Iron Chef Battle Bacon!

I once again held my Iron Chef birthday party this past weekend. You may be asking, Becky, why is it that you throw yourself a birthday party every year? And I will respond to yourself, because I throw good parties. Who is going to throw a better party for me than me? No one, so I really owe it to myself to throw myself a birthday party. But, as I get older, it really isn't about the birthday or about me at all, it is about the party and about the food. I love having this party every year. There is always good food and fun.

This year was the bacon battle! At first I thought that I would do a dessert since I usually make the cake for my birthday and then enter it into the competition. But, this has not worked for me the last three years. So, this year I decided to not make a cake and instead go for the win. I found and tested and refined my recipes before the party so that I would have an amazing dish to present. I ended up entering a pizza trio. My pizza trio included:

Greek Bacon Pizza

Potato Leek Pizza

Spinach Bacon Pizza

It was awesome.

Technically, I forgot to take pictures of my pizza's so, I stole these pics from the blog who actually invented these recipes. See A Hint of Honey for awesome recipes. I slightly altered all of my recipes after my first test run and I added way more bacon than the recipe called for.

For the party, I had assembled a panel of judges. I stressed to the judges that they had to be on time so that they could see the presentation of every dish before it was ceremoniously devoured by party goers. Unfortunately, only two of my four judges showed up on time. One judge was an hour late, but we let him judge anyway and my other judge was so very late that I was forced to cut them as a judge and have only three judges.

My wonderful judges included. Honorable Johnnyson!

Semi-late Jakeson

And unphotographed Dad!

We did not have as many entries as we did in years past. It was not as good a turn out as I have had to my parties in the past, but there was still plenty of food for everyone. I neglected to pull out my camera until much of the food was gone, but here are some pics of some of the food.

Gluten-free bacon cake

The only picture of my real pizza

Bacon Little Smokies

Bacon-wrapped Little Smokies

The only thing left of my pizza by the time I pulled out my camera

The judges were great! They took their jobs very seriously and let everyone present their dish to them before tasting each dish and scoring each dish. And Johnny did a wonderful job announcing the winners. And the winners were:

1st Place: My Awesome Pizza Trio!
2nd Place: Marie's Bacon Wrapped Jalapenos and Dates
3rd Place: Momma Kimball's Maple Bacon Cake and Robert and Corrinne's Chocolate Covered Bacon

I was very excited to finally win! I have lost the last three years, but finally my efforts have paid off. Because Matt and I won this year, we are going to be judges next year, which I am very excited for too. Marie won second place for the fourth year in a row. I guess she has to up her game just a smidge to take that first place. Momma Kimball tied for third for the second year in a row. Desserts seem to get third place every year.

It was a lot of fun eating massive amounts of bacon in different mediums and I think that bacon goes very well in dessert dishes. A lot of people were skeptical that bacon would not taste good with sweet, but it was awesome. Who doesn't like salty and sweet?

It was a lot calmer and quieter atmosphere this year, this is perhaps because the kids were scarfing down Jill's Bacon Mac and Cheese and so their mouths were all full. But, it was just a really nice and non stressful party this year. I loved it!

Here are some of my guests of the party.

Anne and Lindy

Mom and Momma Kimball

Miranda and Dan

Ree, Anthon, and Avery

Winners!

Cutest chip-tooth girl!

And, my wonderful brother Johnny with magical foresight, bought me a little cake for my birthday and we used that as the birthday cake. (Thanks Johnny!)

It was a good birthday! Now I can start planning for next year.