ARMADILLO EGGS

Armadillo Eggs, or Atomic Buffalo Turds, what ever you want to call them they are delicious. These cheese stuffed jalapenos, wrapped in sausage and bacon were the end results of a Meat Adventure that brought the Great White Hunter out of hibernation. When Ms. Goofy is practicing her All-Star Wrestling techniques the Great White Hunter steps ins and participates on our Meat Adventures. Today we made several stops at Farmers Markets and several meat markets.

We were at the Petaluma Farmers market and found a booth selling meat products from 'Sonoma County Meat Company. The bacon looked pretty tempting.with the promise of Heritage Cross Pork what ever that meant. I believe the vendor said this was a Berkshire cross breed. Enough said it was put in the shopping cart. You know I jest when I say shopping cart because in California we are charged 10 cents per shopping bag. One must carry their own cloth, preferably hemp politically correct shopping retrieval vessel. We then proceeded to a couple other meat stops.

Once home, it was time to put this bacon to use. Armadillo eggs sounded like a challenge. This involves hollowing out fresh jalapenos. They are then stuffed with a mixture of jalapeno flavored spreadable cream cheese and grated sharp cheddar. They are then rolled in sausage and today we used a Dakota sausage from Lockeford Meats. This was wrapped in our bacon from Sonoma Meats. This was a thick cut bacon so I only used one sliced per egg.

Two hours in the smoker at 250 degrees with several apple wood chunks turned the Armadillo Eggs a deep smoked color. They were then bathed in barbeque sauce and put back in the smoker for 10 more minutes. They turned out fantastic. The bacon was very tasty with a sweet pork profile. I say sweet because of the cure and the actual "heritage pork' had a sweetness that was prevelant. It was very smoky because in essence it was double smoked by its time  at Sonoma Meats and our smoker. Overall the bacon wrapped Armadillo Eggs was spectacular with smoke, sweet, spicy, not to hot, jalapeno, cheese goodness. Ms. Goofy also made this spectacular Oreo-Cookie Cheesecake that topped off a very special meal.