Today I have a very special Tasty Tuesday (On a Saturday) because our Fourth of July dinner was inspired by restaurants along Route 66!

For dinner, I decided to go with an American classic, the BLT. But in keeping with our our Route 66 Summer, I prepared the “Heart-Stopping BLT” like they make at St. Louis’ own Crown Candy Kitchen, according to the recipe in The Route 66 Cookbook. Their sandwich calls for a full pound of bacon, so this was for display purposes only…the ones we actually ate had far less, but it was fun to see what it looked like!

For dessert I made Root Beer Bread Pudding like they serve at Pops Soda Ranch in Arcadia, OK. I think this is the best bread pudding I’ve ever made…it was really delicious!

And you can’t have Independence Day without watermelon, so I made a watermelon Agua Fresca to go with dinner:

It was nice to celebrate the centenary of Route 66 on the country’s semiquincentennial!