Lullaby Little One / Triple Bacon Gratin Taters

We had some mild weather last week, but then the weekend threw us a couple of cold nights in a row. When I got up on this morning, it was 19 degrees. But it was a bit too breezy for bubbles and the light wasn't so hot, so I skipped the frozen bubbles; maybe tomorrow morning.

My husband looked out the window and ran for the binoculars, as the furry youngster from our local small herd of deer was napping in our woods. I was able to get a quick snap of its sweet little face. How absolutely DARLING. You may see a shot of this lovely creatures with (I think) its mom in the extras from a prior blip.

In other news, it was time to make some more of those fancy potatoes that we love. I started with cheesy gratin potatoes and then added a bit of bacon. Well, that went over so well that I added MORE bacon this time. I greased the tins with bacon grease, and I put a layer of crispy bacon bits both in the middle and on the top of the gratin potatoes; that gives me TRIPLE bacon gratin potatoes, oh my! I also left them in the oven a bit longer and they turned out very crispy and golden.

I am not sure I mentioned this before so I'll say it now. Obviously, we like to heat these potatoes up as sides, ideally in the oven, with our meals. Here's the news! One of these also makes a really nifty potato bomb for a breakfast omelet (Ye Olde Potato Bomb).

Just take one egg, smash up one of these cuties, mix it all up in a microwave-safe bowl, and heat it up until it's solid, just 30 seconds or so at a time in the microwave. Serve however you like; we enjoy it atop buttered toast.

You know how annoying it is when you want potatoes in your omelet; baking them to softness takes forever. Well, gues what: problem SOLVED. The potatoes are fully cooked! And they also have cheese and bacon and some tasty seasonings already on them!

By the way, I discovered last time I made these, quite by accident, that using bacon grease to grease the muffin tins is a GAME CHANGER. On a whim, I thought, hmm, let me try this. And guess what: those suckers SLID RIGHT OUT OF THERE when I was done. 

Clean-up was a snap. I mean, it was still five minutes, but wow. And I lost almost NONE of the crispy crunchy stuff that we adore. You may see the latest cheesy bacony effort in the extras.

I have two photos so here are two songs. First, I've got a sort of lullaby for the fuzzy little one. Here is Lily Kershaw, with The Last Light. And for my little bombs of cheesy, bacony, potatoey goodness, here is Tina Turner, with Better Be Good to Me.