Howling Hog BBQ (at Howling Wolf Farm)

As is the tradition with Superbowl Sunday, Farmer Girl and I cook ourselves and a few friends some football appropriate food.

This year, I made a batch of long-trail ale chili from the sirloin I ground up the night before. So named because it's got a bottle of Long Trail Harvest Ale in it, this chili is a deep, rich mix of beans and meat. Also on the menu, were our last bag of the chicken wings we butchered off our chickens. I did them up with an asian-styled soy-lime syrup.


Also on the menu was my variation on the "Bacon Explosion". This dish recently appeared as a feature in the New York Times. Many of my friends emailed me the link! Ironically, this recipe had already made its way through the various barbecue blogs I read about three weeks earlier.


The bacon explosion is: A log of sausage stuffed with cooked bacon, wrapped in a bacon lattice and smoked for a couple of hours. In my case, I was short a pound of bacon, having only enough to make the all-important lattice. So, I substituted a package of my sauced, cooked pulled pork for the center stuffing. The sausage was our own sausage, which was also pretty neat. Check out the pictures!




This year's Superbowl was one of the best games I've seen in years. Although the team I was rooting for didn't win, the Steelers (one of my favorite franchises) deserved the win they got. And, we celebrate their success with darned good food!