Crunchy Salty Sweet

One of my favorite bloggers, Joy, recently posted that she was going to take part in a body ‘reset’. Basically, followers spend 20 days with no dairy, no gluten and no sugar. I’ve been a little excessive lately, since I’ve been traveling a lot to NYC for work (and there’s literally no bad food in NYC), so I thought it was a good time for me to take part in something similar.

Obviously with football Sundays being extremely important (and historically delicious!) to me, I wanted to find something that would be not only tasty, but follow my new regime. I had some dates on hand from making THIS (pre-reset lol) so I thought it would be the perfect vehicle for something good. These dates were super quick and easy to make, and I felt totally satisfied with the salty, sweet (and a little spicy) flavor.

Start by preheating the oven to 450 degrees.

On the stove, toast the almonds until they are slightly brown.

Remove the pits from the dates (if not pitted), by slicing vertically. Be careful not to cut fully through the date.

Slice each slice of bacon in half.

Insert 2 almonds into the date and seal the opening by pressing the date closed.

Wrap the date with the half slice of bacon.

Place the bacon wrapped date onto the baking sheet, making sure the overlap of the bacon is on the bottom of the date.

Sprinkle each date with cayenne, based on your heat tolerance.

Put the baking sheet in the oven and bake for 6 minutes.

Turn the dates over, and cook for another 8 minutes, or until the bacon is crisp.

Remove from the oven, and let cool, or eat instantly and burn the roof of your mouth like I did 🙂

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Adapted from: Cooking Channel

Makes: 24 dates

Prep: 10 minutes, Cook: 15 minutes, Total: 25 minutes

• 24 dates
• 48 raw almonds
• 12 slices of bacon
• cayenne pepper, to taste

Start by preheating the oven to 450 degrees.

On the stove, toast the almonds until they are slightly brown.

Slice each slice of bacon in half.

Remove the pits from the dates (if not pitted), by slicing vertically.

Insert 2 almonds into the date and seal the opening by pressing the date closed.

Wrap the date with the half slice of bacon.

Place the bacon wrapped date onto the baking sheet, making sure the overlap of the bacon is on the bottom of the date.

Sprinkle each date with cayenne, based on your heat tolerance.

Put the baking sheet in the oven and bake for 6 minutes.

Turn the dates over, and cook for another 8 minutes, or until the bacon is crisp.

Remove from the oven, and let cool.