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!

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!

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….

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!

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!?

Actually, I should clarify that a little, the two bacon weave “tortillas” that I made only totaled about a pound and a half, but when you’re cooking with bacon you’re obviously going to eat some along the way, and that’s where the extra half pound went.

For the bacon weave tortillas I started off by cooking two large bacon weave squares and then placing a bowl over each one and tracing around it with a knife to create a circle. The trick with these bacon weaves is to cook them to the point where the bacon sticks together and is able to be cut, but you don’t want to cook it too much or when you add your quesadilla ingredients and finish cooking it your bacon will burn.

The cooking time will vary depending on which type of bacon you use and how thick it is, but for my original two bacon weaves I just cooked them in the oven at 400° for about 15 minutes. Then, after cutting them into circles, I added some chicken and cheese to them and fried my Bacon Weave Quesadilla in a pan on my stove for about five minutes. Completing my meal was a bowl of fresh homemade guacamole.

Overall I think that this was my favorite bacon weave creation to date. It was completely and utterly delicious. You know what though? Maybe quesadillas just aren’t quite your thing, and in that case you could also incorporate a similar bacon weave concept into Bacon Weave Pizza, a Bacon Weave Grilled Cheese or even a Bacon Weave Breakfast Burrito.

You know what I hate about ordering pizza? Waiting for it. Especially when I’m really, really hungry like I was on this particular day. Luckily, at Project Pie you don’t have to wait long at all thanks to their 800° oven that cooks your 12 inch pizza in three minutes flat.

I’m getting a little ahead of myself though because first you have to either choose between one of their nine signature pizzas or build your own by starting with fresh pizza dough and adding any combination of the 24 ingredients they offer. It’s basically a pizza version of Chipotle or Subway.

Each pizza costs $12 regardless of how many toppings you add so you might as well go all out, which is exactly what I did by topping mine with mozzarella, ricotta and Gorgonzola cheese, crumbled meatballs, bacon, mushrooms, black olives, green peppers and pesto. A few minutes later my pizza was out of the oven and ready to eat!

I’m not sure which was faster, the amount of time it took my pizza to cook or the amount of time it took me to completely devour it, but it was pretty close between the two! Man, I really hope Project Pie opens up a Milwaukee location at some point!

For my second attempt I took a metal cone, wrapped cookie dough around it and stood it up on a baking sheet in my oven. After about five minutes the dough was running down the cone into a pile on the cookie sheet. On the plus side though, when you’re trying to make a cookie cone and it doesn’t turn out the way you want it you’re left with a bunch of cookie dough to eat, which isn’t a bad problem to have at all!

For my third and final attempt I decided to just bake one giant cookie in my oven and then roll it into a cone the second it was done baking, before it could harden. Well, I guess sometimes the simplest idea is the best, because this worked like a charm. To roll mine I used the cone-form that came along with my waffle cone maker, but any cone-shaped object should work just as well. Then, once the cookie cone cooled and hardened it was all set to eat!

Now, my Chocolate Chip Cookie Cone was awesome on its own, but do you know what really took it to the next level? The chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream that I filled it with! I’m not normally a huge dessert fan, but this cookie cone was delicious and was ten times better than any other ice cream cone I’ve ever eaten. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I think I might need to try making an Elvis Cookie cone next!

Which cheeses are included in the gift basket is a total mystery to me, but if it’s anything like the one they just sent me a couple weeks back you definitely won’t be disappointed!

Want to win? All you need to do is check out the Grilled Cheese Month issue of the Wisconsin Cheese online magazine, Grate. Pair. Share. and then leave a comment below letting me know what your favorite grilled cheese recipe from the issue is.

I’ve embedded the magazine below to make it easy for you guys, but you can also access it by clicking here. I’ll pick one random winner a week from today on Monday, April 15th. Good luck!

Oh, and if you’re wondering what my favorite recipe is it would probably have to be the Apple French Toast Grilled Cheese. Seriously, how amazing does that sandwich look?

Update: 4/15/2013 – Congratulations to Rene who won the gift basket!

Now, I’ve never been one to waste food, so I wasn’t just going to throw all those leftovers away. Instead, I swapped out the corned beef that you normally find in Reuben sandwiches with the one thing that I always have on hand — bacon!

As I recently figured out when I used bacon instead of tortilla chips while making nachos, bacon makes a great substitute for pretty much anything, and with this Reuben it was no different! Yeah, I know, I could have used turkey instead of corned beef like some restaurants do, but I didn’t have any of that on hand either. Plus, for as much as I like turkey if the choice is there between that and bacon I’m going to pick bacon pretty much every single time.

Overall my Bacon Reuben was pretty amazing. I wouldn’t necessarily choose it over a traditional Reuben in most cases, but when you’re sick of corned beef it’s clearly the next best thing.