Funny story, I’ve never seen any of the Star Wars movies. It’s not that I don’t WANT to see them, but now after hearing about them for so many years I pretty much already know the entire story.
Plus, now that there are so many of them I’d basically have to invest an entire weekend just to catch up, and my weekends are usually reserved for making things like Bacon Weave Tacos and Chocolate Chip Cookie Cones. In the epic words of Sweet Brown, “Ain’t nobody got time for that!”
So what’s with all this Star Wars talk? Well, it’s because they’ve teamed up with Pringles for their “The Force For Fun” video contest where they’ve been accepting fan-generated video ideas in exchange for a chance at a $25,000 grand prize.
They’re down to seven finalists — which you can check out on YouTube — so it’s too late to submit your own video treatment, but you still have a chance to at least win something because Pringles is hooking one lucky DudeFoods reader up with a Pringles and Star Wars prize pack!
Want to win? Just leave a comment letting me know what your favorite Star Wars movie is. In the event that you’re like me and haven’t seen any of them feel free to leave a comment telling me what your favorite Pringles flavor is and I’ll count that as an entry as well. Don’t have a favorite Pringles flavor? Just write something. Tell me your Grandma’s name or your favorite color, I don’t care. Just write anything. Seriously.
I’ll pick one random winner a week from tomorrow on Friday, May 24th. Good luck!
I know that tacos with shells made out of bacon have been done before, but none of the ones I’ve seen looked very appetizing to me. It seems like people sort of took the easy way out when making them and just tossed their bacon over a metal object, made sure the strips overlapped a little so they’d stick together and either baked or deep fried it like that so their shells just end up looking like squares of bacon that had been folded in half. Long story short, most of the bacon taco shells out there just don’t look very taco-shaped.
For my bacon taco shell I started off the same way I did when I made my Bacon Weave Quesdailla, by creating a square bacon weave, cooking it in my oven at 400° for about 15 minutes and then placing an upside down bowl over it and tracing around it with a knife until I was left with a circular bacon weave. After that I hung it over a couple kabob sticks that were balanced across empty beer bottles and left it like that for a few minutes so it would keep its shape. I’m sure that there was probably something better I could have draped it over, but you’ve gotta make due with what you’ve got right?
Since I wasn’t quite sure if beer bottles were safe to put in the oven I swapped them out for a couple pint glasses, put them on a baking sheet, hung my bacon weave taco shell between them and slid it back into my oven for another ten minutes so it could finish cooking.
Granted, I’m sure the beer bottles would have been fine, but I didn’t know if the labels would burn or if the glue that holds them to the bottle is toxic. Then again, when you’re eating stuff like this on a regular basis a little bit of toxic glue should probably be the least of your worries….
In the end my Bacon Weave Taco ended up looking — and tasting — way better than I ever could have imagined. Once it was done baking I filled it to the brim with seasoned ground beef, sour cream, lettuce, tomato and shredded cheese and took a bite. It was completely amazing, and aside from that the shell actually looked exactly like a real taco shell!
Every time I write a blog post it’s either about a crazy creation I made at home or something delicious I ate at a restaurant. Well, today’s story is a little different. This one is about a meal that totally let me down.
A couple weeks back my wife and I went to a Milwaukee Brewers baseball game with our friends Tom and Stephanie. Once inside the stadium we headed to the Johnson Controls Stadium Club where I noticed that they’ve added some new items to their menu since last year. One of them — the Brewers Brat Dog — caught my eye.
The menu described it as a “bacon wrapped, hot dog stuffed bratwurst with grilled onion and Cheddar cheese served on a pretzel hoagie.” Actually, they described it a little differently, but that was due to the fact that whoever put the menu together apparently never learned how to spell the word “served.” The randomly capitalized words and haphazard use of the space bar was also a nice touch, but who cares about all that because I was getting a hot dog… wrapped in bacon… stuffed INSIDE a bratwurst!
About fifteen minutes after placing my order our waitress arrived with my Brewers Brat Dog. My first thought when looking at it was that they had to have mixed up my order and served me the wrong thing. The pretzel bun, hot dog, bacon, cheese and onions were all there, but the hot dog certainly wasn’t stuff inside a bratwurst.
I actually didn’t see any brat at all until I noticed that it was cut in half and placed underneath the hot dog. Since when does putting one thing on top of another thing count as stuffing it? Also, check out how small the bratwurst is. Oh, you can barely see it in the photos? That’s because it’s the smallest brat in the entire world! I wasn’t even aware that they made them that tiny.
I know that food at sporting events is always priced a little high, but at $12 for a burnt hot dog, a miniscule amount of bacon, the tiniest brat of all time and some cheese that was obviously melted in a microwave it honestly doesn’t get any worse than this. What a rip off….
This is another dish similar to the Cheddar Bacon Ranch Pull Apart Bread that I made back in December where I can’t even remember where I originally came across the recipe. All I know is that I’ve wanted to try making these Eggs in Clouds for a long time now, and a couple weeks ago I finally gave it a shot!
What’s really cool about Eggs in Clouds is that the only ingredient you really need to make them — aside from the slices of toast that I put mine on — is eggs. What you see in the photos here are simply egg whites that are beaten and then baked in the oven with egg yolks on top of them. The egg white portion of Eggs in Clouds is basically meringue without the sugar.
To start things off you’re going to want to separate a few egg whites from their yolks, combine all the egg whites in a bowl and beat them until they have about the same consistency as whipped cream. If you don’t have an electric mixer you might as well not even bother trying to make these, because they would take WAY too long without one.
Even with my sweet KitchenAid mixer it still took about five or six minutes of whipping the egg whites before they were ready. About half way through you’ll probably even want to give up because it’ll look like nothing is happening to the egg whites, but just hang in there because it WILL happen and you WILL have an awesome breakfast because of it!
Once you’re done whipping your egg whites grab a couple slices of toast and spoon them onto it. Then you need to create an indentation in the middle of your “clouds” for the egg yolks that you separated out earlier. I used an upside down shot glass and it worked perfectly, but I’m sure you could use your fingers just as easily and get the same result. All that’s left to do after that is to bake your Eggs in Clouds in the oven at 450° for five minutes. If you like your yolks a little runnier you can also wait until half way through the baking process to add them.
I’ve also tried making Eggs in Clouds with a couple added ingredients. Diced bacon and shredded cheese for instance taste amazing when mixed in with the egg whites. I’m guessing that you can basically take whatever it is that you normally like to eat as part of your breakfast and toss it in and I’ll taste pretty good. Red and green peppers? Why not! Chopped up breakfast sausage? Sure! The sky, or should I say the clouds, are the limit!
A while back I discovered bread cheese, or Juustoleipä as its been known for over 200 years in Sweden and Northern Finland where it originated. It’s a pretty unique cheese in the sense that it’s baked during the cheesemaking process, which caramelizes the sugars on the outside of the cheese creating a brown crust.
The thing that I love most about bread cheese though is that it doesn’t melt quite like regular cheese does and is actually meant to be heated or sautéed prior to serving.
I first used it to create a grilled cheese that was made completely out of cheese. After that I made a few more of my 100% cheese grilled cheese sandwiches, added a couple burger patties and some bacon and came up with the Bread Cheese Bacon Double Cheeseburger. Since then though I’ve mostly just been frying the cheese and drizzling syrup on it, which is how I came up with my most recent idea — Bread Cheese Waffles!
I once again used cheese from Brunkow and Carr Valley — this time chopping it into squares that were perfectly waffle-sized. I then plugged in my waffle maker, waited for it to preheat, placed the two bread cheese squares into it and pressed down on the lid. 45 seconds later my Bread Cheese Waffles were finished! Now, I know that this isn’t really any different than just frying the bread cheese in a pan and adding syrup but come on, how awesome does it look in waffle form!?
