bacon ice cream? yup, you read that right.

because we've moved so often (and are likely not done yet), we get our mail delivered to one of those mailbox places. it's pretty close to home, but i still don't manage to get over there to check it but maybe once a week. usually the box is filled with unhappy shit, like bills and junk mail. but when i went late last week, i was excited to find a slip that told me i had a package to pick up as well.

i rushed home to open it, and it was an awesome box of fun from my friend ThatGirl. she'd asked me for my address, so i knew something was on its way, but i wasn't sure what. and inside this carefully packed box:

i found two bags of delicious treats, handmade by TG herself.

and as i dug further into the foam peanuts, i squealed when i found this:

and then laughed as i pulled this out:

she is so thoughtful, and i love her so for it.

i'm also a little embarrassed to admit that i still haven't taken a bite of that long-awaited vosges bacon bar. i've been wanting it for so long, and now that i actually have one in my hot little hands, i guess i'm just prolonging the excitement as much as i possibly can. heh. what a doofus i am.

so to distract myself from the fact that it was waiting for me to dig in, i decided it was time to try a different bacon-related delicacy that i'd already bought the ingredients for. the monkey had forwarded me a link for bacon ice cream, and it looked so simple that i just had to give it a shot. i was actually more intrigued by the link within the comments for homemade candied bacon ice cream, but lacking an ice cream maker as well as the instructions linked within for making it without one, i settled for this quick and easy version.

but i did give it my own little twist - i chose to make candied bacon instead of mixing in plain ol' bacon bits. following the instructions in the second recipe, i laid out five strips of bacon onto my silicone baking mat and sprinkled them with about a teaspoon and a half of brown sugar.

once the oven was ready (i'd set it to400 degrees), i placed that happy-looking tray inside and set the timer for six minutes. while i waited, i laughed at the bean, who'd decided to get inside a paper bag and scoot around the floor.

when the timer went off, i pulled the bacon out, flipped the strips over, dragged them through the syrup created by the melted brown sugar, and sprinkled a little more on top for good measure.

a couple more turns later, it was done to my satisfaction. i set them on a wire rack to cool, and they were all pretty and shiny and smelled so good.

as they cooled and hardened, i pulled out the other two ingredients for my scrump-diddly-umptious experiment.

i chopped up the bacon into little bits:

put the ice cream in a bigger bowl for mixing, and sprinkled the bacon and pecans on top.

the color in this shot is off, but here's my ice cream, all mixed together.

in an effort to conserve space in my tiny freezer, i just put it all back into the original carton.

later that evening, after i'd cleaned up dishes from dinner, i scooped myself up a nice serving of the sweet/salty concoction. i topped it off with a few extra candied bacon bits, and dug in.

i must confess - while i really wanted to love this stuff, i really did - i wasn't exactly bowled over. it was good, don't get me wrong, but not as fantabulous as i'd hoped for. maybe it was the slightly overwhelming sweetness of the dulce de leche flavor (candying the bacon or using sweetened pecans probably didn't help, either). or maybe my taste buds were all set for some homemade ice cream, and even good ol' haagen dazs wasn't good enough. i don't know. in any case, it was yummy enough for me to want to finish it off (although i was good and didn't - yet), but not necessarily to make this particular recipe again. the candied bacon on its own WAS really delicious, though, and that i will definitely repeat. this time, though, i'll just treat it as the pig candy that it is and munch on it solo.

hey, no worries. if at first the bacon ice cream isn't a huge success, try, try again - with more fun recipes incorporating bacon in creative ways! stay tuned.