Broccoli W/ Crispy Bacon & Toasted Garlic Chips
One of the vegetable side dishes I made for our Thanksgiving Day dinner was this broccoli w/ crispy bacon and toasted chips. It’s not that complicated to make. It’s actually a good side dish on any given day. You can opt not to add bacon if you want to but since it was Thanksgiving, I decided to add ‘em.
INGREDIENTS:
3-4 heads of broccoli (separate the florets, peel the stalks and slice diagonally)
5-6 strips of bacon, chopped
6 cloves of garlic, peeled and sliced thinly
a bowl with cold water and ice cubes
water for boiling
salt and pepper
a little bit of oil
In a non-stick skillet, heat up oil. Add the garlic chips to toast. Pay attention to this coz you don’t want to burn the garlic. Set aside once toasted.
Use the same pan to brown the chopped bacon. Set aside when done.
Boil water. Add the broccoli and the sliced stalks. Don’t throw away the stalks coz they’re really good. Just peel and slice. Just let the broccoli cook for a few minutes.
Drain the water then blanch the broccoli with the ice cold water. This stop the cooking and will keep the broccoli green and crispy. Do this for 2 minutes or so.
Drain the ice cold water. Add the broccoli into the same non-skillet pan where you cooked the garlic and bacon. Add the bacon back, season with a little bit of salt and pepper, and toss gently.
Transfer into a platter then sprinkle the toasted garlic chips on top.
Thanksgiving 2010 Dinner
Let me show you what my family devoured last night for our Thanksgiving Day feast. Of course, we didn’t eat all of them, just FYI. We’ve got leftovers to last us for a few days. I’m going to be cranking up leftover recipes tomorrow to use up the turkey. I’d probably make some turkey fried rice along the way.
MENU: Herb With Saffron Roast Turkey, Cornbread Casserole, Broccoli with crispy bacon and toasted garlic chips, Mashed Potatoes with Cream Cheese, Green Beans & Mushrooms Casserole, Sweet Potato Muffins/Biscuits, and sweet potato pies for dessert.
Broccoli with crispy bacon and toasted garlic chips. Recipe will be posted sometime this weekend.
Mashed Potatoes with Cream Cheese. Based from The Pioneer Woman’s mashed potatoes recipe without the baking part. OMG, this is soooo good I wanted to marry IT.
Green Beans & Mushrooms Casserole. I’ll be posting a review of the cheddar French Fried Onions that almost did not make it to the casserole.
Cornbread Casserole. I made this the night before so it would set overnight in the fridge after cooking. It’s so much better like this. Plus it saved me time in the oven schedule.
Sweet Potato Pies. I made these the night before too. Good thing my recipe makes 2 pies coz we couldn’t wait for Thanksgiving Day. We each had a slice with cool whip on top after dinner on Wednesday night. 
Either I starved them all day or they just genuinely enjoyed the food. I love their green plates. I bought the set for $1 years ago. The kids use them during the Holidays. I wish I bought another set for me and my husband too.
I can’t believe I ate all of that last night, accompanied by a glass of white wine. Sooo good. The entire menu which would last us probably about 3 days was all under $100.
Thanksgiving Day Dinner For 4/6 People In Under $100
I realized after doing my Thanksgiving Day dinner grocery shopping today that thanks to my Food Lion MVP Card, I would be cooking up a Thanksgiving Day Feast for under $100. This dinner would be for 2 adults and 2 children but could easily feed 6 adults.
The MVP card gave AWESOME deals in everything I need to make the Turkey, 6 different sides, and desserts. A $30 purchase alone gives any MVP card holder a $6 -15 pounds Turkey. There are also the Buy One Get One Free deals that I took advantage of.
That whole thing is under $100. My table will have a roasted turkey, mashed potatoes w/ cream cheese, corn bread casserole, broccoli with crispy bacon bits and garlic, green beans casserole, sweet potato muffins, and 2 sweet potato pies come Thanksgiving Day.
Del Monte canned products were $1.19 each, buy one get one free. You have to be smart about these deals. The store brand will have a price of .79 cents each. 2 cans would be $1.58. At first glance, the .79cents each will catch your attention but once you do the Math you’ll find out that sometimes it’s better to get the Brand ones. Don’t hesitate to get the store brands sometimes though if you’ll be saving more coz frankly there’s not much difference between store brand and brand ones. It all depends on your preferences and the deals.
So the tricks are:
- sign up for the costumer card (you can do this anytime and save instantly)
- pay attention to the prices
- compare while doing the Math
- make a list beforehand of what you’ll need
- bring a calculator
Some of the ingredients like flour, sugar, oil, eggs, shortening, and bacon wouldn’t even be used completely therefore they’ll be added to the regular grocery stock. So that’s another savings there. We wouldn’t be having appetizers this year because my husband will be working that day so we’d be feasting during our regular dinner time which is about about 6pm.
Nevertheless, if I bought Ritz crackers, 2 bricks of cheese, cheese ball and shrimp cocktail ring like we always have as appetizers, to add into the entire bill, it would still come out to under $100. Mind you, I didn’t use any coupons. I just followed the deals in-store and used my MVP card.
Sticky Post: Thanksgiving Menu List
If you need help in your Thanksgiving Menu, here’s a list of recipes I’ve compiled from my own Thanksgiving dinner that you might want to check out.
Holiday Recap: New Year’s Eve/Birthday Dinner
A continuation of the lechon kawali/deep fried pork roast post which we enjoyed for our New Year’s Eve dinner which also happened to be my birthday dinner as well. I did not make any appetizers since we actually went out for lunch which served as my birthday eat-out celebration.
Lechon Kawali aka Deep Fried Pork Roast
For my birthday dinner/ New Year’s Eve meal, the main entree was this deep fried pork roast which in Filipino culture is called Lechon Kawali. My husband actually handled the deep frying of this bad boy using the turkey deep fryer that we bought for our Thanksgiving Day turkey.
Christmas 2009 Dinner
For our Christmas dinner, we didn’t do the traditional ham or roasted chicken. Hubs found some really nice looking rib eye steaks from BJ’s days before Christmas which made him declare, “we’re having steaks for Christmas.” I had no problem with it coz it meant he’ll be grilling, .
Baked Mussels On Christmas Day
I know I know, it’s 2010 and I am just now posting our Christmas food. Well, good thing Baked Mussels can be made in any occasion. Baked Mussels is one of the appetizers I made for our Christmas celebration.
Cheesy Broccoli Casserole
A great side dish during the holidays, particularly Christmas. A perfect vegetable dish even for the most picky eater in your family.
| Cheesy Broccoli Casserole |
- 1 lb broccoli, cut into pieces
- 1 can of cream of mushroom
- 2 eggs, lightly beaten
- 1 cup mayonnaise
- 1 1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
- 1 stick butter, cut into pieces
- black pepper
- 1 sleeve of Ritz crackers, crushed
- Preheat oven to 375F. Butter a casserole pan or mist with cooking spray.
- Steam broccoli until crisp-tender, 7 minutes then transfer to a bowl of ice water.
- Mix soup, eggs, mayonnaise, cheese, butter and pepper in a saucepan and cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until melted and combined.
- Drain broccoli; spread evenly in the buttered baking pan. Pour cheese mixture, stirring once or twice to cover the broccoli. Sprinkle with crackers. Bake for 30 minutes.
–originally posted at forks.ca–
Christmas Apple Pie For 2009
I made my traditional Apple Pie for our Christmas dessert tomorrow. It turned out really gorgeous. Better than the pie I made last year. My 3 yr old daughter said “oohhh” when she saw it on the table after I took pictures. Then she started singing “…..to you”, to the tune of the happy birthday song 
.
Here’s my recipe for the Apple Pie. Merry Christmas Everyone!
