Up here in Claremont, New Hampshire, we roll steadily through the year with four very distinct seasons: Short green summers, even shorter autumns, long white winters, and unpredictable springtimes. Given how long our winters can be, we tend to treat “the holidays” as an unofficial fifth season when we dig out candles and hang lights pretty much everywhere.
Straight out of a storybook, the holidays in New England are jolly and jammed with sights, smells, and tastes that cannot be imitated during any other time of year. When it comes to home cooking, you can’t beat the tried-and-true recipes of the season.
Unless, you add bacon.
Call us predictable, but here at the smokehouse we’re dreaming up ways to make our holiday feasts just a smidge tastier and that exploration led us right here, to three smoky spins on our favorite holiday side dishes.
Here’s hoping that the fragrance and flavors in your home this season have guests singing your praises. We’re confident they will. Bacon sort of does that to a person.
Classic Cornbread Dressing
Whether you cook your stuffing ‘in-the-bird’ or choose to bake it separately, you can’t go wrong with the addition of thick-cut bacon. Perhaps marinated in real maple syrup or encrusted with black pepper—certainly smoked for hours over hardwood embers —you’ll be adding a whole new dimension to your favourite recipe. We chose to run with a cornbread stuffing and we’d highly recommend it.
Maple-Glazed Sweet Potatoes
Sweet potatoes are tasty all on their own, but in this instance, they’re the vessel that brings the bacon to our mouth. We topped off this recipe from EatingWell with pure maple syrup and our sugar-free bacon that’s been smoked low & slow. This year, we’re leaving the marshmallows behind and smothering our sweet potatoes in what we believe is something far superior. Bacon.
Bacon Brussel Sprouts
Chances are that you’ve seen this one before and if so, consider it a friendly reminder that flavor and quality make all the difference when you’re choosing to add bacon to your brussels. What exactly does “quality” mean? To us, it means starting with a lean pork belly we’ve carefully selected from our family farms and having our butchers hand-trim it to exacting specifications before double smoking the slabs at low temperatures to create bold flavor. We could go on about bacon for hours, but we’ll let you take a look at all of our bacon at your leisure.
Alright, go on then. Share your creations with us @northcountrysmokehouse.
