My husband has picked up a new hobby - smoking meat.  He never picks out hobbies like perfecting the dishwasher load, or closet organization. No, he likes meat, baseball, and motorcycles.  I'll be honest, I can get behind some meat because I don't have to cook dinner.  (Although, I'm still in charge of providing some sort of healthy side, I just don't feel right eating nothing but a slab of meat for dinner. I'm not a cavewoman!)

Today we headed out to our favorite butcher shop, Johns Butcher Shoppe, and picked out our meat for the weekend.  Desmond requested pulled pork, so we got a small pork shoulder.  Then, we wanted to try to make some concoction called a Bacon Wrapped Sausage Fatty.  It's exactly what it sounds like.  Sausage that's been stuffed, rolled, and wrapped in bacon and then smoked on the smoker for a few hours. Holy heart attack was it good.  Oh, we also made bacon wrapped stuffed jalepenos.  Today was a day for things stuffed and wrapped in bacon.

To make the fatty you need:

• 1 Lb of your favorite ground sausage (we just used bulk pork sausage from the butcher's case)
• 1 lb of thick cut bacon (about 10-12 slices)
• Stuff to stuff (we used diced red peppers, pepper jack cheese, and sharp cheddar.  Your possibilities are endless though.  Mushrooms, onions, and gouda anyone?

• Start by making a bacon "weave".  I just drew back on a 3rd grade art project of making a basket weave placemat with construction paper but this guy has a step-by-step technique that looks fool-proof .  My bacon weave was 6 pieces wide by 6 pieces long
• Roll out your sausage as flat as you can.  TO do this just put it in a gallon sized ziplock and roll it over and over until it's flat and uniform.  Let the air out of the bag as you go...
• Remove the sausage from the baggie (scissors are your best friend here, folks) and put on a piece of wax paper or parchment paper.  
• On half of the rolled sausage, start throwing your desired stuffing stuff on however your heart desires, then carefully roll the sausage into a log starting with your stuffed side. Pinch the ends so the goodness stays inside. 

Here's the bacon weave and the stuffing process.

• Once it's stuffed, plop it on top of the bacon weave and roll again.  The put it in your smoker and smoke it until the bacon is cooked and the internal temp is at least 165.

I didn't get a picture of the "fatty" once it was rolled and cooked but here's what it looks like after a bite's been taken off a slice.    Seriously a yummy treat - we're going to try one stuffed with breakfast fixings next time

A few weeks ago I was watching the Today Show and they were discussing the different "box" subscription services that are available.  I was watching half-asleep while feeding the baby and they brought up a service that delivered food.  A few hours later I was hungry and wishing someone would deliver me a salad when I remembered the segment on the Today Show. Of course, I couldn't remember the name of the service that delivered food so I googled "boxed meal delivery" and found Plated.  Turns out this wasn't the one they talked about on the Today show but a quick comparison of the two services and I decided to go with Plated, mostly because the ordering process on their website was more user friendly than the other service and also because I found a promo code that gave me 4 free plates; all I had to pay was a $20 subscription fee.  I was cool with that - $20 for two meals was reasonable to me.

So, lets fast forward.  When I placed my order, I ordered for a few weeks in the future because the week I selected had two dishes I thought my husband would like- Chicken with Caprese Salad  and Asian Steak.  Yesterday afternoon I got a notification the box was on it's way, at at 9:30 this morning my doorbell rang and FedEx was here with my box.  I wasted no time digging in to check out my goodies. The box contained everything I needed to make the meal (aside from a few pantry staples like olive oil, salt, and water) and handy little picture cards. Everything was packed well, there were no leaks, meat was separate from veggies, and everything looked fresh. I liked the picture cards. They were two sided - the first side gave a few tips and calorie counts while the back gave you step by step instructions (with pictures) for preparing the dish.  They were nice, especially for someone who might not cook very often.

After the box was emptied, I grabbed the two picture cards and held them up and asked my husband the million dollar question - "Chicken or Steak for lunch?" He did  quick glance at the pictures and decided on chicken.  Now that we had that decided, I just had to wait until a reasonable hour to get cooking! Once lunchtime was here, I grabbed the ingredients and handy picture card, and got to work.

(pictured: Boneless skinless chicken breasts [2], herb packet, arugula, basil, grape tomatoes, bocconcini mozzarella, garlic, balsamic vinegar, honey, Dijon mustard, & grated pecorino)

The directions were written clearly.

First step was to prepare the ingredients

Rinse tomatoes

Halve tomatoes, Rinse arugula, pull stems from basil

Step 2- make garlic paste.  The card gave really good instructions for doing this.  I learned a new technique that will be useful

pretty garlic

Step 3 was to make the dressing by whisking the garlic paste, Dijon, honey, balsamic, and 2 tablespoons of olive oil. 

Step 4 was to season and cook the chicken.  The salt came from my own stash, but the herbs were bagged nicely and just had to be sprinkled on both sides of the chicken.

Seasoned chicken

Cooking chicken

Step 5- While the chicken is cooking, assemble & dress the salad.

Before mixing

After mixing

And lastly step 6 was to plate the chicken and salad evenly between 2 plates.  

This is 1/4 of the salad - there was a very generous amount of salad.

So, now that the dinner was cooked what did we think?  I asked my husband to rate the meal on a scale of 1-5.  

For the chicken:

Matt rated at a 2 or 3 and I rated at a 3. The quality of the chicken itself was not bad but definitely was not up to par with what we usually buy.  That's probably my fault, I'm picky with my chicken and a generally buy  fresh, organic, free-range, hormone free chicken so I have us a little spoiled.  You could definitely tell the chicken had been vacuum sealed.  The seasonings were a little bland.  I could have gone more liberal on the salt and it would have made the flavors pop more.

For the salad:

Matt rated it at a high 4 and I agreed.  The ingredients were all very fresh.  The arugula was crisp and tender. The tomatoes were really good, there were no overripe and squishy tomatoes in the carton and they also didn't have that refrigerated taste you tend to get with  tomatoes outside of tomato season.  The basil was fresh and aromatic.  The mozarella was delicious.  The dressing was also very good - it had a spicy kick which I expected since I prepared the meal, but it definitely caught Matt off guard.  We like spicy, so it was a welcome flavor to us, but it would have been too much for some.  

Value wise- the price point for what we got was a little high if you just take the food into account.  The price was what I would expect to pay at a restaurant (in Mo, where I live) and the quality was just as good but I had to do the cooking whereas a restaurant does that for me.  That being said, I still think it's a good deal.  Why?  

1. I didn't have to scour the grocery store for the ingredients.
2. It motivated me to cook a homemade meal with no processed ingredients
3. The recipe instructions were great - especially if you're not a seasoned cook. (I cook often but for someone like my husband, he said the card would have been very helpful)
4. It was fresh
5. It lets you step outside of your comfort zone or food rut and try new dishes with ingredients you might not always buy or recipes you might not ever have tried on your own.  The fact that the ingredients were pre-measured and packaged nicely really did help me actually want to cook the meal.  It brought some excitement back into cooking.

I'd definitely recommend trying this service.  I think if you're someone who eats out a lot, wants to try something new, or even wants to impress a date (or, husbands who want to impress their wives *hint, hint*)  with a home cooked meal you'll really enjoy this.  I can't wait to try the Asian steak meal.  And I'll definitely be ordering again!

So, as normal, it's been a few months since I've touched this blog.  Life has a funny way of getting in the way of taking time to sit down and write notes down.  I started this blog with the intentions of chronicling my son's moments and milestones, but Facebook and Instagram have proven to be a much more efficient way of getting my thoughts down quickly.  That being said, today I'm taking my blog in a different direction.  Today I'd like to just give my own, personal opinion.