Right now, until the school year ends, I am living in pragmatic-land.  It’s a place where–somehow–we manage to eat healthy and tasty food while engaging in, ummm, like 10 extra activities a day.  It’s definitely a challenge…  but today the food fairy came to visit!

Yes, yes, I know there’s no food fairy, but the lady from Gold ‘N Plump sounded like the food fairy when she offered to send me chicken sausages…

Chicken Sausage from the Food Fairy

You see, while I am all about cooking from scratch, sausage is something I don’t do.  I did actually try grinding meat one time.  After cleaning my (rather expensive) grinder attachment a half dozen times and getting less than a burger’s worth of meat, I decided that this was a job for the professionals.

To complicate matters, I am on a diet—or rather failing on a diet.  There, I’ve said it.

So dinner tonight is real food—something that can make the husband feel indulged and the kids feel like normal kids, while my calorie counting remains intact. I’m making bombers, Italian sausage (chicken sausage in this case) on a brat bun (er, whole wheat hot dog bun), slathered with pizza sauce (from a can—I told you this was easy).

Bomber with Cole Slaw

So easy, I’m not even doing a real recipe…

Lo Cal Chicken Sausage Bombers

1.  Open can and heat pizza sauce

2.  Cook Italian Sausages until done (I stuck in a probe to make sure they reached an internal temperature of 165)

Sausages Cooking

3.  Place sausage on bun and top with (lots of) sauce.

Serve this with a vegetable side (perhaps broccoli slaw, cole slaw, or bok choy salad) and you have two serving of vegetables in an easy, tasty and low calorie (ding, ding, ding!) meal.  I used a 140 calorie (Rudi’s organic whole wheat) hot dog bun, and my sandwich totaled out at around 300 calories.

Made in Minnesota from chickens raised on Minnesota and Wisconsin family farms (hey, I think that’s local for me), the new Gold N Plump chicken sausages are seriously good.  I expected good because, well, sausage is just good, but these were like did-the-butcher-make-them good.  Dinner got thumbs up from everyone on taste (even from the teenager who said she was NOT going to eat any more of my strange food) and my only negative was the fact that they contain preservatives.  The kids liked the Parmesan Italian Sausage best, and I had to admit they had a full fat taste that belied their 180 calories.  John and I like the spicy Italian version with its kick of heat and lower calorie count (140 cal. each)  I’ll save 40 calories anywhere I can.

Shhhh, It’s Lower Fat

The Gold N Plump Brats were also excellent (I kept slicing off “little bites” from John’s, admittedly not good for the diet).  They had an authentic “good brat” taste—and by that I mean better brats, not the kind they sell for $1 with chips at gas station openings.  John was in hog heaven to get both a brat and a bomber all in one meal (he’s not on a diet).  And I was happy to achieve another victory of sanity over the real world!

“I’ll have a bomber with a side of brat & kraut”

Disclaimer:  I received the sausages free for purposes of this review—opinions are my own.  The Rudi’s plug was spontaneous and uncompensated.