Monday, July 14, 2008

Explained bacon



We've been doing what I consider a lot of thematic eating lately, or redundant eating, depending on when in my string of chard dinners you ask me.

I hear this is also called seasonal eating, which is supposed to be good, but sometimes it feels a little, well, exhaustive. I obsess about OH CRAP HOW AM I GOING TO MAKE ALL THIS KALE and I worry that Bubba is hatching a secret plan to leave me for someone who isn't trying to hide zucchini in his chocolate cake.

And while all this crafty vegetable cooking can be, let's say, inventive - the good thing is that it's typically good for you, in a nutritional sense, so no matter how you make it (save for recipes like these that are mostly delicious cheese), you're getting a good amount of nutrients and you can feel good about your dinner even if it was just a giant bowl of snap peas tossed with radishes and there's no meat in sight. Because, well, it's all healthy vegetables, so at least you're not eating Taco Bell.

Until now.

Bubba thought it'd be a good idea to expand our thematic eating into the world of meat. This may or may not have been a direct result of the vegetarian menus I've planned lately while I stressed about how to consume a weekly farm share and home garden's worth of vegetables before they went bad.

As you may know, I hate waste and I WILL.NOT.HAVE.IT. So, some of our dinners have been a little one sided in the vegetable category in an effort to avoid the tearful goodbyes at the trash can/composter when the endive has turned irretrievably rubbery and the green garlic has a new punk rock hairdo of mold.

But, rather than run out and buy a side of beef to hang in our kitchen or get the In N Out truck to park in our driveway, Bubba got a little extravagant on our asses and signed us up for a unique meaty delivery to compliment the vegetable and bread shares already coming in with alarming regularity.

Thus enters, The Pig Next Door's Bacon of the Month Club.

Bacon of the month club? Is this even a thing?


Why yes, my friends, it most certainly is. But don't feel weird for wondering, because I said those exact words when Bubba shared this surprise with me. And then before I could say something so me like can't we get bacon from the store, he pointed out that this is bacon from small farms using sustainable methods that is so much better than we'd ever get from a store so don't you worry your crazy broccoli-addled brain about it.

Oh.

"And then what would go better with all your homegrown tomatoes, a few slices of that artisan bread and that gorgeous romaine from the farm share than some crisp bacon all stacked up in a BLT, my beloved wife who is not crazy at all?"


He so knows me.

So now we have bacon. It is of the heirloom variety and it is, in fact, different from the Louis Rich variety I've come to know during my years of Evil Bacon Eating, just as I was promised. And because we have (and will continue to have) a good amount of it, you know I'll have to work it into my cooking and so, it will get worked into the blog, starting right now.



So far, we're working through what Bubba likes to call, The Purist bacon recipes and accompaniments. Things you'd normally associate with bacon, like BLTs and pancakes and eating it right off a paper towel - things like that.


And don't worry, I'm not going to get all this particular variety of heirloom bacon had a nose of applewood smoke and a hint of chocolate or any such nonsense because that kind of shit pisses me off.

And, plus people, this is bacon so let's not be ridiculous.

I will, however, continue to be my normal crabby and particular self so if there's anything specific about our monthly bacon share (yes, we're calling it that now) that doesn't meet my standards, you know I'll just tell you all about it and include all necessary swears.

And as my reasoning and skills for explaining away extravagant purchases and indulgent eating practices become more honed, I will be sure to share with you all the ways one might justify having a pound of bacon delivered to one's home on a monthly basis.

You know, for future decision making and gift giving. Helpful!

Meanwhile, if you have any favorite recipes for bacon (don't forget country style bacon that's like Canadian bacon because I have some right now and don't know what to do with it) and you want to share them with me with the off-chance that I might post pictures of them and talk about how awesome or disgusting they were, PLEASE let me know.

And I think it goes without saying that it's a damn good thing that I'm still running and am about to start cycling (oh yes, I just said that) because otherwise we might really become fatties. AND YOU KNOW I'M AFRAID OF THE FATNESS.

Go bacon.

14 comments:

  1. Oh, hell yah, I love bacon. And a bacon of the month is one of those things you didn't even know you needed til you heard about it.

    My ass thanks you.

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  2. Yeah, Husband is doing the bacon club too. Oh boy. I have this urge to go all Iron Chef and make bacon ice cream.

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  3. This post was hilarious! I admit, I love the smell of bacon..and a good BLTA (gotta have the avocado!) is a perfect sandwich, in my opinion! ~D

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  4. Oh my. I REALLY need a bacon of the month club. Unfortunately (possibly fortunately for my health) they don't deliver outside the US (now there's a surprise). Anyway, I suppose shipping bacon from the States to Norway each month hardly counts as sustainable behaviour, no matter how friendly the bacon is to start with.

    Looking forward to the bacon recipes, though. I might even have som for you, but I need to be at home to find them, at work now...

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  5. Oh but wait: I think I have a recipe that involves both bacon and chard. I'll have to dig it up....

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  6. AWESOME! I so want to be in a bacon of the month club. Not that we don't already have an entire chest freezer full of beef and pork, including bacon, but it would just be so much fun to tell people that I'm in a bacon of the month club.

    Also, I can never have garden BLTs because by the time my tomatoes are ripe, my lettuce has bolted and been disposed of. I think this is very sad.

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  7. Finny, you must try this recipe! If you don't, I'll stop reading your blog and you will never hear from me again. well, maybe not but you should try it. This recipe comes from a very high brow Louisville hotel's lunch menu and is yummy. This serves four so you can halve it or cook the whole shebang and save half for tomorrow. Its good enough to eat two days in a row.

    Louisville Hot Brown from The Brown Hotel

    4 Tbsp. Butter
    1 small onion finely chopped
    3 tbsp. flour
    2 cups milk (or 1/2 milk and 1/2 cream in you are so inclined)
    1/2 tsp. salt
    1/4 tsp. white pepper
    1/4 cup shredded cheddar or other sharp cheese
    1/4 cup freshly grated parmesan
    8 slices trimmed toast
    Roasted chicken or turkey breast, sliced
    8 slices bacon, crisp-fried
    Sliced mushrooms, sauted
    Sliced fresh tomato

    Saute onion in butter until transparent. add flour and combine. Add milk, salt and pepper and whisk until smooth. Cook on medium heat until sauce thickens, stirring occasionally. Add cheeses and continue heating until they blend. Remove from heat. Place one slice of toast in each of four ovenproof individual serving dishes. Top each piece of toast with slices of chicken or turkey. Cut remaining toast slices diagonally and place on sides of sandwiches. ladle cheese sauce over sandwiches. Place under broiler until sauce begins to bubble. Remove from broiler and lay two strips of bacon diagonally across each sandwich. Garnish with mushrooms and fresh tomato slices. Serve immediately. Yum-o!

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  8. Candied Bacon. Sooo scrumptious and pefect premenstrual food.. LOVE IT.

    Bacon + Brown Sugar, throw it in the oven, bake until sticky and crispy..eat.

    OMG, heaven. (if you like that sugary salty thing)

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  9. Wow that is intense! Just reading how they ship the bacon was overwhelming. I don't really have any bacon recipes, I just like eating it.

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  10. decca jests about the idea of bacon ice cream but it's a real thing! Not so sure about eating it, though.

    Anyhoo, I have a tip for cooking bacon in a non-splattery way. It's not revolutionary but when you cook 15 pounds of it at a time (not for me--for the sororoty I cook for) you just have to do it this way--and I hate the splattery cleanup at home too.

    SO! All you do is lay it on a cookie sheet (and I bunch it up a bit in the middle so I can get two rows of it) and cook it until it's to your crispy liking at 375 degrees.

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  11. I HATE spelling mistakes and I forgot to proof read. OBVIOUSLY I meant "sorority." Sorry to be prissy.

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  12. Wendy - You know I get this delicious thrill knowing that AT ANY MOMENT I could go to my fridge and get some bacon to fry up for whatever reason. My ass is waging its finger at me, and I hardly care.

    Decca - Oh pork and dairy - that'd send me straight to Jew hell. Which is pretty likely where I'll end up anyway, given my life so far, so I'm in. Let's do it.

    Anon - Dude. Avocado. You're right. BLTA it is. Now, to raid someone's avocado tree...

    Latter - Find your recipes and send them. Even if it's just a vague idea of what it's SUPPOSED to be, so that I can make good use of this bacon *share* we have here.

    Meg - Send it and you will be my hero.

    Kristin - And this is why you also need a farm share. I don't know what they do out there, but they manage to keep lettuce coming in the share even after my home garden lettuce has bolted the fuck out of here. It's incredible.

    Diane - Anything called "hot brown" must be made. I agree. I will run this one by Bubba for approval, which I'm sure to get because it has all his key ingredients like potatoes, cheese and bacon. What's not to love?

    Fury - Candied bacon? That does sound pretty close to perfect. I bet it'd be good on a spinach salad. Then I could feel good about it, too, because I'd be eating a salad. Although it'd be a lot like having a taco salad where it's mostly meat and cheese and barely any lettuce, but still - it's a salad.

    Lynn - You and I are cut from the same cloth, girl. Give me crisp bacon fresh off the paper towel and I am DOWN.

    Jen - You are a genius and anal-retentive in the most pleasing way. This will be an excellent way to get through a pound of bacon at a time. And I bet I could do half candied and half regular, don't you?

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  13. A farm share would be the end of me, Finny. I just know they would send me loads of tomatoes right when my absolutely RIDICULOUS numbers of tomatoes got ripe, and of course I would try to use or can them all. Then my fingertips would melt off from the tomato acid and I would spontaneously combust from the heat in my un-air conditioned house. See? The end of me, I tell you.

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  14. Hot Brown? Approved on two levels:

    1. I can't wait to tell people I ate "Hot Brown" in my best Borat voice.

    2. Bacon? Cheese? Approved!

    Let's fast-track this one, Finn.

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