Bacon-Wrapped Figs Stuffed with Blue Cheese

I work with one of those amazing black women. She isn't Madea, she's Miss Joanne. I love her side glances and belly laughs more than anyone else at work. I love how she has all the gossip because everyone goes to Joanne to bitch and moan. Now I like to think she took a special liking to me after I started bringing cake to work from time to time. And so when I found out she had a fig tree, I offered a trade. I bring her my famous red velvet cake for as many figs as she could give.

Until recently, I never realized figs were so popular with the chef types. In almost every cookbook, there seems to be a recipe that takes the fig to upscale status. That's leaps and bounds above me eating it off the tree in my great grandma's backyard. Figs are one of those fruits that a lot of people have never seen, because I don't think they travel very well. Most mainstream cookbooks utilize dried figs or black mission figs.

After stuffing several fresh figs down my throat, I decided I might try to make something with figs. I had the cookbook Everything Cook for Two loaned from another library. I had just tried a recipe for corn soup which turned out to be a lot like creamed corn. Good, but not what I was wanting. So I figured Bacon Wrapped Figs Stuffed with Blue Cheese was pretty straightforward and wouldn't disappoint me like the soup. I made it as a snack for us one night when neither of us were hungry for dinner. It was so good, I made it again a few days later as an appetizer for dinner.

I used green figs from Miss Joanne's tree.

I kind of like the way they spill their blue cheese guts.

Romance apparently means figs, wine, and puzzles?

Bacon-Wrapped Figs Stuffed with Blue Cheese
(Serves 2)

8 strips bacon
About 8 teaspoons blue cheese
8 ripe green or black figs, trimmed
2 cups baby greens

1. Preheat oven 475F.

2. Bring a small pan of water (about 2 cups) to a boil and blanch the bacon for 2 minutes. (This will eliminate some of the fat and precook the bacon very slightly.) Remove the bacon and place on paper towels to drain.

3. Take about 1 teaspoon of blue cheese and roll into a small cylinder. Insert it in the bottom of one of the figs. (Depending on the ripeness of the fig, you may have to make a small incision in the bottom, but a very ripe fig if soft enough to allow penetration.) Wrap a strip of bacon around the fig and secure it with a tooth pick. Repeat with the remaining figs.

4. Place the wrapped figs in an ovenproof dish. Roast for about 8 minutes or until the bacon begins to crisp and some cheese oozes out. Let cool for 1 minute before serving. Arrange a small pile of greens in the center of each serving plate and top with the hot figs. Any juices and cheese that ooze out will act as a dressing for the greens.