Snack Food Stadium

I can't resist posting this:


Holy Taco has created a snack food stadium that, upon brief visual inspection, includes guacamole, salsa, queso dip, cheese, sour cream, chex mix, corn chips, cheetos, vienna sausages, bacon and twinkies (for dessert, of course). Did I mention the floating sausage blimp?

Only one more thing to say about this: 24,375 calories.

Photo credits: Holy Taco
Link credits: Serious Eats / Erin Zimmer

Death in a Pan with a Side of Pasta

So there we were, in our usual spots in the living room, faced with the quotidian question of "What's for dinner?" As usual, Cotton suggested Zorn's (yeah, not happening). The usual suspects had already been consumed in the prior days of the week (Mexican, Chinese, you get the point). As a result of this, there was a craving for delicious pasta in the air.

Cotton and I went downstairs, past the Dolorean's bedroom, and into the pantry to investigate possible ingredients. There was an ample supply of pasta and some tomato products, but I really wasn't feeling a dish with tomatoes.

I brought the pasta upstairs and said "Pepper, now what?" She suggested a carbonara, and asked if there was any bacon in the house. In fact, there was some right in the refrigerator. I also encountered some mozzarella cheese right next to the bacon, and suggested that we use that too.

So, cheese, bacon, and a previous viewing of a bacon cheese roll translated into our first annual bacon roast (or bacon parmagiana as I fondly refer to it) as a tribute to the Epiphany. (Everyone does that don't they?)

Our bacon roast started off like a lattice topping for a pie and then lightly fried in a pan.

We removed it and filled it with about half a pound of the cheese (literally.) We then rolled it, toothpicked it shut, and placed it in a small foil lined roasting pan.

We roasted it in the oven at 450F until it was brown and bubbly.

Meanwhile, we boiled the pasta and fried up some garlic slices in the bacon grease. After the pasta cooked for about four minutes it was drained and added to the pan with the garlic and drippings. The egg whites and parmasean were then added and tossed with the pasta.

After about two minutes, six egg yolks were added and tossed in (off the heat) until they were cooked and a nice sauce was formed. The bacon roast was carved and served atop the carbonara with, you guessed it, more parmasean.

Needless to say, this was delicious and took about ten years off of our lives. However, it was soooo worth it. I look forward to next year's bacon roast adventure.

Recipe adapted from The Paupered Chef