Ohiofarmgirl's Adventures in The Good Land is largely a fish out of water tale about how I eventually found my footing on a small farm in an Amish town. We are a mostly organic, somewhat self sufficient, sustainable farm in Ohio. There's action and adventure and I'll always tell you the truth about farming.


Thursday, January 26, 2012

Bacon Bacon Bacon Bacon Bacon

Bacon!

More bacon!

Bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon!

Black pepper bacon, home cured and smoked. 

Seriously - what else do I have to say? Yay bacon!

Yesterday I finally got around to slicing up the last pieces of bacon that I cured. And then I smoked one cold night. Once its smoked its pretty stable so no I wasnt worried that I hadn't sliced it right away. Plus our beer/meat fridge is on the coldest setting so it was just fine. The thing about real, fresh meat is that it stays good longer than anything you get in the store. 

So I sliced our bacon thick and put it in freezer bags.  Of course I had to test it first. Home cured and smoked bacon is amazing. I had a lot of BLT's yesterday. I really liked the pepper version - it was nice and snappy. The piece in the first two pictures was just regular, no special seasoning, plain smoked bacon. The last pic is the black pepper version. The difference is what spices are added during the curing process.

Yesterday I also smoked some of the jowl that I had curing. And I strung up some other pieces to dry cure. Its amazing. After all the stuff you hear about food safety, all you do is cure a piece of meat in salt and then hang it in your basement for a couple days or weeks and voila - pancetta or guanciale. Can you believe that? One of these days, when I can build a real smoke house, I'm going to try curing a prosciutto.   But until then I'm going to go and fry up some thick cut bacon and have me another BLT. For breakfast. 

Go Bacon!


Happy Thursday everyone! Are you all drowning in this crazy rain? Or is the sleet and freezing rain upon you?



16 comments:

freemotion said...

Gorgeous!!! Do you hand slice with a knife or do you have a slicer?

Beth of the Rocks said...

It's like that Beggin' Strips commercial!!

It looks much, much tastier though.

Carolyn said...

We had tons of rain yesterday and the goat / chicken yard is a mucky mess....but you know what? I don't care because I'm just going to sit here all day and stare at your bacon pictures. We're going to get two feeder pigs this spring and I'm looking forward to using your blog posts for guidance, especially for the BACON!!

Tiffany said...

Drooling. That bacon looks a-mazing!!

Gingerbreadshouse7 said...

Bacon, Bacon, I love Bacon any way it comes :o) your in Bacon Heaven. I don't have a basement anymore :o( and I can't get up and down in the Attic (steps too step :o(
Maybe a trip to your house on Bacon Day would do me good, I'm guessing every day is Bacon Day for you right now :o). Enjoy, after all the work you deserve it.

Prairie Cat said...

I am so jealous! And what about all of that bacon grease? Mmm.

Big Onion said...

BACON BACON BACON!

So awesome. I recently got paid for doing something I thought I was doing for free, so I'm putting it towards some portable electric fencing and some hogs! Can't wait.

Mostly putting them to use as tillers, since I can't find an affordable tiller. We'll see how that goes.

I'll make them work, then ... BACON! (Gonna have to go back and read all your hog raising posts again.)

Traci Sumner said...

oooo baby! Dad brought over the sausage stuffer and the electric smoker today - we're heading into homemade sausage land this weekend. Yummmmm

Sue said...

Everything goes better with bacon!
(well, except for chocolate!)

David said...

Beautiful work! The Bacon is the cure. And I'm almost out!

JeffJustJeff said...

Yum. I was going to go out and tuck in my pigs, but I better not after looking at these pics. Do you think they know what that gleam in our eye is??? I hope not. I've been reading up on prosciutto. I always wondered why it was so expensive. I didn't know it took a year to make (at least in the one method that I've read). You've got a little grease right there...no, a little to the right...nevermind... ;-)

rkbsnana said...

Oh, oh, oh! I want bacon too.

Mary Ann said...

No rain here, but I LOVE BACON.

Ohiofarmgirl said...

Thanks, Free, good point... nope just a plain ol knife.

BotR - ha! we laugh about that all the time. bacon bacon bacon bacon!

Were you mesmerized by the bacon, Carolyn? :-)

hey TW, I wish I could share with everyone but I haven't found a way to download bacon to all y'all.

Everyday IS bacon day, Ginny. Until one sad day in summer when...there is no more. Drat!

Hey PC - we use bacon grease for everything! yummmm

Great work Big Onion! You'll be so excited to get your pigz!

Traci - how'd it go? pix?

Sue, actually bacon and chocolate is pretty tasty.

Bacon is the cure, Dave, it turned out just beautifully.

JJJ, did I get it? What the other side? oh geez how did I get bacon grease in my hair? sheesh!

Vanessa said...

Wow that looks amazing, you gotta love bacon!

Ohiofarmgirl said...

Vanessa - its incredible. And I still cant believe how easy it is to make. The secret is out - you CAN make your own!

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