One of the great things about twitter has been finding like-minded folks and the opportunity to learn wonderful things which includes food lovers from around the world who are generous in sharing their knowledge and recipes.

I first encountered @FoodGuruChannel on either a food chat or a travel chat, and I was able to give her some recommendations for places to try when she and her family headed up to Vancouver and Whistler BC for a few days of holidays. With her twitter stream, I saw many delicious things and this Autumn, she posted a picture of Tomato Bacon Jam that she had received from @Farminista’s Feast . Tomato B A C O N jam!!

Intrigued, I looked up the recipe and decided it wasn’t too difficult… I just needed to get the tomatoes from the farmers’ market.

The finished product! Mmmmm…. Bacon

SAVOURY TOMATO-BACON JAM

• 6 pieces cooked, smoked bacon; finely chopped
• 2 pounds ripe tomatoes, chopped* – see note below
• 1 sweet yellow onion, finely diced
• 1 cup white sugar*
• 2 1/2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• 1 teaspoons sea salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 dash cayenne pepper

Directions

1. Cook the bacon in a large skillet over medium-high heat, turning occasionally, until evenly browned, about 10 minutes. Drain the bacon slices on paper towels. You can slice up the bacon before cooking or crumble bacon strips when cool.
2. Stir tomatoes, sweet onion, sugar, apple cider vinegar, salt, black pepper, and hot sauce together in a saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring constantly to dissolve sugar. Stir in chopped bacon and cook over medium heat, stirring often, until the spread is very thick, about 1 hour. Adjust salt and black pepper.

The one thing I do love about cooking is that you can adjust to your own tastes to what you know you like, as well as to what ingredients you have on hand.  This would also account for what time of season it is and what type of tomatoes you can find. I have always loved tomatoes and even as a kid, I’d be happy to just cut them into wedges, sprinkle with salt and snack away.  I think Heirloom tomatoes are great like that, and to let their great colours show through. This could be fun to do with all yellow or orange tomatoes to let the colour of the bacon contrast against the rest of the jam (and maybe this is when I would stick with white sugar only). There is also a note in the recipe about seeding and peeling the tomatoes; I like texture so kept the skins on and seeded about half the tomatoes so the texture was just right for me.

The Additions

I added:

• Brown sugar for depth of flavour – next go round, I think I will try 1/2 cup of each white and brown sugars
• Shallots because I had them
• Garlic because I love the flavour
• Woodford Reserve Bourbon for a touch of vanilla sweetness
• Bowmore Islay Single Malt Legend Whisky for a touch of smoke
• Liquid smoke because I wasn’t able to get the double smoked bacon
• Spray of balsamic bacon vinegar

There are a few other bacon jam recipes that I have collected that I will need to try, and I will post about them here  🙂

Like @FoodGuruChannel, my favourite way to have this jam has been spread on a good bread as a base for a grilled cheese sandwich. MMmmmmmmmm!

Have you had any recipes that you saw on twitter that you just had to try?