Roasted beef tenderloin carved with a channel and stuffed with a bacon, mushroom, and sour cream filling spiked with horseradish. Served chilled and sliced for an impressive cold entree.
Creamy potato bake loaded with Velveeta cheese, bacon, sour cream, and green onions. A rich, cheesy potato casserole with a golden paprika-dusted top that's a crowd-pleaser at any potluck.
Country-style pork spareribs braised low and slow with sauerkraut, paprika, caraway seeds, and crispy floured bacon. A hearty German classic best served with dark bread and cold beer.
A from-scratch chili built on six varieties of dried chiles pureed with beer and garlic, simmered for hours with bacon, bell peppers, and beans. Intensely complex heat with serious depth of flavor.
Dump-it-all slow cooker stew with chickpeas, pinto beans, beef shank, smoked ham hock, kielbasa, and potatoes. Set it and forget it for up to 16 hours.
Rice pilaf tossed with Italian dressing, soy sauce, fresh spinach strips, scallions, and crumbled bacon. A make-ahead potluck salad that serves 50 and gets better as it chills.
Coal miner's spaghetti is the original spaghetti carbonara: hot pasta tossed with eggs, parmesan, romano, and crispy bacon. The eggs cook to a glossy sauce on contact. No cream needed.
Fresh corn seafood chowder: Louisiana-style chowder with crab, shrimp, crawfish tails, sweet corn, and bacon in a half-and-half broth. Rich one-bowl seafood feast.
A traditional slow cooked split-pea soup that's loaded with flavor.
A very hearty vegetable with some surprising ingredients.
Grilled pork chops paired with bacon-wrapped banana skewers, dusted with cumin and lemon. The salty-smoky bacon and caramelized banana play off the cumin-rubbed chops for a sweet-savory cookout plate.
Bacon-wrapped chicken breasts slow-cooked over dried beef in a rich cream of mushroom and sour cream sauce. A hands-off crockpot dinner with serious comfort food credentials.
Potée Auvergnate is the rustic French farmhouse stew of cabbage, beans, potatoes, and three kinds of pork (bacon, sausage, smoked chops) slow-braised together in one pot. Hearty mountain cooking from central France.
Hearty Polish-style hangover soup with kielbasa, sauerkraut, bacon, mushrooms, and a sour cream finish. A smoky, tangy, restorative bowl simmered for 45 minutes.
Easy kielbasa casserole layers smoky Polish sausage with tangy sauerkraut, sliced potatoes, onions, tomatoes, and bacon, then bakes it all in one dish. A hearty dump-and-bake dinner with old-world Polish comfort.
A full-sized meatloaf wrapped head to toe in overlapping bacon strips that crisp and baste the beef as it bakes. Juicy, smoky, and even better the next day as leftovers.