oh hell yes!

I just flew back from family Michigan vacation and managed to pick up a few recipes while visiting.  The best recipe by far was my sister-in-law’s amazing 10 hour, 2 day ribs.  Unfortunately, her method involves the purchase of a smoker and I’m pretty sure our HOA would deem a smoker a balcony fire hazard.  A tight second, however, was my bro’s recipe for bacon s’mores.  He told me his daughter and her friends started this trend and probably cooked 60 pounds of bacon this past summer.  (Don’t worry, my niece is a size 2.)  The neighborhood where they live is called “Sylvan” which explains the s’more’s name.  My bro lives very near a lovely lake, is an avid water skier, and owns a pontoon boat on which he frequently entertains.  He will cook entire meals at the shore on his kettle grill, which are then served and eaten on the pontoon.  My bro has a gift for making entertaining look easy.  He kept producing dishes out of nowhere!  We spent a day on his lake and ate chicken and steak kebabs, 2 bean salad with fresh dill, grilled corn, and an amazing heirloom tomato caprese salad.  It was a perfect summer day with swimming, boating, eating, and family.

that’s my bro in blue, his boats, and grill

Bro spent the entire day at his lake bragging about how awesome the “Sylvan S’more” is, with it’s sweet, salty, and savory aspects.  He explained to me you cook the bacon with the marshmallow and then add your chocolate and graham crackers, like usual.  So when it came time a few days later to actually make this Sylvan S’more, this is what had two days to envision:

warning, even through this looks totally awesome, it is wrong, do NOT do this at home

Either I misunderstood or he didn’t explain very well but I thought you cooked it all together!  I was quickly told several times how wrongly I had prepared my s’more by weaving the bacon through the marshmallows.  How the marshmallows would cook faster than the bacon and that I got a big fat “F” for prep.  Being the stubborn person I am, I managed not to stick my tongue out at my bro, and cooked it anyway, as shown in the above photo.  Yes, the marshmallows cooked faster than the bacon.  Yes, the marshmallows eventually fell off the stick into the fire and onto the ground.  Yes, my method was not the best way.  However, as they melted, the marshmallows sort of caramelized the bacon and sweetened it, making it extra crisp, just how I like it.  Overall I was pleased with the end result, but did end up sacrificing 8 marshmallows in the process.

proper bacon cooking method…

So the above photo is the proper campfire cooking method.  Get a thick stick, thread ONE PIECE of bacon onto said stick, and cook bacon over hot fire for 10 minutes or so, until crisp.  Once bacon is almost done, stick a marshmallow on the end of your stick while it still has the bacon on it.  Roast marshmallow until desired doneness.  Add bacon and marshmallow to rest of s’more ingredients.  Enjoy!

ingredients…

The Sylvan S’more

Serves: as many people you can get around a small campfire!
Ingredients (for one s’more):

• 1 jet-puffed large marshmallow
• 1 piece of chocolate (we used ghiradelli dark chocolate squares, perfect size!)
• 1 piece of cooked bacon (thick cut brown sugared Wright’s bacon is pretty freaking amazing)
• 1 honey graham cracker, broken into 2 halves

Assemble s’more with half of a graham cracker on the bottom, then the cooked, browned marshmallow, chocolate, bacon, and finally, the other half of graham cracker.  Due to non-existant lighting conditions around the fire, I recreated these at home in my condo kitchen and used a candle flame (induction stovetop, no fire!) to toast the marshmallows.  Again, since I had no open flame, I boringly cooked the bacon on the stovetop in a griddle.  Definitely not as fun as being in the great outdoors, but still pretty effective.

YUMMMMMM

It’s also nice to know you don’t have to have a backyard to enjoy a s’more!

The Hubs was a non-camping happy camper!