All right, so here's how I wanted the microwave oven cooked bacon I wrote about yesterday to turn out.

And I found a way to do it safely (no flames) whether I wanted the bacon chewy or crispy using either pork or turkey bacon.  Before starting, though, there are 3 terrific benefits to cooking bacon in the microwave oven.

1. Less cooking time.

2. Less fat (and no splatter) - the paper towel soaks fat incredibly efficiently.

3. Less clean up - fat soaked paper towel goes in the trash.  No pan to cool, wipe clean with a paper towel (you wouldn't pour pipe-clogging streams of fat down the drain anyway, right?) and then clean with soap and water.

To start, top a microwave safe plate with 3-4 slices of bacon wrapped in 2 layers of paper towel (if the bacon's longer than the diameter of your plate, curl the pieces as shown) so that it looks like...

...this when you put it in the microwave oven (only cook one layer of bacon at a time).

Cook as follows:

Pork bacon: about 2 1/2 - 3 minutes for chewy bacon, 3 1/2 - 4 minutes for crispy bacon (use the shorter time to start and adjust with more time as needed - also, you'll need less time for 3 bacon pieces than you will for 4).

Turkey bacon: about 1-1 1/2 minutes for chewy bacon, 2 1/2 - 3 minutes for crispy bacon (use the shorter time to start and adjust with more time as needed - also you'll need less time for 3 bacon pieces than you will for 4).

This is how the paper towel will look after cooking.

This is what the bacon should look like after cooking inside the paper towel.

For easy-to-follow, step-by-step picture book directions, please click any of the photos above.  I'll blog soon about a short step-by-step video to follow.