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It’s summer time. The summer to me means visiting the beach, swimming in the pool, outdoor activities and having off from work (I work in the school, so summer time is vacation time). Summer time used to mean barbecues too, but ever since my father moved to Florida, barbecues are few and far between for me and my family. We used to have a barbecue until the Fire Marshal banned them from our condo complex. The only way we can barbecue now is to drag a barbecue into the parking lot, and who really wants to do that?

We’re grateful to our friends that invite us over for barbecues. My husband and desire barbecued hamburgers and hot dogs over the ones we can make at home.

If you enjoy being the “master of the grill,” or know someone who does. Or if you are someone who loves to cook and used the freshest ingredients possible, let me tell you about Wildkale Online Farmer Market. At Wildkale online farmer’s market, you can purchase fresh cut meats and other products directly from a local farmer. The food is packaged and shipped directly to your door step. Talk about convenient.

You can purchase poultry, pork, beef and other products. It’s not just one cut of meat either. At Wildkale, you can purchase the type of meat you want/need. From chicken thighs to whole chickens, and from ground beef to Ribeye…at Wildkale you’ll find the meat you are looking for to create your favorite recipes, both on the grill and in your home’s kitchen.

Wildkale was kind enough to let me pick out some products to try out for myself.

Using Wildkale is easy. Simply enter in your zip code and Wildkale will connect you to the closest participating farmer for you to select the products you want.

I picked out the following.

Ground Beef
Stew meat
Chicken Breasts
Hot Dogs
Honey
Maple Syrup

To be honest, it was hard to narrow it all down. We use many of the products available, but I chose products I know I’d use most often.

I was not home when the package was delivered. My husband came home to find the package at our front door. Inside there was dry ice to keep the products cold. They were frozen when my husband took them out of the package, so there was no worries about them being spoiled. My husband is especially picky about stuff like that. If there is even the slightest doubt in his mind that something MIGHT be “bad,” then he won’t eat it. He’s thrown out brand new packages of meat just because he though the outside seemed too defrosted.

Here are the photos of the meats that I took when I got home from work the day the package was received.

Ground Beef

I like that the ground beef I received came in one pound packages. Usually it’s just my husband and I for dinner during the week. Our son works late on week days and only eats something light when he gets home. Therefore we normally only require a little ground beef for two people when it comes to the recipes we make.

The ground beef was tasty and worked into our recipes perfectly. I used one package to make a spaghetti casserole and the other to make lasagna. I WISH we could have used to to make burgers, but sadly, our friends have not had any barbeques yet this season.

I was worried I wouldn’t be able to peel the packaging off the meat. I was afraid it would stick to it, but it came off fine (no issues).

Stew Meat

These are nice cuts of meat. They have ideal marbling and I didn’t have to cut any fat off any of the pieces, which was a time saver.

They are good size chunks of meat, which you can cut down to suit your needs (I cut them in half).

This meat had great flavor. My husband, son and I enjoyed it very much. We used it to make Stroganoff in our crock pot. It was the first time I made the recipe, and it turned our really good. Normally I only use stew meat to make stew, but I wanted to mix it up a bit, so I tried the Stroganoff. My husband wasn’t keen on the idea at first, but when he tried it he really liked it (my son practically inhaled it).

Chicken Breasts

I WISH all chicken breasts were like this! There is nothing I hate more than purchasing chicken breasts at the store, which look good on the outside (due to the packaging), only to find the underside of the chicken is fatty and worse yet, has those icky blook spots. GROSS! In fact, I made sticky garlic chicken last night with chicken from the store (a well known brand name too), and the underside was a hot mess. I cut off A LOT of the chicken because it was fatty or had blood spots. That was NOT the case with the chicken breasts I received from Wildkale.

These chicken breasts were free of blood spots and fatty sections. It was like they were trimmed off for us. I am not sure if that is always the case, but I ordered two packages from Wildkale, and both packages had ideal looking chicken breasts.

These are nice cuts of chicken. For one recipe I cooked them whole, and the other recipe I cut them into chunks. Both times the meals turned out perfectly.

Pork Hot Dogs

I was on the fence about purchasing hot dogs, seeing as how we weren’t planning on any barbecues. However, I am so glad I did. THESE AE SO GOOD! We normally buy hot dogs from the grocery store (popular brand name), but now that I’ve had these, those hot dogs seem subpar. These pork hot dogs from Wildkale are gourmet hot dogs. They were hot dogs, but in a way, they seemed more than just that. If that makes any sense?

We ate them on hot dog buns (of course), but I feel like these could some how be incorporated into other recipes, or cut up in pieces and served as the main part of a meal with a couple of sides.

Moist, tender and flavorful… these are hands down THE BEST hot dogs I ever had. I would order these again for sure (again and again!).

Maple Syrup

While Wildkale does have many meat, pork and poultry products to choose from, they also have pantry items, such as fresh maple syrup.

The maple syrup purchased in the grocery store contains a lot of extra ingredients such as high fructose corn syrup, water, cellulose gum, salt, colors and artificial flavor. It’s true! Just check out the ingredients in your favorite maple syrup.

The maple syrup I received from Wildkale is pure maple syrup. The taste is obvious immediately. It has so much more maple flavor and is less sugary sweet (in my opinion). It’s going to be sweet (maple syrup is), but you can tell instantly that it doesn’t have a ton of added sugar (corn syrup). It’s maple syrup. Why would you add corn syrup, color and artificial flavor?

If you love maple syrup on your pancakes and waffles, or you use it in your recipes, nothing beats REAL maple syrup, fresh from the tree to your kitchen. Once you have the real thing you’ll never look at the mass produced, big brand maple syrups ever again.

Raw Honey

This product was most surprising to me (aside from how amazing the pork hot dogs were). The honey I normally buy is very liquidy. You can pour it out into your tea or recipes. This honey is more solid. It’s not truly solid (it’s soft) but it’s not a liquid.

It took me a bit to incorporate this into my recipes, but it works out the same. Take for example last night. The recipe I made called for a 1/2 cup of honey. It just spooned this honey into the measuring cup, then into the pan. I found it easier than the liquid kind because when I use that honey I need to spray my measuring cup with non-stick stray to make sure the honey comes out and doesn’t stick too much.

For my tea I just scoop a bit out with my spoon.

This honey is sweet, but not overly sweet. I think it’s because it hasn’t been overly processed like many commercial honeys are. Most commercial honey products are made with additional sugar, corn syrup, and artificial flavoring. Raw honey, such as this, comes to you pretty much from the honeycomb. It’s as real as you can get. For that reason the taste is different because it’s not as sweet, but it’s still delicious.

If you are looking to incorporate fresh from the farm foods into your home, and foods that are free from overprocessing and added ingredients that you DON’T need, you should check out Wildkale. Get farm fresh foods delivered straight to your front door.

If you would like to learn more about Wildkale, visit them online at Wildkale.Market. Notice it’s dot (.) market and NOT dot (.) com. It’s still a legitimate website URL.

You can also find Wildkale on social media. Their links are found on the bottom right of their website.

What do you think about farm fresh products delivered straight to your home? Feel free to comment and share your thoughts. I always love to hear from readers.