Jalapeno Poppers
My husband grows an amazing garden. Through the summer our diet largely consists of the produce from this garden. All sorts of fresh veggies. Mostly very healthy.
One of the favorite meals is jalapeno poppers. Not so healthy. Big, thick walled, juicy crisp, not so spicy peppers, filled with cheese, then wrapped in bacon. We have some slabs of bacon, not cut, just a big hearty slab, saved just for this delicacy from a small butcher shop/smoker down in Colorado. Nothing but the best for our favorite, very unhealthy meal.
Usually we eat meat from our own cattle. Processed locally. We have freezers full of fresh beef. It’s a usual meal pastime to figure what percentage of the food is all home grown, if we can get in the 90th percentile it’s a great meal. But cattle are not pigs so bacon must be outsourced.
I had a package of bacon in the fridge, thawed and ready to slice. I picked the biggest, juiciest peppers. But, as I started to cut the bacon I ran into problems. This bacon sure was cutting hard. I could barely get a knife through it. It looked a bit odd too. Finally managing to saw enough off to finish the meal I put the whole thing in the oven.
The house did not fill with the usual bacony aroma.
Peaking into the oven the bacon was brown looking and thoroughly unappealing. What in the world was wrong with this slab of bacon?! It isn’t cheap and I was getting a little grouchy. Trying a bite, better to just poison me instead of the whole family, it tasted alright. Not spoiled or rancid at least. So I called the family to supper.
The kids looked at the poppers skeptically. I couldn’t blame them and was impressed that they were willing to try them at all. They were lacking in any of the usual delectable flavor. Quite bland really.
My daughter poked around a little then looked at me. “Are you sure you didn’t like, cut up a brisket instead of bacon?”
Thinking back I realized that she was right, brilliant girl as always. I never even looked at the package or labeling. I just grabbed a slab of meat from the freezer. It explained everything. The lack of flavor, the brown color. The idiocy.
We choked the brisket poppers down. Luckily there was fresh sweet corn to round out the meal and cleanse out taste buds. It was a terrible waste of brisket that would have been delicious cooked properly. The rest of it is in the fridge now. I guess we’ll be eating brisket properly for the next meal. And a waste of perfect peppers. 1 out of 10 do not recommend brisket poppers.
Need to go find the actual bacon now. Read the label this time. We’ll have poppers for real!
No pictures of the poppers, they were pretty gross looking, brown, shriveled, and lacking in bacon.
