Bahri Dates Stuffed with Maytag Blue and Wrapped with Bacon

Preheat oven to 450F. Line a half sheet pan with aluminum foil and fit a wire rack inside. Cut each bacon strip into four equal lengths. Smoosh bleu cheese into balls about the size of a small milk dud (larger if you are using Medjools). Mold date around the cheese. Wrap bacon around the stuffed date and secure with a toothpick.

Place wrapped dates onto the wire rack. Bake for about 8 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven carefully, and flip all dates to cook the bottoms. Return to the oven and cook for another 8 minutes or so. Remove to paper towels to soak up all that extra grease. I removed the toothpicks because I was afraid my husband might hurt himself! Harhar! You can leave the toothpicks in if you are serving humans.

On this batch, I topped some with a little brown sugar and a couple of dashes of soy sauce, redolent of rumaki. I liked the variation, but my husband preferred the unadorned dates. Go figure. By the way, this is way cheaper than the tapas bar! Also, I think bacon should have its very own category on TK.