Spam

Maple syrup flavoured bacon and spam salad

Posted by Gary

Maple syrup flavoured bacon is a well known flavour combination, especially with pancakes, waffles or French toast. 

What about adding maple syrup to spam? 

I like a salad that has a little sweetness to it and tonight the only ‘dressing’ was some lemon juice and the cooking ‘juices’ from the oven cooked spam and bacon.

I really like the photograph. The colours came out nicely of the maple syrup flavoured bacon and spam salad. I did a bit of retouching in Adobe Lightroom.

If you click on the image you will be taken to an attachment page. Under the image on that page if you click on 2048 × 2048 you’ll be brought to the original image. Now if you have a nice big monitor, if you click once more on that image you’ll see a full resolution version and the detail is lovely.

Maple syrup flavoured bacon and spam salad
Maple syrup flavoured bacon and spam salad NIKON D7100 with 40.0 mm f/2.8 at 40mm and f/8, 1/80sec, ISO 400
Maple syrup flavoured bacon and spam salad
 
Recipe Type: Dinner
Cuisine: Australian
Author: Gary Lum
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 1
Ingredients
  • Spam with real Hormel® Bacon
  • Streaky bacon
  • Beetroot coleslaw
  • Avocado
  • Fried shallots
  • Lemon juice
  • Maple syrup
  • Pepper
Instructions
  1. Dice the bacon and spam and put into a baking tray
  2. Pour over the bacon and spam some maple syrup
  3. Cook the bacon and spam in an oven at 220 °C for 20 minutes
  4. Prepare a beetroot coleslaw and add some avocado and lemon juice
  5. When the spam and bacon are cooked add to the salad bowl and mix
  6. Shoot a photograph
  7. Eat the meal
  8. Wash the dishes
  9. Write the recipe
  10. Blog (verb)
 

 

Tonight I used the Spam Bacon
Tonight I used the Spam Bacon NIKON D810 with 90.0 mm f/2.8 at 90mm and f/8, 1/15sec, ISO 80

Hot and spicy spam wrapped in streaky bacon

Posted by Gary

This hot and spicy spam wrapped in streaky bacon really wasn’t worth a post of its own however I really liked the photograph.

Hot and spicy spam wrapped with streaky bacon and served with a fennel and pomegranate salad and a side of potato gems
Hot and spicy spam wrapped with streaky bacon and served with a fennel and pomegranate salad and a side of potato gems NIKON D7100 with 40.0 mm f/2.8 at 40mm and f/7.1, 1/200sec, ISO 400

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the flavour of the hot and spicy spam. I mean it’s spam so I’d like it anyway but this had a nice ‘kick’ to it.

I had a brick of spam that was about 2 cm (just under an inch) thick and I wrapped it in two rashers of streaky (read fatty) bacon. I baked that in my bench top oven at 220 °C (428 °F) for 20 minutes.

I also added some potato gems (tater tots) to the oven and cooked them with the bacon and spam.

While the oven was cooking my meat and potatoes nicely, I started on the salad. It was a simple case of slicing some fennel, red onion, and parsley. To that I added some capers from a jar and some pomegranate arils that I had beat (thrashed with the back of a meat cleaver) out of a pomegranate. I also added a little lime juice to keep it all fresh and tangy.

I took some care with the plating of this dish. I placed my bacon and spam in the middle as the centrepiece also as a friend pointed out the potato gems are really the star of this dish.

On one side I placed the salad around the bacon and spam with small kitchen tongs. On the other side I placed the gems, one gem at a time.

On top of the bacon I used a pair of forceps and added some fried flowers which I had received as a gift from Canberra’s Essential Ingredient.

 

Have you tried hot and spicy spam? What do you think of this photograph?

 

 

Hot and spicy spam while watching #MKR

Posted by Gary

When I recently posted a meal with spam in it on instagram I received a lot of comments that Coles and Woolworths had cans of spam on special. As part of my Saturday routine grocery shopping I went for a look in the tinned meat aisle and found what I was looking for for my shelf of shame.

Annie and Lloyd are cooking tonight on MKR. The colour of the cooked hot and spicy spam reminds me of Annie’s blush.

2015-02-07_14.05.38_001_GARY_LUM

I’ve only ever purchased the regular spam and never any of the fancy varieties. When I say fancy varieties I think in Australia there is only low sodium, hot and spicy and bacon spam.

So tonight I had a salmon fillet and I thought rather than fried rice I’d do spam and quinoa along with a refreshing salad.

2015-02-09_18.45.34_001_GARY_LUM

Hot and spicy spam
 
Recipe Type: Dinner
Cuisine: Australian
Author: Gary Lum
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 1
Ingredients
  • Salmon
  • Hot and spicy spam
  • Quinoa
  • Fennel
  • Parsley
  • Red onion
  • Capers
  • Pomegranate arils
  • Mango
  • Avocado
  • Lime juice
Instructions
  1. Cook the quinoa in chicken stock
  2. Cook the salmon in a really hot pan for five minutes with the lid on. Have the diced hot and spicy spam in the frying pan too
  3. Prepare the salad while the quinoa is cooking
  4. After the quinoa has drained and cooled add the hot and spicy spam
  5. Let the salmon rest
  6. Plate the salad
  7. Add the mixed quinoa and hot and spicy spam
  8. Place the salmon on top
  9. Shoot a photograph
  10. Eat the dish
  11. Do the dishes
  12. Write the recipe
  13. Blog (verb)
 

 

I want a super spam sandwich and watch #MKR

Posted by Gary

Overnight the Mouse suggested adding spam to my sandwich so I made a super spam sandwich

So tonight on the way home I thought about making another sandwich for dinner. I settled on a super spam sandwich that would also involve Angus beef, kale coleslaw and tasty Coon cheese.

My super spam sandwich with Angus beef burger, spam, tasty Coon cheese and kale coleslaw on fried Helga's pumpkin seed bread
My super spam sandwich with Angus beef burger, spam, tasty Coon cheese and kale coleslaw on fried Helga’s pumpkin seed bread NIKON D7100 with 40.0 mm f/2.8 at 40mm and f/8, 1/60sec, ISO 400

Oops, sorry the good stuff was sliding off the Angus beef burger.

My super spam sandwich with Angus beef burger, spam, tasty Coon cheese and kale coleslaw on fried Helga's pumpkin seed bread
My super spam sandwich with Angus beef burger, spam, tasty Coon cheese and kale coleslaw on fried Helga’s pumpkin seed bread NIKON D7100 with 40.0 mm f/2.8 at 40mm and f/8, 1/50sec, ISO 400

Gee, doesn’t that look great. Nice big thick slices of my favourite processed meat with a juicy Angus beef burger and two slices of delicious tasty Coon cheese. 

It’s no wonder I’m getting fatter. I really need to stop. I’m contemplating a low carbohydrate stint again to get me back on track but I’d prefer to just apply the discipline to reduce my intake. I’ve been walking every morning for about 40 minutes and I start my day with muesli plus a cup of coffee. Part of my problem is my sweet tooth for cheap and nasty sweet stuff. The charity chocolate has returned to work and today I bought two chocolates. I really need to stop that. 

So if you were making a sandwich how would you make it?

2 ways to supercharge quinoa

Posted by Gary

I was inspired by the Mouse with his love of spam to add spam to supercharge quinoa.

Mouse lives in Hawaii where Spam is very popular. I’ve heard that in addition to many Asians, the inhabitants of Hawaii and Guam are the largest consumers of Spam. In Hawaii and Japan the varieties of Spam are huge. I wish we had this number of varieties in Australia. As far as I can see in Coles and Costco we just have classic and low sodium varieties. When I searched the recipes on the Spam website there were none for quinoa 

If bacon makes quinoa better spam can make it even better 

I prepared myself earlier with a Spam lunch because I wanted a Spam Saturday 

Streaky bacon with Spam and two fried eggs NIKON D7100 with 40.0 mm f/2.8 at 40mm and f/8, 1/125sec, ISO 400
Streaky bacon with Spam and two fried eggs NIKON D7100 with 40.0 mm f/2.8 at 40mm and f/8, 1/125sec, ISO 400

So tonight I made a fennel and red onion salad and served it with Spam and some bacon. This was supercharged quinoa.

Packaging for Coles organic tricolour grain quinoa
Coles organic tricolour grain quinoa
Quinoa ready for cleaning
Quinoa ready for cleaning
Quinoa washing
Quinoa washing
Quinoa boiling
Quinoa boiling

 

The secret to supercharging quinoa is to add streaky bacon and Spam 

Streaky bacon and Spam
Streaky bacon and Spam

The finished meal was pretty delicious.

Fennel and red onion salad with quinoa mixed with streaky bacon and Spam
Fennel and red onion salad with quinoa mixed with streaky bacon and Spam

It’s been cold in Canberra today although I did manage to enjoy a good walk around Lake Ginninderra.

Lake Ginninderra today
Lake Ginninderra today
Sundial at John Knight Memorial Park
Sundial at John Knight Memorial Park
2 ways to supercharge quinoa
 
Recipe Type: Dinner
Cuisine: Australian
Author: Gary Lum
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 1
Supercharged quinoa is dead easy
Ingredients
  • Quinoa
  • Streaky bacon
  • Spam
  • Fennel
  • Red onion
  • Parsley
  • Capers
  • Coleslaw dressing
  • Chicken stock
  • Butter
Instructions
  1. Cooking the quinoa in chicken stock
  2. Dice the streaky bacon and Spam and cook in an oven at 200 °C for 20 minutes
  3. Thinly slice the fennel, red onion and parsley and put in a bowl, add the capers and then dress with coleslaw dressing
  4. When the quinoa is plump add some butter and the cooked streaky bacon and Spam
  5. Plate up
  6. Shoot a photograph
  7. Eat the meal
  8. Wash the dishes
  9. Write the recipe
  10. Blog (verb)
 

I really hope you enjoy cooking and eating quinoa. Of course it can be made and eaten with all sorts of other yummy things, but for me this is supercharged quinoa.

How do you like to supercharge your quinoa?