Celebrate World Vegetarian Day With Us

In the only way world vegetarian day should be celebrated:

That would be 1/4lb of bacon, cut into chunks and fried crisp; then 1/4 pound of corned beef torn to shreds, and 1lb of ground beef, fried in the bacon fat.

The bacon and corned beef give you all the salt you need, but we added a bit of black pepper, ancho chili, garlic, hot mustard, and cumin to complement the beef and bacon (and bacon fat).

Just after we took this pic we added some habanero hot sauce and some cheese, and served it all up as tortas (on telera rolls); with a side of tater tots (baked, since we've got enough fat with that bacon grease).

The combination and contrast of flavors and textures, between the crunchy bacon and tater tots, the firm beef, creamy cheese (and the sauce created by the mix of fat, hot sauce, and cheese) and the soft pillowy torta roll is just great.

If I had wanted to up the starch content even further, I could have tossed some nice black beans in the mix, or even served this with rice and beans (and a lot more hot sauce).

Bacon... Milkshake?

One of the benefits/ drawbacks of working in a bank is that quite often you see the same people day in and day out. The manager of the local Jack in the Box is one of those people I see every day, and I actually like to see on a daily basis.

On Wednesday he came in and by the luck of the customer line draw I ended up helping him that day. That conversation is how I found out about a new limited time item on the menu, the Bacon Shake.

Tonight I ran over to ye olde Jack to pick one up for a very intrigued Chris.

 First off, there were no signs up for this concoction, at least as far as I could see. I asked the person at the drive-thru if there was indeed such a thing (it wouldn't have surprised me if he was pulling my leg after all) and sure enough it does exist.

As Chris said, "imagine smoked vanilla ice cream topped with maple syrup and a few shakes of salt."

Does it taste exactly like bacon? No. Does it taste like someone took the essence of smoke and bacon and waffles with syrup and blend it together? Yes.

It is a very odd, very compelling taste. We couldn't finish the entire shake though, as there is such a thing as too much smoked ice cream.

Jack in the Box gets 3.5 out of 5 stars for taste, and 7 out of 5 stars for an awesome concept.

Mel