Bacon Wrapped Water Chestnuts - Oh My!

As Christmas is upon us and parties are afoot here's a fabulous little appetizer for you. My family always had these and I made them last night for our church Christmas party. In fact I was requested to make them by my friend Beth (who is pregnant and was craving them - you know something's yummy if pregnant women crave them!). These little nuggets of gold pretty much have everything going for them as an appetizer, or any type of food really, they're SALTY, SWEET, and WRAPPED IN BACON. That's pretty much the recipe for success in all food. I can't think of much that wouldn't be good salty, sweet and wrapped in bacon. Apples? With caramel? Wrapped in bacon? Sounds good. Glazed carrots wrapped in bacon? Yep. Ruffles potato chips covered in chocolate and bacon? Yep sounds good too. I challenge you to find anything that with a little sweet and wrapped in bacon isn't just downright yummy.

BACON WRAPPED MARINATED WATER CHESTNUTS.

It's not really a recipe that requires exact amounts. So I took a few pictures and from there you can easily get er done.

So the cast of characters:
Cans of WHOLE Water Chestnuts
Bottle of Teriyaki Sauce
Bacon
Toothpicks

Start by opening and draining the cans of water chestnuts. I used 6 cans in total for my two cookie sheets worth. Now my grandma always just marinated them in the cans. I started to but I had so many I just dumped them all in a ziploc bag. I just kept putting more and more until there was a lot of teriyaki sauce. You'll just have to wing it. But you can do it! I marinated these for about an hour. They could have gone closer to 2 hours and been just as good if not better.

Next, cut the bacon into thirds. I find it much easier to cut it with the wrapping still on.

Take a piece of bacon (if it's too wide, you can fold it over like is in the photo below). Simply place one of the marinated water chesnuts at one end, roll, and pierce through with a toothpick. The water chestnuts are wide and flat. Poke the toothpick through the flat side.

Those are NOT my hands by the way. They belong to my beautiful helper :) Lay all the little bundles on a cookie sheet where they don't touch. I lined mine with aluminum foil so I'd have no mess! The time is always different when I make these but this big batch with two pans side by side took 30 minutes on 400 then I finished them with the broiler for about 5 minutes to get a nice crispy top. The bottoms sizzled and got crispy in the grease in the pan. Sometimes depending the bacon they don't get crispy on the bottom so after about 15 minutes check them and see if they're sizzling on the bottom or if they're just soggy and stewing in their juices. If you need to flip them, do. But most of the time I don't think it's necessary.

I ended up being almost late for our party and forgot to take a picture of the pan of sizzling goodness when they came out. I got home from the party and realized I didn't have a picture of the finished product. My smart 7 year old reminded me I had a few leftover water chestnuts and a few small pieces of bacon and could just make another one. So I made a single one for this post. How all you bloggers get dinner done taking all these pictures I'll never know.

So there it is. The lonely little wrapped water chestnut. And it tasted GOOD too.

This post is linked up to these blog parties:
 Take A Look Tuesdays @ Sugar Bee Crafts
Talent Tuesdays @ Vintage Wanna Be
Handmade Tuesdays @ Ladybug Blessings
One Project at a Time @ A Bowl Full of Lemons
Get Your Craft On Tuesday @ Todays Creative Blog
CRAFT - Making Monday Marvelous
Amaze Me Monday @ Dittle Dattle
Just Something I Whipped Up @ the girl creative