Sticky Maple Bacon Balls On Request

Well, I think it’s officially time to call me Big Eater Lazy Blogger! With work transitions and focusing on my workouts, blogging and creative cooking has gotten a bit scarce. But I come today with a food that was suggested by a friend. We all know that I didn’t declare myself a foodie until after I grew and developed my obsession with pork. And by default this makes me a bacon eater, ok ok I’m obsessed with bacon. Knowing that about me, my pal Hannah pretty regularly tags me in bacon photos, recipes and comments through social media. In the past, it hasn’t been clear as to whether it’s because she wants me to cook her bacon goodies, but a few weeks ago, it was more of a “Hey can you cook this for us!” type of tag. What was this delicious goodie? Maple Bacon Sausage Balls. Well friends, that’s the end of the story! Haha, not really but it certainly could be. So with this planned I decided to host a BESB Breakfast for Dinner! I let my guests know what the intentions were and a few days later, Marcy shows up at the gym with some VT Maple Syrup! Awesome! Funny thing was, I had traveled to Montreal the previous weekend and grabbed some syrup myself in VT, I mean, because where else would you get it?

It's kind of hard to see here, but there's
 a definite color difference

The evening before my dinner, I decided I needed to figure out just exactly what I was working with. So I poured each syrup into a shot glass. Marcy’s was a Grade A from Bixby Farms and mine was a Grade B from Eaton’s Sugarhouse. Well the color in itself was a huge contrast and that’s when I realized maple was a little like wine, so Josh and I had a tasting! It was so interesting. The color of the Grade B was darker than the A. Additionally, the Grade B had a more concentrated sugar and caramel flavor. However, when we tasted them side by side the Grade A was much better. It had a tree flavor that was so cool! Now, my disclaimer is that I’m a southern girl and I may or may not have grown up on the kind made mostly of corn syrup! But it was truly amazing to me just how well you could taste the tree in the syrup Marcy brought me! So obviously that’s what I was going to use. Additionally, Bixby only processes pure maple syrup in their facility and so it made it 100% safe for my girl Jackie, who cannot eat Gluten.

Here’s what I came up with, I hope you enjoy it as much we did!

STICKY MAPLE BACON BALLS

Serves 6 (If that’s too many, just freeze them for a quick breakfast or dinner later)

Ingredients

2lbs ground pork

2lbs bacon, chopped

½ onion, minced

2 Tbsp allspice

6 cloves garlic, minced

1 Tbsp dried fennel seed

1/3 cup maple syrup

Salt and Pepper

Directions

Mix all ingredients and let sit in the refrigerator for 2 hours. Roll into golf ball size balls. Bake at 350 degrees for a 30-40 minutes (depending on your oven) and flip halfway through.

We also had a frittata and sweet potato parsnip cakes