Bacon

I need a new hobby like I need a sixth hole in my head. However, I ran into a blog post the other day and realized that now is the time to start making bacon. Which will inevitably lead to more advanced charcuterie.

Bacon: The Gateway Meat. Ask any "semi-vegetarian", they will probably eagerly confess to eating the stuff. Because it is salty, fatty, luscious, and BEAUTIFUL.

I popped into my local butcher, and found that they only special order pork belly. And in 8-10 pound increments. I was considering getting some folks together to buy in on 10 pounds, however, later that weekend was at my neighborhood Asian market, and they happened to have it in their butcher case. So I decided to try my hand at beginning charcuterie.

Here is the recipe (extrapolated down to the 2 pounds of pork belly that I have):


1/8 cup salt
1/4 cup organic sugar plus a tablespoon maple syrup
1 T coarse black pepper
1/4 t ground bay
1.5 t fresh minced onion
1/2 t powdered garlic
1/4 t ground thyme
1 t of pink salt (Cure #1)

The process itself is fairly simple: combine everything except the pink salt. Taste, if  it's right, add the pink salt (which apparently tastes horrible and can make you ill). This mixture is the cure. Next, massage the cure into every inch of the pork belly. Rub it good. Like that belly's had a real tough week. Now, put the pork belly in a plastic storage bag and refrigerate for 7-10 days, flipping once halfway through the time.

After the curing process is complete, the remaining cure is rinsed off. You can then either smoke the meat, or slow roast it. Since I do not own a smoker (nor did I wish to smoke it in the grill), I chose to slow roast it. 200 degrees for about 2 hours, or until the internal temperature reaches 155 degrees.

Before Roasting

After Roasting

To use it, slice very thin and fry like store-bought bacon (slow 'n low). Then, in your bare feet, traipse out to the garden, pluck a perfectly ripe tomato from the vine, and enjoy the most satisfying BLT of maybe ever.

Bon Apetit, and have a lovely week!

Food Hoarder Confession One

A decent amount of my food projects this summer have centered around building a pantry and larder for the upcoming cooler months. You know, food hoarding.

In addition to the (rather unexpected) bounty of my own personal garden, Portland has wonderful farmer's markets and chichi grocery stores that occasionally have excellent specials on seasonal seafood and meat. I have taken advantage of all. To the point of filling not one, but two freezers. 

I sometimes just gaze upon the wondrous treats that they hold. Luscious berries, cherries, and peaches which will be a welcome addition to a cold morn's oatmeal. Delectable tuna filets baked up on a chilly evening. Pesto as far as the eye can see...

So, this morning, as I was trying to freeze some chili that I made over the weekend, I hit my space max. I tried to rearrange. To no avail. So, I had to remove the ice cube trays, the last bit of space currently not being used by an actual food product. This created a conundrum. What to do with this ice, as not to waste it? Ice?, you may wonder. Yes, frozen water. I do not want to just toss out frozen WATER. I have recently been introduced to the joy of paying a water bill, so I do everything in my power to not waste it. Because it is horrendously expensive.

Besides, I realized, I have tomatoes now rolling out of my ears, ripening as you watch. So, there was the solution. Can diced tomatoes. See, when you can (some types of) tomato products, it is advised to remove the skins by way of slipping them into boiling water for a few seconds, then plunging them into an ice bath. Voila! Easy peasy skin removal!

This may serve as a prime example of the food hoarder mentality. Add an hour-long project to one's already lengthy To Do list for the day in order to not waste ice.

Bon Apetit, and enjoy the bounty, wherever you may be!

Procrastination, A Green Harvest, and Lessons from Tomatoes

I should be bottling meads tonight, but I am putting it off. Watching Orange is the New Black (again) and writing another blog about garden harvesting. I will get to it, however, because the following needs to be put in bottles and stored away in the crawlspace:

• Fig Vanilla Mead (Aged on oak chips and fermented with Port yeast)
• Lavender Gooseberry Mead
• Flemish Red 
• Peach Rye Sour

These guys are done and are currently occupying valuable real estate (AKA The Pub).


Onto other news. Here is what was gleaned from the garden yesterday:

So much green! I will obviously be pickling the cukes this weekend, plus making green tomato salsa (more on that shortly).

Now, what the tomatoes have taught me.

1. Give us more space.
   I have had to prune the darn things several times already, and still it is obvious that I packed them into too small a space. Next year, they get a whole garden plot, with only basil, onions, and pickling cucumbers to keep them company.
2. Invest in better cages.
   I thought I was clever. I bought the cheapo Freddy's cages. $.99, on special. Almost every day, I come home to a few tipped over tomato cages. I then have to finagle them into an upright position. I am hoping to just make it through the season. But I know to not buy cheap cages next year. Just suck it up and invest in the big, sturdy reusable cages.
3. If you do not do the above, we will punish you.
   That big pile of green tomatoes? Came from a tomato plant arm that snapped under it's own weight. No beautiful jams or sauces from these greenies, so the best I can hope for is salsa verde. Which, come January, I will be thankful for.

Bon apetit, and enjoy the weekend!

A Garden Update, and What The Plants Have Taught Me

What the garden has provided since my last check-in, and the personalities discovered of the various life forms that exist in my yard:

4 globe zucchinis
5 oblong zucchinis

Zucchini. Lots of people will tell you that zucchini plants are very "prolific". Much as I enjoy this particular vocabulary word, I don't feel that it appropriately describes how much output a zucchini plant is capable of, nor have I found a better description. Since I began harvesting on July 17, I have gathered 18 oblong zucchinis and 13 globe zucchinis. Needless to say, I will be chowing down on a good number of zucchini pickles come cooler weather. Which I look forward to greatly. Also, I see a lot of zucchini bread, stuffed zucchini, and zucchini salads in my near future.

Approximately one pound of purple beans
3 carrots
19 pickling cucumbers
2 lemon cucumbers

Cucumbers. The spoiled, selfish brat child of the garden. I know now that when I plant my pickling cukes next year that they need a trellis on which to vine. Otherwise, the little monsters sprawl everywhere. I shoo them away from the tomatoes daily, and just yesterday afternoon found their little tendrils wrapped around some tomatillo stalks, attempting sibling murder. All is forgiven though, since I dearly love the vinegary, garlicky, dill-y pickles they provide.

24 green tomatoes (for pickling)

Tomatoes. Specifically green tomatoes. Every morning, I peek through my curtains hoping (praying, really) to see ripened tomatoes. And I am saddened when all I see is green.  And maybe a streak of yellow here and there. I even bought bacon at the store today, hoping that a largely homegrown BLT will make an appearance on my plate soon. Waiting for tomatoes to ripen is like Waiting for Godot (not sure I am using this analogy properly). It feels like they just never will. Which leads me to the next...

3 reddish Roma and 2 yellow Sungold tomatoes (the first Sungold was IMMEDIATELY devoured from the plant).

An enormous bunch of basil. Which became this:

Wonderfully fragrant pesto, ready for the freezer.

 And finally, 6 very small beets.

Beets. What the hell, beets? Don't the darn things grow plentifully in even the poorest countries? Well, apparently not in my garden. Perhaps I was simply not patient. Oh well, next year.

The Saturday Morning Harvest

Bon apetit, and happy harvesting!

A Very Odd Neighbor (I Assume) Interaction

*Warning* What follows contains some salty language. Not offensive, just salty. Perfectly acceptable for the PG-13 crowd.

This morning I left the house to go to the brew shop. I brought snacks and my camera. Today is AHA Mead Day, and I had been tasked to do something mead-related and capture it on film, plus I had fresh chevre to share with my coworker (hence the snacks). As I was walking, I passed a woman on a trek with her geriatric-looking Boston Terrier (and carrying the customary dog poop bag), headed in the opposite direction.

About two blocks from home, I realized that I had forgotten the meads that I wanted to bring in to give to customers to sample. So, I grudgingly turned around and retreated to Clementine to fetch said meads. As I walked, I got closer to the aforementioned woman. I was nearly to my front gate when she veered off into my driveway. "Odd," I thought, "I don't know her, why is she coming up to my house?"

Then, I realized, she was aiming to put her poop bag in my trash.So, I said (in a normal tone of voice, and not accusingly), "Oh, please do not put that in my trash."  She whipped around and stuttered "oh...um...okay", then gave me a fairly scathing look. The Midwestern good girl in me surfaced and said "I'm sorry, they just don't pick up until Friday". We then parted ways. I picked up what I needed to, and headed back to the shop. Then I fumed.

I thought "you know what? Shit stinks. Human, dog, cat, whatever. I don't want my trash (which I pass every day when I get home) to stink like SHIT (as Portland is due some hot weather this week)". Plus, I do not create enough trash to buffer the smell. Plus, "that dog is small, and makes small enough poops that she should be able to walk it home and put them in her own trash can".

Once I arrived at work, I told my coworker my tale, and then later, my friend Rachel (who popped in for cultures and PH strips). They both assured me that I was in the right, and was not a cranky old woman.

Anyway, that was my weird interaction du jour.

I would say "Bon appetit", but it doesn't seem to fit this post. Sooooo...have a beautiful weekend, hopefully poo-free!

How My Garden Grows

One of the primary reasons that I decided to buy a house was to have a garden.

Many moons ago, in the thriving hippie metropolis of Eugene, OR, a good friend and I shared a communal garden plot for two years. I loved it. We had fresh produce all summer, which seemed to thrive on our shared negligence. Hauling compost to the garden (on a golf club cart rigged to the back of a bike via bungee cords), weeding, and finally harvesting. Oodles of fun. The veggie grilled cheeses and fried green tomatoes that came from the garden were so good.

After I moved to Portland, I missed it. In my first apartment, I grew a little container garden on the fire escape. Mostly flowers gotten as starts  from the Walgreens across Burnside. This drew many hummingbirds, but not any produce. I then moved across the river, and immediately signed up to be on the (notoriously long)  community garden waitlist for two (very popular) gardens. Which never panned out. Sigh.

So, when I moved into Clementine, one of the first orders of business was to plant a garden. And I did. Then, several weeks later, I planted garden two. And ended up with TONS of zucchini starts (most of which later were pulled) and ELEVEN tomato plants. Which took off like mad.

I do not claim that I, or my similarly sized tomato plants, are solid, tall, and Amazonian. But I feel even my diminutive 63-inch tall tomatoes are still an impressive agricultural feat.

What I have pulled from the garden thus far:

2 pounds of snap peas
3 sizable bunches of kale
2 heads of lettuce
10 green tomatoes (which were later pickled)
broccoli leaves (used for lasagne in place of pasta)
13 oblong zucchini
9 globe zucchini
1 jalapeno
A small handful of baby carrots
8 cucumbers
1 very large, very green tomato (currently ripening on the kitchen counter)
1 scarlet carrot, plus two other, less impressive carrots
3 gold beets

I am pretty pleased with my green thumb.

Bon appetit!

What Does One Do with a Half Flat of Blueberries and a Gallon of Milk?

I'm not dead yet! Sorry for the long long hiatus. So much stuff going on with Clementine. Weeding, planting, mowing. Repeat.

Anyway...

What does one do with a half flat of blueberries and a gallon of milk?

Well, I can't speak for the world, but here was what I did:

• Pickled blueberries. So tasty with roasted turkey and brie on a good, crusty bread.

• Blueberry ginger shrub. I wasn't expecting much from this, but was totally blown away. Sweet, slightly tart, and all-around delicious.

• Blueberry vinegar

• Froze them. Most of them (4 of the 6 pints)

And the milk?

3/4 of it went into making yogurt, which became Cherry Garcia frozen yogurt pops, plus kefir. The kefir then became kefir cheese, blended with the strained blueberries from the shrub, plus some minced salt-preserved lemons. Amazing!



Bon Apetit!