Bacon Wrapped Stuffed Dates

Now, I'm not one to like dates or blue cheese, but when I first tried these at one of my favorite tapas places, Firefly, I fell in love. I looked all over trying to find a copykat recipe and came across this one that turned out amazing after I adjusted a few things to my liking and to what I actually had in my kitchen. I made a little bit simpler, less sweet version (because I didn't make the sauce and crumble blue cheese over them), but everybody agreed that they were just the right amount of sweet, creamy, salty and crunchy. They're actually fairly simple to make.

1 pkg of cream cheese (8oz bar)
1 bag of pitted dates
1 bag of whole almonds (I used unsalted)
1 lb bacon
Toothpicks

Preheat oven to 400 degrees or if you have a broiler option, that works too. I've tried both and they both work, just keep a close eye if broiling to make sure the bacon doesn't burn.

Now the original recipe said it makes 18, but as you can tell from the picture, mine made a bit more, so the amount varies on the amount of ingredients you have on hand. I made as many as I could with the amount of dates I had since those seemed to be the thing I had the least of. I cut the cream cheese into little sticks, just big enough to fit inside the dates, stuck an almond in the middle of the cheese and stuffed that into the dates. Once they were all stuffed, I cut the bacon (saved it for last since it's greasy, raw and makes a mess) and cut each strip into 3s. Then I wrapped each date with one piece of bacon and secured it with a toothpick, being careful to not try to stick it through the almond and stab yourself.

I put them on a cookie sheet lined with aluminum foil and stuck them in the oven for about 5 minutes or so, just until the bacon crisped up, took them out, flipped them over for another 5 or so minutes. They don't need to be that far apart from each other because they don't get any bigger in the oven. It helps to put them on paper towels after to soak up some of the extra grease from the bacon. And enjoy!


*Tip: If you want to prevent the toothpicks from burning, you can soak them in water first.

They look like a lot, but trust me, they'll be gone in minutes!