Gastric Overload

I have been seeing blog posts on many of the food blogs that I follow about the "Bacon Explosion."  It looked just crazy enough that I had to try it.  The recipe comes from a new cookbook called BBQ Makes Everything Better.  (I have to admit that I am very disappointed with this cookbook.  The recipes really lack imagination, rely heavily on bacon and sausage and does not give sauce options that have the same flavor profile as the ones that the authors try to get you to purchase on every page.  The pages feel cheep with the paper quality that was selected and the photos are all in black and white.  I want full color photographs in a cookbook.  I want food to jump out at me, not get lost in shading.)

Now to start this recipe off, I have to say that there is NO NUTRITIVE VALUE in it.  It is just pure pork decadence.

You start off with a basket weave of thick sliced bacon...MMM BACON!!!!

Sprinkle a sweet BBQ rub over the bacon.  I made my own up.

Cover bacon with an unhealthy amount of ground sausage, an additional pound of cooked crumbled bacon and slater in BBQ sauce.  I used a sweet Kansas City style sauce.

Roll the sausage and cooked bacon up.

Then encase it in the bacon weave.  What you have here is a two pound bacon stuffed sausage roll, rolled in two pounds of bacon.

Sprinkle on more of the BBQ rub and you are ready to cook.  This is where I deviate from the recipe.  The author states cooking in a BBQ smoker.  Well, I do not own one of these and I am waiting until I can afford the one that I really want before I run out and just purchase any old smoker.  I knew that my gas grill would incinerate the bacon/sausage creation so I opted to bake in my oven at 350 for about 1.5 hours.  I covered it in foil so the bacon would not get overly dry.

Now, I got distracted by our friends and some wine, so I did not get a picture of the final cooked product, but it was the conversation piece.  Cooked perfectly, drizzled in even more sweet BBQ sauce.

I made three of these things for our party.  I have to say that it was a hit.  Pure pork product overindulgence.  There was just a little left over so I decided that it should be seen again as breakfast.  Just add a dozen eggs, a half loaf of bread and a pound of grated cheese and you have a breakfast casserole made for a Hormel King!

Now, I thought that the above concoction was enough out of my norm, but I am not yet done with the crap food indulgence.  We had yet another party to go to on Monday afternoon.  My mojo for cooking was at about zero at this point of the weekend.  I joked with Lamar that I should just make a Twinkie cake to take.  The next thing I know, he has gone to the store and brings me home THREE BOXES OF TWINKIES!  Nora Beth was so excited to see these.  She had not seen that many Hostess products since Jan and Kenny were here three years ago when we went to Greece.  She remembered what came in those boxes...Fluffy cake with cream filling.  Even better, a tub of Cool Whip appeared.  The food in my kitchen is just going downhill...FAST!

As I laugh my way through it, not even sure if I can bring myself to actually present this at a party, I start stacking up the Twinkies and slathering them in Cool Whip.  I did have some fancy Pinot Noir Raspberry Chocolate sauce that I drizzled over the top and added some fresh raspberries.  We coined this the "Officers Delight!"

With nothing else to take with me to the party, I just brought the Officer's Delight.  At the party our friends were in complete disbelief that I would actually admit to making something like this.  They obviously do not have the food issues that I have since this was devoured in minutes...even before the food was taken off of the BBQ.

We will now be spending the next few weeks detoxing from this weekend of gluttony!