I always see bacon wrapped asparagus on Pinterest and wonder what it would taste like. I figured it would taste good..salty and smoky...so I made up my mind to make some. I envisioned somehow wrapping tempeh bacon around the asparagus- but that clearly would not work. Then I remembered the eggplant bacon from Appetite for Reduction. I couldn't do it the same way as in the cookbook. Here's how I did it. I made long slices of eggplant with the thinnest setting on my mandolin. I stacked them on top of each other and loosely wrapped them in foil.
I put it in the oven at 350 for 15 min. or so until they were soft. 
While the eggplant was in the oven, I boiled the asparagus for 3 min and then plunged them in an ice bath.
With the cooked eggplant slices, I sliced them long ways and dipped them in the bacon marinade from Appetite for Reduction: 2TB soy sauce and 1tsp liquid smoke.
Then I tightly wrapped the eggplant around the asparagus spears.
I spread a little olive oil on my cast iron griddle and cooked all sides until they were brown and slightly crisped. When you do this, turn the asparagus the same direction you wrapped them. Otherwise they'll become unwrapped.
These came out really good. We both loved them. It took a awhile though, so have some thing easy and familiar to serve these with. I served mine with stuffed mushrooms. Details about the complete dinner coming soon!
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| This is what they look like before cooking them. |
