Tag: bacon

T.G.I. Friday’s Makes a Good Cobb Salad

Ashley BischoffLeave a comment

Some coworkers and I went out to lunch last week at T.G.I. Friday’s and, as I had a late breakfast that day, I didn’t really want something too heavy. I started looking over their lunch menu and noticed that they had a Cobb salad — and considering that Cobb salads have both avocado and blue cheese, I could hardly resist. But, if you’re not familiar with Cobb salads, here’s the gist of how they got started:

One night in 1937, Bob Cobb, then owner of The Brown Derby, prowled hungrily in his restaurant’s kitchen for a snack. Opening the huge refrigerator, he pulled out this and that: a head of lettuce, an avocado, some romaine, watercress, tomatoes, some cold breast of chicken, a hard-boiled egg, chives, cheese and some old-fashioned French dressing. He started chopping. Added some crisp bacon — swiped from a busy chef. […]

Now, I don’t think the T.G.I. Friday’s version had watercress and I can't recall whether it had chives, but this was a fantastic salad. As described by their menu, their Cobb salad has “chilled chargrilled chicken, crisp bacon, avocado, Colby cheese, egg, black olives, tomatoes and Bleu cheese on salad greens”:

  • Grilled chicken: Unlike some poseur grilled-chicken ### salads (like the grilled chicken Cesar salads that some restaurants have), the chicken was sliced into bite-sized pieces. It always annoyed me when restaurants slapped4” slices of chicken onto a salad; but, that wasn’t the case here.

  • Bacon: This was real bacon, natch, and not some of that soybean-based fake bacon. And, it was cooked to a point of crispiness (but not yet crunchiness) which, as I see it, may the optimal texture for salad-based bacon.

  • Avocado: Here’s where the salad really shone. Of course, I'm a bit of an avocado fiend as it is and I'll order nearly anything if avocado is a primary ingredient. However, nothing ruins an avocado-based dish more quickly than unripe avocado (bleh). But, this avocado was ripe and soft — I really couldn’t believe that Friday’s hadn’t screwed this part up as restaurants so often use almost-ripe avocados on hamburgers and the like.

  • Hardboiled egg halves: Other than overcooking them, it's hard to flub a hard boiled egg. And, sure enough, these eggs were cooked properly and halves (which meant that I didn’t have to manually slice them myself).

  • Diced black olives It doesn’t look like diced olives were part of the original salad, but they worked well here. And, like the eggs, it’s hard to incorrectly add olives to a salad ;).

  • Blue cheese: Like the avocado, the blue cheese was another stand-out in this salad. Really, I was expecting a few pea-sized bits of blue cheese scattered throughout the salad, but the blue cheese in this salad was generously sized, of which some chucks were almost approaching the size of those bite-sized (cube-shaped) candybars that are popular around Halloween.

At the time I ordered it, I was thinking to myself that I’d “just have a salad” and that I’d order “something more substantial” next time. But, this salad had a deliciousness that surpassed my expectations and I’ll definitely have one again sometime.

The Elvis: Peanut Butter, Bacon, and Banana

Ashley Bischoff11 Comments

I have my TiVo setup to auto-record shows with various keywords, such as “brownies” and “sandwich*” (no kidding). So, it auto-recorded the All About Peanut Butter episode of Sara’s Secrets that aired recently. Among the recipes — and the one that triggered the recording — was The Elvis, which is a peanut butter and banana sandwich.

According to The Presley Family Cookbook, the sandwich eaten by Elvis contained only peanut butter and bananas (which was then pan-fried, of course). However, the chef from Peanut Butter & Co (the guest on Sara’s Secrets) spoke of a variety with bacon as well. And that sounded mighty tasty.

So, during my trip to Super Target on Friday, I picked up some bacon and bananas (we already have peanut butter and Mike has some honey). The bananas were a bit green around the edges, at the time, but they were just perfect by today (small brown speckles here and there). So, Mike and I decided to embark on the Elvis adventure.

We started by frying the bacon and, as a non-bacon-connoisseur, I was surprised by how much the bacon shrank during cooking (some 10-inch pieces shrank to about half that size). The bacon happened to be low sodium, but I’d be kidding myself if I were to say that it made a difference to the overall healthiness of the dish ;).

As Mike kept watch of the bacon, I prepared the bread — which was just a matter of buttering the outside of each slice and spreading peanut butter on the other side of one slice (so, invariably, some slices end up butter-side down on the cutting board). I then sliced a banana length-wise and placed those pieces onto the peanut-buttered sides.

Once the bacon was ready, I placed the bacon on top of the banana (which, of course, was on top of the peanut butter). Each sandwich was about to hold about four slices of bacon. And, I drizzled some honey on top of the bacon to finish it off. After that, we grilled them grilled-cheese style in the pan.

Sure, Velvet Elvises are good, but the bacon is a really nice touch. In particular, its oily saltiness goes very well with the peanut butter. And, the honey gives balance to the sandwich’s sweet-vs-savory nature.

Believe it or not, Mike and I each had two of these artery-busting monsters. And, man, they were fantastic. We both agreed that we’d have to make them more often :). Though the recipe is fairly straightforward, here's also the official version from the show:

The Elvis

Recipe courtesy Peanut Butter & Co.
Show: Sara’s Secrets
Episode: All About Peanut Butter

Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 10 minutes
Yield: 4 sandwiches

Ingredients

  • 2 tablespoons butter, softened
  • 8 slices white bread
  • 1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
  • 1 large, ripe banana, sliced
  • 1/4 cup honey
  • 12 slices bacon, Sauteed until crispy (optional)

Preparation:

Spread the butter on 1 side of each slice of bread. On the other side of half of the slices spread peanut butter. Place banana slices on top of peanut butter. Drizzle honey over bananas. Place 3 bacon slices on top of the banana, then place the remaining buttered bread slices on top, butter-side-out.

Place sandwiches on a preheated grill pan or griddle. Flip them over when they become golden brown and crispy. When the sandwiches are browned on both sides, remove to plates. Slice in half and serve immediately.