Bacon Tostadas. Yep, that's what she said.

So, yeah...I made some bacon tostadas.

This was a very good idea, you know, if I do say so myself.

A real mix of high end and low end and leftover stuff, all fabulously mixed up together:

I used some lovely super thick bulk bacon and made itin the oven, in what I have found to really be the simplest way ever to make bacon - 375 degrees with the strips laid out on a cookie sheet for about 15-25 minutes or so.

Drain the bacon grease into a skillet with some canola oil for the tostadas.

I used blue corn organic tortillas from Whole Foods - fry on both sides until crisp, but try to leave that glorious soft spot in the center where it stays chewy (I fricking love that).

I microwaved a cheap can of refried beans (vegetarian, of course - maybe I should have called this the hypocrite tostada....)

And then put it all together - I just broke the bacon strips kind of in half and chunked them on there. And I used this as an opportunity to use up my bounty of takeout taco leftover condiment stuff (because a lot of that usually ends up in our trash and I HATE throwing stuff, especially GOOD stuff, away)- some luscious whole grilled spring onions from Los Comales in Pilsen, shredded lettuce, tomato, green salsas, sour cream and a mild cheddar cheese.

Oh my. Just perfect. The bacon was think and really meaty, the grease in the frying oil gave the tortilla a great smokiness and the coolness of everything else...mmmm...awesome....

Rethinking Trash: Greens stems in bacon grease

A friend and I were having a conversation the other day, the gist of which was this:

If our collective grandmas and great-grandmas could look into our kitchens and see the stuff we throw away and the stuff we buy, they would roll around in their graves, or at the very least be really, really confused.

We (you know it's not just me) throw away meat bones and vegetable tops and then turn around and buy stock and broth from a box? Toss bacon grease in the trash and then buy some kind of aerosol grease in a spray can to grease a pan? And then what - buy an anti-pollution t-shirt? Yeah, we deserve to be mocked...

So, "Liberated from the Trash" experiment number 1 - the stems left over after cooking mustard, collard and turnip greens plus bacon grease...

I had already used the leaves and some of the stems for my greens (which turned out horribly, by the way - somehow dirty and gritty - eeewww...the whole thing had to sadly be tossed - obviously something I hate, as I am currently telling you, in this post, right this moment, to eat your trash - I digress...), but I usually don't like to use the stems too much, because I find them too...stemmy.

I kept them long and sauteed them with a minced garlic clove in some leftover bacon grease. They smelled fragrant and rich, like a sum of all of the pieces. They looked kind of like asparagus.

I tried to eat them first after only a very light saute - fail. Way too fibrous to actually chew and eat. So, basically, you have to cook the hell out of them. Really fry them until they wither and shrivel and kind of end up looking like crispy sauteed scallions - for like an hour or so over medium high heat. And then they taste tasty. But they were way too greasy and after a while, a bunch of them still ended up in the trash....

But the idea still lives on! Vive la trash!