Bacon Explosion Weekend

It started in January 2011 when my brother C. and I started talking about our next food weekend. We decided we would have one in April 2011. However, due to one thing or the other having a food weekend in April just didn’t seem to work so we decided to just not make any plans for when we would have the next food weekend. Nor did we talk about what food we would highlight. We did discuss the idea of having one main food item and that every dish would highlight that food. I do not remember when we decided that we would have Bacon as the food, but by mid to late summer it was decided to highlight bacon. Because P. was going to be on a week vacation in Florida C. and I decided to have it on the last Saturday of October. The one thing brother C. said was that he didn’t want to have a huge number of people at this food weekend.

As the summer drew to a close, and two of my nephews were married, I decided what a nice thing it would be if I invited both couples to the Bacon Explosion weekend. Of course our four children and spouses would be here. Suddenly the number of people coming to this weekend climbed to 15. At some point in all of my enthusiasm I was asked if I had enough beds for everyone. I suddenly was a bit worried, but then decided that if I didn’t have enough beds downstairs some could stay at daughter K. or at my Aunt and Uncle who live close by. As it turned out our youngest son K. and his wife C. stayed at his sister K.

On Friday son J. took the day off work to be here getting everything setup for the Bacon Explosion. He and I split the cost of a pork shoulder and brisket which he smoked on Friday making the smoked pork into BBQ pulled pork buns for lunch on Saturday. He also cleared the kitchen counters so there would be enough work space for everyone to prepare their dishes. People started to arrive in the early evening with son C. and grandson L. arriving about the same time as my nephew I. and his wife V. My brother C and Nephew J. and wife T. came the furthest arriving about 10:00 PM. I have no idea how late everyone stayed up visiting because I and grandson L went to sleep at 7:30 PM.

On Saturday morning V. baked the two pans of monkey bread which we had for breakfast. It was a delicious breakfast especial when washed down with coffee. Almost immediately after breakfast the activity of preparing the Bacon Explosion dinner began with grandson L. and his uncle K. preparing the candied bacon for the bacon ice cream. At the same time my brother started to smoke a ham, I know that ham isn’t bacon, but I like home smoked ham and because I am not able to do anything I asked C. if he would do this for me. He also made two loafs of No-Knead bread for my enjoyment.





The menu:

For appetizers we had:

Candied brown Sugar Bacon.


20 dollars a pound bacon on crackers and Samples of smoked ham on crackers.


For the main course we had:

Bacon wrapped Dates.


Miniature Bacon Quiches.


Miniature BLTs, made using No-Knead bread baguettes baked with bacon in them.



Bacon Wrapped Stuffed Jalapenos.


Bacon Wrapped Sliders.



And for vegetables we had:

Bacon Broccoli Salad.

Roasted Butternut Squash with Bacon.


For dessert we had:

Bacon Ice Cream.



It was a great successful weekend. I had so much fun and I think everyone else had fun also. Not only did we have a lot of cooking and baking activity, I also asked the guys to do a number of chores around the house, things like bringing the planters into the garage, changing the batteries in the remotely activated front door lock.

And now we will take a year off before having the next Food Explosion because next summer the kids are planning a roast pig extravaganzas. One of the kids is graduating college and another is getting a Master Degree and they want to celebrate these accomplishment. So I think we will want until 2013 before having another Food Explosion event. Brother C. and I have agreed that if we have these too often they get to be too much work and no longer fun.