Bacon Lovers, Have You Tried This?????????

Yes, I normally put up recipes that are healthy, but....not today!

Our church decided to have a "Men's" dinner with the theme being.....BACON.   They are even having a contest, with prizes, for the best bacon dish.  

I don't know about your home, but my hubby and children LOVE bacon.  So this is what they came up with.  (They even came up with the name.)

BACONELLA STICKS WITH BACONARA SAUCE

I am sure you can guess that they are mozzarella sticks and bacon.  My eldest son's FAVORITE two things.   So , logically, why not combine them? 

What you need (psst, by the way I got all this at Aldi's ):

-a package of mozzerella sticks : there are 12 in the package, but we cut them in half to make 24

-Pre-cooked bacon, not the kind in the refrigerated sections : there were 15 slices in the kind we got, you will need 4 slices per full stick.

-4 cups of flour

-1/3 cup of salt

-6 eggs

-1 cup of milk

-marinara sauce

-oil to deep fry in

-toothpicks

So the guys cut each stick in half.  They then took 1 piece of bacon and wrapped the stick from the top to it's bottom.   Then took another and wrapped it,  or wound it, around the whole stick.    Put 1 or 2 toothpicks in to keep it all together and put them on a tray. 

They put the eggs and milk in one bowl and mixed well.  In another bowl they put the flour and salt. *Make sure to stir this well or you can get really salty ones and no salt in some.*    They took a bacon wrapped stick and dipped it into the egg mixture, then the flour mixture, BACK to the egg mixture and again in the flour mixture.  *messy process*

Then gently put in your heated oil.   I had my heat down low in order to get the cheese to melt a bit inside.  Turn them over as you see them getting nicely brown.  You can also see the Baconara Sauce cooking as well. 

They took the deep fried Baconella Sticks out and put them on some napkins to soak up the excess grease and to cool so they could pull out the toothpicks. 

When they were cool enough to touch, they pulled out the toothpicks...some with a little cheesey delight on the ends....and put them in a baking dish in the oven that was set to warm to keep until they were all finished.

The Baconara Sauce was easy to make.  They cut up some leftover bacon strips into small pieces and put them in a microwaveable bowl.   Cooked the pieces for about 2-4 minutes to get some "juice" cooked out.  Then they put some regular marinara sauce in a pot, added the bacon and "juice" from the bowl.  After mixing well, they slowly cooked it during the deep frying process of the Baconella Sticks, so it was cooked and ready when they were all done frying. 

Voila!  Let's hear the reviews!

If you try this recipe, let me know.  Would love to see your video of the bacon lovers in your house enjoying these Baconella Sticks!