Well, it’s that time of year again. The 4th Annual Baconfest.

This year we have the distinction of being the first baconfest to make someone puke. So, there’s that!

It was Nathan and Amanda’s year to host, so we mostly just sat back and relaxed. I would say, overall, we seemed to have a more appropriate amount of food this year. Despite that, I still felt about as full as it is possible to feel. It felt like every time we finished cleaning up from one meal, it was time to start making the next one.

First things first, we got started with a delicious bacon quiche. When all was said and done, I think the quiche was probably the best recipe of the day. It also involved a bacon-weave, which I’ve been *dying* to try for years.

Additionally, we had a bacon marmalade for our toast, which didn’t sound like the greatest thing in the world…

…but was actually surprisingly delicious!

The kids had ballet, which gave Nathan time to fry up all the bacon for the taste test.

You know, the taste test might not seem like much, but the kids get really excited about it. I’d say it’s their favorite part of baconfest, other than perhaps waking people up with the talking bacon. Maybe it’s just because they get to do like the adults do, and their opinion counts just as much as ours does. Or maybe just because they get to eat bacon.

After all that, we felt like we could use a little exercise. Get the blood pumping through those thick, clotted arteries. Luckily it was a beautiful day, and there happened to be an enormous bike race going on right by our house. So we took lunch on the road and had a picnic, another baconfest first!

Lunch consisted of a bacon dip (don’t want those veggies spoiling baconfest!) and a sort of “reverse BLT”, where the bacon and cheese were baked into the biscuit, and only the lettuce and tomato was inside the sandwich. In other words, perfect picnic food.

Various, bacon-filled raviolis were on the menu for dinner, but first we had to make the noodles!

I thought that was pretty fun. I’ve never made my own ravioli noodles before. The kids enjoyed it, and it was nice to have an activity in the afternoon. It took only long enough, and it was over just before the kids could get tired of it.

Finally, we ended the day with strawberry shortcake topped with bacon whipped cream. Bacon. Whipped. Cream.

As with the marmalade, this was surprisingly delicious. I mean really good, not just “baconfest” good.

When you’re trying to come up with a bunch of bacon food ideas, you always have a couple of misses. Recipes that seem good on paper, just don’t end up all that great. Especially with desserts. However, I don’t think there was a single bad recipe in the bunch this year.

Finally, we put the kids to bed and taught ourselves how to play the ridiculously complicated, but fun, Agricola. Unfortunately, Oliver was just recovering from an absolutely awful GI virus, and I think he wasn’t quite recovered enough for all that bacon. So he gave us one last hurrah, and we had to take a pause to clean everything up.

But, despite ending on a down note, the day overall was a big success. Kudos to Nathan and Amanda for another great baconfest! I’m already starting to plan for next year.

Be prepared for baconfest related posts for the rest of the week (including lots more pictures)!