A Long Overdue Dinner Party & a Lot of Bacon
Wednesday night, I finally made good on a deal I made 361 days prior.
You see, at Friendsgiving last year, these guys went in on an auction item: a three course dinner for six. However, after several failed scheduling attempts I still hadn’t made good on my end of the deal. With the 2nd Annual Friendsgiving quickly approaching, I had to get these guys fed!
The menu was a little meat heavy, but not something you’ll hear this group complaining about.
We started with bacon guacamole. It’s just like regular guacamole… but with bacon!
Next, we enjoyed a soup course. A bourbon sweet potato bisque with brown butter cinnamon sugar croutons. This made a fairly big batch, and I enjoyed leftovers for lunch all week! I swear it gets better each day. For a vegan version, you could certainly use your nut milk of choice in place of the cream.
For the main course, I went with one of my original creations… one I’ve made a number of times now, always to rave reviews. Goat Cheese Stuffed Turkey Burgers Wrapped in Prosciutto with fig preserves, served on homemade Dutch crunch rolls.
The rolls didn’t come out quite as I would have liked this time, but ooh, that goat cheese oozying out of the middle sure is good.
We finished things off with a recipe I’ve been looking for an excuse to make: Maple Ice Cream with Bourbon and Bacon Toffee. My excuse? Josh Tonasager. The man loves bacon so much, that look what he brought to our potluck on Saturday?
Respect. Mad respect.
Anyways, I made the toffee using saltines, brown sugar, butter and bacon. I’m not entirely clear what purpose that saltines served – in the future I might just candy the bacon.
The ice cream wast tasty, but as you can see the consistency was a little off. I’m not sure if it’s because I overheated the custard, used 2% milk instead of whole milk, or if it had something to do with the freezing process but it wasn’t quite as creamy as I might have liked. Still, it was incredibly tasty – jam packed with bacon toffee. This is incredibly rich stuff so even a small bowl feels indulgent.
I’m so glad I finally fulfilled my auction promise… with 2 days to spare! Cooking for friends is always fun, so the auction is a win-win. I can’t wait to make a birthday dinner for this years winners Jamie & Kelly! (I promise, much less bacon!)
