just imagine, going to a cocktail party and seeing a big tray full of blt's. even better, blt bites! i love blt's, they remind me of my childhood. over memorial day weekend, my nephew marshall, passed me in the kitchen while i was cooking and felt he needed to share with me that he loves blt's. just out of the blue, non provoked, no conversation about it . "me too," i said. and out of the kitchen he went. then i thought long and hard of when was the last time i had eaten one, and i couldn't remember. years, i imagine. that brief interaction led me to these. i made a big tray of tiny bite sized ones for a party i catered last night. i recently came across (or chose to notice for the first time) a small loaf of boule bread at my local market. i used it a few days back to make croutons. this bread ranks up there as one of my favorites. it is dense, but still light. airy, but still chewy. i love it. i decided i would use this for my "toast". it was a great choice. i bought some high quality bacon, it tends to have more meat than fat. and used bibb lettuce for its texture and because it lays flat, well, flattish. i also used campari tomatoes, they are so darn good and they were the perfect size for the "sandwich". i started by cutting all the tomatoes into 1/4" round slices, then put them on a plate lined with paper towels to absorb the wetness tomatoes give off. this also gave me a good measure as to the size i needed to cut the bread. i wanted the bread squares to be a bit larger than the tomatoes. i toasted all the bread squares on a baking sheet, in a 400 degree oven for about 8-10 minutes ( i think... i was a wild woman at this point, totally multitasking, but that sounds about right). to assemble, i took a piece of toast, topped it with a tomato slice, a pea size drop of mayo - get the squeeze bottle kind to do this. top it with a torn piece of lettuce and two 1/2" pieces of cooked bacon. that's it. i actually overheard people at the party talking about how creative and cute they were. and if you like blt's, you know they were good!
