applying creative wizardry to everyone’s favourite meat, doing their part of elevate bacon from mere food to cultural phenomenon.

These bacon innovators are constantly looking for ways to make bacon bigger, better, and more exciting. They develop amazing new products and concoct winning recipes. Whenever we come across one of these local bacon warriors in the wild, we do our best to give them a little love.

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Last week, Natalie Bacon wrote about a wonderfully intriguing Voodoo Donut Maple Bacon Ale by the wonderful people over at Rogue. The same day, I received a phone call from my uncle saying he saw the review for this stuff in the newspaper and that he was on a mission to find me a couple bottles. He came through with his promise over the weekend, and I picked up that wonderful bacon beer the other day. Now, the question was what the heck I would do with it. I tasted the beer and it had wonderful smokey notes with a hit of maple that hit you in the aftertaste. I immediately thought to make a beer batter and, I must admit, it was the best fish and chips I’ve ever had. The smokey-sweetness truly comes through into the batter and makes the fish taste like no other fish and chips I’ve ever had – truly remarkable.

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