I love chicken and waffles, so I’m always looking for new and creative ways to combine the two foods. Back in January I created chicken and waffle wings, which are chicken wings that are breaded with actual waffles. The resulting blog post was by far the most popular story I’ve ever written.

Recently I bought a waffle cone maker. The idea behind my purchase wasn’t to make sugary waffle cones to fill with ice cream though. What I really wanted to do with it is make waffle cones out of actual waffle batter so I could fill them with pieces of popcorn chicken. Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you the chicken and waffle cone!

Now, the popcorn chicken part of this thing is easy. You can get popcorn chicken pretty much anywhere. The tricky part is cooking your waffle perfectly. As you can imagine, waffle cone makers aren’t exactly made to be used with actual waffle batter, so I ran into a couple problems.

The main problem is that if the waffle batter is too thick or if you cook it for too long your waffle will break apart when you try rolling it into a cone. My first couple waffles weren’t quite thin enough because I didn’t press the top of the waffle cone maker down hard enough after adding the batter, so if you want a perfect waffle cone maker sure you apply ample pressure.

In the end I finally got my batter to the perfect consistency by just adding  a little extra milk. I also only cooked my waffles for a minute and 15 seconds (the instructions recommended a minute and a half) because I found that any longer than that and the edges wouldn’t stay together when I rolled them into cones.

Don’t worry if you mess up though because if you do all you’re really left with are some round waffles that are sort of a cross between regular waffles and pancakes. It took me four tries before I got my waffle cone perfect, which in turn means I got to eat four messed up waffles — not a bad problem to have at all….

Once you finally make the perfect waffle cone, fill it with popcorn chicken and drizzle it with syrup it’s quite a treat. This is another one of those foods that I can totally imagine vendors selling at state fairs all over the country this summer. In fact, maybe I should just open up a stand at the Wisconsin State Fair. I could sell chicken and waffle cones, deep friend lasagna, dessert cheese curds and maybe even slices of the mac and cheese pie with a bacon crust that I made.

Writing a food blog definitely has its perks. The best example of this is the email I recently received from the marketing manager for all of Qdoba‘s Wisconsin, northern Illinois and Iowa locations asking me if I’d like to do some sort of DudeFoods/Qdoba collaboration.

For a while now it’s been a dream of mine for a restaurant to just invite me into their kitchen and let me go wild with all their ingredients, so I pitched the idea to Qdoba and much to my surprise they were actually into it! We picked a date and a few weeks later I came in, threw on an apron and hopped behind the counter.

They asked me what I wanted to make and for some reason I had seven layer taco dip on my mind so I suggested that we try making a seven layer quesadilla. After all, Qdoba has those sweet industrial quesadilla presses so if you’re ever gonna try to make a quesadilla that’s as thick as a deep dish pizza it’s pretty much the perfect place to do it. After all, my crappy quesadilla maker that I have at home can’t even make a simple s’mores quesadilla without overflowing and making a huge mess.

I figured that the best way to start with my creation was just to sort jump right into it so, so I grabbed a tortilla and started piling toppings onto it. In addition to cheese I added layers of every single meat that Qdoba offers (chicken, pulled pork, shredded beef, ground beef and steak in case you were wondering). Oh yeah, plus one layer of fajita vegetables. You know… to keep it healthy….

As you can probably imagine, my quesadilla took quite a bit longer than qdoba’s regular quesadillas do in the quesadilla press, but once it came out it was glorious! I think we were all a little nervous that being so thick it might not cook evenly or that the cheese in the middle layers wouldn’t melt at all, but it honestly turned out perfect.

Obviously the only step left was to cut it into pieces and eat it. Everyone else used a knife and fork for their slices, but I opted to just treat it as if it were a regular everyday quesadilla and pick it up with my hands. Expecting the worst I was prepared with plenty of napkins just in case it fell apart in my lap, but it held together amazingly well. Maybe it was the fact that I ate my two pieces so fast that I didn’t even really give them a chance to crumble, but this thing was so good that I really couldn’t bring myself to eat it any other way than as quickly as possible.

All in all this ended up being one of the most enjoyable blogging experiences I’ve had thus far. It was crazy how many times Qdoba customers stopped us to ask questions like “what IS that!?” while the quesadilla was in the process of being made and then again as they saw us eating it.

I think it’d be hilarious if Qdoba ended up adding this as some sort of limited time only special menu item or eating challenge, but until then it looks like you’re out of luck if you want your own seven layer quesadilla from them. I guess you could always buy seven regular quesadillas and stack them on top of one another, but at $6.99 per quesadilla that could be a bit pricey. If you REALLY wanted one though I’m sure they’d be willing to cut you some kind of deal on it.

I’d also just like to I’ve a special thanks to Abby, Emily and everyone else at the Roaring Fork Restaurant Group, as well as all the employees at Qdoba store number 51 for being more than accommodating while I stumbled around and got in their way during the dinner rush while making this ridiculous quesadilla. You guys rule.

Back in November I got a box of nuts in the mail from Planters which I then used to make some pretty delicious bacon & almond pumpkin spice pancakes. Last week I received another package from them containing peanuts, pistachios, almonds and a few jars of Planters peanut butter.

Up until I opened that box I actually had no idea that Planters even produced a peanut butter, and as it turns out they apparently didn’t until last summer. Since all this peanut butter would take me forever to eat if all I used it for was peanut butter and jelly sandwiches I decided that this was the perfect opportunity for me to try and come up with a recipe where I could use a decent amount of it.

After brainstorming for a few minutes I remembered that as a kid I used to love peanut butter bars. In addition to that, they’re ridiculously easy to make. I did decide to make one small addition however and add some bacon to the recipe. Wanna make your own? Here’s how:

Ingredients:
3/4 cup butter
1 1/2 cups creamy peanut butter
2 cups crushed graham crackers
2 cups sugar
2 cups chocolate chips
1/4 pound bacon

Start off by combining the butter, peanut butter, graham crackers and sugar in a bowl. After everything is mixed up nice and well spread the mixture evenly into a pan. I used a 9″ x 9″ pan for mine and it was the perfect size. At this point you’ll wanna let the pan chill in your refrigerator for around 30 minutes before adding the layer of chocolate.

While the bottom layer is in the fridge you can start frying your bacon. The amount you use is totally up to you. I absolutely love bacon so I used a quarter pound of it, but I can totally see how that might be too much for some people. When your bacon is ready use a paper towel to blot off as much grease as you can and then chop it up into small pieces.

At this point a half hour should have passed and you can start melting the chocolate chips. I also added five tablespoons of peanut butter to my melted chocolate and then mixed 3/4 of my diced bacon in with it as well.

All that’s left to do after that is to spread the melted chocolate over the bottom layer and then sprinkle the rest of your bacon on top of it. Another hour of cooling time in the refrigerator after that and your peanut butter bacon bars will be ready to eat!

The peanut butter bars turned out just as great as I remembered them and the addition of bacon made them even better! If I made them again I’d probably try adding a couple mashed up bananas as well to turn them into a desert version of the classic Elvis sandwich. Seriously, think how awesome those would taste!