Carolyn’s Bacon Balls

Open 4 cans of whole water chestnuts. Drain the water.

Pour into a small bowl and marinate in one bottle of La Choy Teriyaki sauce (it has to be La Choy because everything else tastes like crap) over night or for as long as you have. Often neighbours request this dish without adequate notice, so you must be flexible with the marination time. Other times you forget you said you’d bring them and you have to send your husband out at the last minute to find the ingredients.

When he comes back with sliced water chestnuts instead of the whole ones, you’ll get angry and remind him how luck he is to have such good neighbours, and tell him that he really learns to read labels because he’s messing with your marination time. (At this point you send him back to the store.)

The only saving grace in all of this is that usually the neighbours have had too much to drink by the time you serve these tasty delights, so they don’t notice that you didn’t really marinate them long enough, nor do they notice that you and your husband have had a huge fight.

Back to the recipe.

Once your husband comes back with the right water chestnuts and you’ve marinated them in the Teriyaki sauce for as long as you can, you cut the package of bacon into thirds.

Find someone with nothing better to do (daughter or husband)  for the next 8 hours to wrap slippery bacon pieces around the little soggy brown balls. Have that poor sod stick a toothpick in each one to secure the bacon.

Put the balls on a cookie sheet with edges because the grease and the teriyaki sauce will run into your oven if you don’t. If you make a mistake and choose the wrong pan, your husband can clean the oven. He’ll be happy to do this because 8 hours of sticking toothpicks into little slimy soggy balls has helped him to repent and see the error of his ways.

Next heat the oven to 350 degrees (or higher if you’re in a rush) and cook the little suckers until they’re almost done. (say 20 minutes). Eat several dozen to make sure they taste good.  Then put the few that remain on a fancy oven friendly dish that will impress your friends. Just before you go, pop them back in the oven again for another 10 minutes or however long you have because your husband is bugging you to hurry up.

Remember your neighbours will eat also them cold so it doesn’t really matter how hot they are.