Cure Your Own Bacon
How Bacon is Made is the main article.
Bacon is a well-loved food. The bacon group on flickr has nearly 2,000 members. There are entire blogs about bacon and even a bacon of the month club. But bacon is also one of the foods that is made very differently today than it was originally. (Check out this video on how bacon is made.) Real homemade bacon tastes better and, from all reports, is much easier to make than you might think. When you’re ready to try for yourself, take a few tips from us.
- First, where do I get a pork belly? Talk to your local grocer or butcher, or check out the Heritage Foods website for a chance at the belly of a particularly well-loved, heirloom breed hog delivered right to your door.
- The University of Missouri Extension offers an article on home curing bacon for a mild flavor.
- Try the MOTHER EARTH NEWS Home-Cured Bacon Recipe.
- For a slightly more rustic version of bacon that involves hanging in a smokehouse (and jalapenos!), check out Cowgirl’s Country Life.
- What should should we do with all the leftover fat? Make Lardo: The Poor Man’s Prosciutto.
- Nick Kindelsperger and Blake Royer over at the Paupered Chef will make your mouth water in posts they each offer about bacon. One includes tips and tricks on your first try at bacon, and the second involves smoking bacon in a gas grill (I think I could make this one work).
- Curious to Dry Cure? How about prosciutto?
- Look for Curing books in our GRIT bookstore.
Hank has fallen in love with his Mulefoot pigs, and we’re currently waiting on our copy of Michael Ruhlmanand Brian Polcyn’s Charcuterie. I definitely see some pork curing in our future. Let us know if you try it.
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