Blue Cheese, Apples, and Maple Bacon

I thought I'd give you two blog posts today since I haven't written anything in about a week. The holidays really take up a lot of your time! Jeez! Now that I'm home again, and I have time to myself to actually kick back, I naturally want to cook something. When I want to relax with some good food, I'm all for simple, yet delicious, bites. I'm happy with small plates at restaurants because then I'm able to try multiple plates of food. Tell me how that's bad? :-) I almost thought about having a wedding full of appetizers instead of a full sit down dinner. Don't we always enjoy the cocktail hour more than the actual meal? Well, I do. There's a great bistro in Ellenville, NY called Aroma Thyme Bistro, and it's worth checking out! The inspiration for this appetizer comes directly from their new menu. They offer a wide variety of local and vegan entrees and there's something for everyone. If you're far from New York, and some of you are, here's a way to recreate this bite just as I did.

What you will need:
- a small block of good Blue Cheese (I used Roquefort)
- 2 slices of bacon, cut into lardons (small pieces or chunks)
- 1 Red Delicious apple, diced
- pure maple syrup
- 1/2 tsp Allspice

Preheat a small pan to medium and cook your bacon pieces until they're nice and crispy. Take the bacon bits out of your pan and let them drain on some paper towels. To your pan, add the diced apples and be sure to coat them in the oil from the bacon. Add a small drizzle of maple syrup over the apples just enough to make them glisten. The syrup is very sweet, so it goes a long way. Once they're cooking nicely, add your Allspice to the pan and mix. The goal here is to get the apples to soften so they have a tender bite. Cook them about 5 minutes.

When the apples are soft, remove them from the pan and add the bacon back to the pan. Coat the bacon with a little more maple syrup and cook for about a minute. This is a very quick process because your bacon is already cooked, and you just want to coat it with maple syrup for flavor.

Chop your blue cheese into chunks or blocks. Make sure you don't get small blue cheese crumbles. It wouldn't be a problem if you got blue cheese crumbles. You could just eat the mistake and then go get more cheese. The right kind. :-) Drizzle the bacon with syrup across the plate first. Layer the apples on top of the bacon syrup. Lastly, place chunks of blue cheese strategically all over the plate. Enjoy with wild abandon! I promise you'll love this. :-)