Tag: bacon

Fab’s burger challenge

This past weekend, Fab and Bag O’ Donuts hosted a party, and the food was inspired by recent discussions and pictures on this blog.  I was invited but had previous commitments for that evening.  After seeing the pictures Fab sent me, I’m really sad I missed this party.  Check out these burgers!  These are burgers of legend!

There will be leftovers...
There will be leftovers...
These were called the twin towers of cholesterol
These were called the twin towers of cholesterol

There is a LOT of meat and cheese on those burgers.  There’s also a lot of bacon, which doesn’t show up well in the pictures.   They cooked two packages of bacon, and here’s a picture of the bacon grease they drained off.

bacon grease from Fab's burger challenge

I showed that pic to someone before posting it, and they asked if the burgers were dipped in the bacon grease.  While that would probably be tasty, I hope that did not happen, or the people involved should probably make sure their will is up-to-date.

For the record, no one finished a whole burger.  Maybe next time I will be able to attend, so I can show ’em what’s up!   🙂

Buffet o’ Bacon 2

Last night I had the Buffet o’ Blog staff at my house again, for one of our regular meetings, and a couple of the guys had become inspired by all the recent bacon talk (such as the Bacon Explosion and the bacon weave).  They volunteered to bring some original bacon dishes over, and there was no way I could argue against that!   So we had Buffet o’ Bacon 2.

No one made the Bacon Explosion this time, but there were 3 original bacon creations for us to research / taste-test.   I will describe these and show you pictures (which came from my cell phone, so excuse the quality).

First of all, we had a bacon pizza.  Well, we called it a pizza, but instead of a regular bread-based crust, it used a bacon weave, topped with pepperoni and lots of cheese.

bacon pizza

The picture really doesn’t do it justice.  When you looked at the bottom of the pieces, you could see the bacon weave.  But most important of all, it tasted awesome!   This was my favorite of the three.

The second dish consisted of a piece of smoked sausage, with a water chestnut slice on each side, all wrapped with bacon, and covered in an original BBQ sauce (made from ketchup, brown sugar, soy sauce, A1, and a small bit of actual BBQ sauce).  It was held together with a toothpick.

bacon-wrapped sausage plus

It was good, although to me the water chestnuts didn’t seem to go with it because of their texture.  But to each their own.  I still ate a couple.

The third item was bacon empanadas.  It was made from a biscuit rolled really flat then folded around bacon, smoked sausage, and a 4-cheese mix.

bacon empanadas

It was really good, although next time we’ll add some type of salsa or gooey cheese to make it less dry.  Of course, it could’ve been dipped in salsa or cheese dip, which would’ve worked well too.  I’d like to have these again.

A couple of the items were jokingly referred to as “gut-bombs”, a reference to our initial Buffet o’ Bacon.  (Follow that link and read the second comment for an explanation.)  This time, the bacon was pre-cooked in all three dishes, to prevent that from happening again.  But, for at least one person, the end-result was the same.  This “research” shows that you should eat bacon responsibly, and that bacon does have a dark side if you don’t respect its power.

the Bacon Explosion — I must try this!

Speaking of bacon weaves, I recently heard about a dish called the Bacon Explosion.   It uses two pounds of bacon and two pounds of sausage, plus barbecue seasonings.  Some have called it a monster of meat.  I’m not scared of it, although the after-effects might be strong (more on that later).  This food item is football-sized, and it contains at least 5,000 calories and 500 grams of fat.  Needless to say, you shouldn’t eat it all in one sitting.  (Although Michael Phelps could consume two of these in one day on his extreme workout diet!  But imagine the effect it would have on his swimming…)

At the BBQ Addicts site, there is a full recipe with pictures.  Here’s a quick summary.  Create a 5×5 bacon weave; coat it with a barbecue pork rub; spread out two pounds of sausage; cover with crumbled up bacon that’s already cooked; cover with barbecue sauce; roll up; add more barbecue seasoning; then slow-cook in a smoker with hickory smoke; after cooking, cover with more BBQ sauce.   (That site used Italian sausage, but I would prefer pork sausage / breakfast sausage, which others have used.)

Here at Buffet o’ Blog, we’ve had our own Buffet o’ Bacon a few months ago, which was awesome.  Well, one experimental item created what we called a “gut-bomb”, which I suspect would happen with this Bacon Explosion dish.  See, the problem arises when the bacon grease isn’t able to escape.  But with the Bacon Explosion, not only would you have trapped bacon grease, but also trapped sausage grease.   So it might be doubly as potent.  Nonetheless, I would like to try it someday.  (Guys, I think this calls for a Buffet o’ Bacon 2!  Although everyone might be required to sign a release form stating we’re not liable for the after-effects!)

You can read more about the dish here.  One excerpt I want to highlight from that article is this review:

After preparing a version of the dish, Andrew Vennari of the San Francisco Food Examiner said the dish tasted better than expected, “but I didn’t learn the true meaning of the bacon explosion until the next day.”

That’s what is meant by the term “gut-bomb”.  (FYI, if you eat this, you might want to equip your bathroom with a fan and some magazines.  I’m just sayin’…)

When we perform our research* on this, you’ll get a full review.

* num num num num

I’ve been thinking about what we could serve with it, besides plenty of sweet tea.   I know, it might seem like culinary perfection already, but I don’t think our bodies are accustomed to such awesomeness anymore.  Our modern diet just doesn’t prepare the body for that.  All the “health foods” we eat now have weakened our digestive system, which can make dishes like the Bacon Explosion dangerous, because we aren’t used to such awesomeness.

Anyway, back to side-item ideas.  Perhaps some bread (biscuits or rolls), and maybe some cheese dip to dip it in.  🙂  Actually, I’m thinking of adding some cheese before and after cooking.   Surely it would be better with cheese!  (Just be prepared for the “sudden dramatic weight loss” mentioned in the infamous bacon and cheese diet!)

In closing, I realize some health experts or registered dieticians might be frowning upon this discussion.  I’ll let them take that up with the “Important Doctor”, one of the regular readers here.  But I will add this nugget of wisdom for you to contemplate:

Would a longer life be worthwhile if it had to be lived as prescribed — without French-fried onion rings, pizza with double cheese, chocolate?  (Remember, living right doesn’t really make you live longer, it just seems like longer.)

All that said, who wants to join me in a taste-testing session of the Bacon Explosion with cheese dip?   🙂

the art of bacon weaving

Through the “Possibly Related Posts” feature of WordPress, someone came to Buffet o’ Blog from this page: the art of bacon weaving.  That sounded interesting, so I investigated.

This guy made a bacon weave, or an edible bacon quilt, then put eggs and cheese on it, then rolled it up into what could be called a breakfast burrito, except that instead of a tortilla to hold it all together, it uses bacon.  It looks scrumptious!

Mmm...
Mmm...

He also says, “I used an alarming number of paper towels to soak the grease from the bacon mat.”  I definitely believe that.  Regular reader Mango-Man can tell you about the amount of grease that comes from bacon while it’s cooking!  Our fabled “Buffet o’ Bacon” night revealed that there is a dark side of bacon.  (Read the comments for his testimony.)

You won’t want to miss our next post, which will mention another use for the bacon weave.