D Appetizer

D is for date.

Since I didn't get asked out on a real date at all during D weeks so I decided to make my own dates. Well, not actually make them because I didn't grow them but I did prepare them, which is a process. De-pitting dates is not an activity I would recommend doing on an actual date, just to the fruit. Unlike a social date, or a calendar date, dates are decidedly delicious. As the old saying goes, dates are great, but I'd rather eat. If you're not familiar with dates, there are some picture to the right. They look like large raisins that are slightly less shriveled. If you want to know more about dates, look it up. I'm not going to bother educating you. If you want to know more about the other kind of dates, you're out of luck, because I too am clueless. I hear they have websites where you can get dates for free though, so look into that.

I prepared blue cheese-stuffed, bacon-wrapped dates for D-weeks D appetizer because I couldn't think of any other D foods, despite how deep I delved. I made a lemon-dill sauce and put it on some fish the other night but it was nothing to photograph, and there was a lack of Ds. Okay, I'm just lazy. There's also a lack of Ds in this recipe, but there's a couple of past-tense verbs ending in Ds.


Blue Cheese-Stuffed, Bacon-Wrapped Dates: A -
Cheese-stuffed dates are not an original idea. Restaurants do it often with all sorts of different cheese. I chose blue because it's one of my favorites and it manages to retain some integrity even when heated and baked, but still melts a bit. The nice part about dates being a pitted fruit is that, once you remove the pit, they are primed for stuffing because there's a hole where the pit once was, kind of like how there's a hole where your heart used to be after you were broken up with after, what you thought were, 5 delightful dates with a dashing gentleman, dapper too. I wrapped them in apple-smoked bacon and held them together with toothpicks. After baking for about 20 minutes in a 375 degree oven the dates were ready to plate. The bacon seals together with the magical powers of bacon fat so the toothpicks can be removed and deliciousness enjoyed without stabbing and dying during your dinner. No one died during the preparation or consumption of this dish.


Ingredients purchased at my local neighbourhood grocery outpost Trader Joe's