Back before Christmas, I hovered over my computer at work over the noon hour, waiting for tickets to go on sale for the annual Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival in Des Moines. I kept refreshing the website until the tickets went on sale, bought two tickets and then found out that I was lucky, because the 8,000 tickets available sold out in 3 minutes!
I brought my pregnant sister along to the bacon festival this year. This was my second year at the festival, and I couldn't believe the wide variety of bacon dishes this year! I wish I could have tried more, but I actually couldn't eat as much bacon as I had hoped. (Maybe because I had just gotten back from my trip to Arizona, where I ate huge meals three times a day!)
It was so crowded at the festival, we couldn't really walk around first to check out what all the restaurants were offering. We just stood in whatever line we could find an end to. One of the strangest things we tried was this bacon peanut butter banana panna cotta. It was OK, but we really couldn't taste the bacon. We also ate a gigantic bacon chocolate chip cookie and bacon caramel gelato (one of my favorite dishes I discovered at last year's festival).
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| Bacon peanut butter banana panna cotta. |
My favorite discovery this year was the "man candy" -- sweet and spicy bacon chunks, with a side of bacon-flavored homemade potato chips. I would love to find the recipe for the "man candy." It really was addicting (just like a good man! LOL!)
Of course, there were lots of free bacon samples to try. I think we ended up eating 20 strips of bacon! No wonder I didn't have room for more bacon-wrapped sandwiches! I bought my sister a bacon maternity shirt to wear at the festival. She looked absolutely adorable! My niece is going to be a bacon lover, for sure!
The last two weekends, we've been celebrating my sister's new arrival with back-to-back baby showers. How cute does my sister look! We're all looking forward to meeting the little one in a month.
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| Diaper cake and owl decorations for the nursery. |
In between the baby showers, my hubby and I celebrated Valentine's Day by baking up his favorite banana split cupcakes. Since he requested them, he also agreed to frost and decorate them. Don't forget the cherry on top. It's the best part!
As you can see, I've been busy the last couple weeks, but it's been a fun busy. Now I'm looking forward to tackling some new projects at home! And the days are already getting longer, so that should help my motivation!
I also scored two tickets to Bacon Fest in the first minutes they went on sale. My husband took a friend of his, and they were kinda disappointed in it. I figured for the $70+ we spent on tickets, they wouldn't have to fork over more money for drinks and um,... bacon. Lesson learned, I guess!
ReplyDeleteAnd banana split cupcakes? YUM! Thanks for sharing!
I agree about the cost. I wasn't happy about having to buy tickets for the food and drinks, especially when a lot of the samples cost $3 to $4 in tickets. We also couldn't find a place to sit, since the tables were all reserved. We ended up only staying for a couple hours, because we didn't want to spend more money and my pregnant sister couldn't be on her feet that long. I'm probably not going to get tickets again next year until they find a bigger venue.
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