The Barefoot Kitchen Witch

Making Bacon – Part 5 – Bacon Beer

This one will be short and sweet because I didn’t take a lot of pictures and there’s not really a lot to tell.

And with that amazing sales pitch, here’s the story…

Making Bacon – Part 4 – Salt Pork

Sick of pork yet? 

In case you aren’t, here are the first three posts in this little series…

Making Bacon - Step 1 - Curing

Making Bacon - Step 2 - Smoking

Making Bacon - Part 3 - Fried Pork Rinds

And now…something to do with portions of fat and meat that aren’t really bacon or ribs….

When a Bee Lies Sleeping…

…in the blossoms of your hydrangea….

We were walking around the yard this morning, inspecting the fields, so to speak, and I saw this pollen-laden bumble bee.

She (she?  he?) was just resting there.  Not dead – I saw a leg move.  I’m guessing she was still a bit damp from the overnight dew. 

Whatever the reason, she stayed put while I got as close as I could with the camera.

I figure once the sun warms and dries her, she’ll be on her way.

For now, thank you, bee, for letting me photograph you.

When Did My Forehead Get So Big? It’s Almost as Wide as My Hips!

We went clothes shopping today.

Bill and Alex.

Julia and me.

We’ve got a wedding coming up in the family.

Both kids are in the wedding (hee hee hee!!!!) and Bill will be playing guitar.

Fortunately for everyone, especially the photographers, who might not have brought wide enough lenses, I am not part of the ceremony at all.  I’m hoping there’ll be a wide palm tree or something I can hide behind whenever there are cameras lurking.

Did you catch that?

Making Bacon – Part 3 – Fried Pork Rinds

In case you missed the first two parts of my bacon-making series, here they are:

 Part One – Curing

Part Two – Smoking

So, now that the bacon’s made, what else is there to do?

Almost Mojito Bread

While I was up tending the smoking pork butt recently, I baked some bread, made some mozzarella, and made this bread.

It’s kind of cake more than bread, but since it was baked in a loaf pan, I guess that allows the “bread” designation.

My recipe is based on a lemon bread recipe I found in the King Arthur Flour 200th Anniversary Cookbook.  I made a few changes, and next time I make it I have a few other changes to make as well.

But here’s what I did this first time around:

Backyard Fireworks

Fireworks are now legal in RI – I think that happened last year or the year before.  Or, anyway, SOME fireworks are legal.  But anyway, the kids gave Bill some fireworks for Father’s Day, and the other night, he set some of them off in the driveway.

Garden Pictures

Regularly scheduled posting will resume shortly.  (The rest of the bacon-related posts.)

For now…a few shots I took the other morning, during the whole overnight smoked pork butt and other food-making extravaganza.

The Fog is Lifting

Most of yesterday is a blur.

I’d had great plans to continue posting about the whole overnight pulled pork adventure, but it got harder for me to form coherent thoughts after a while, and so I gave up.

Bill got up around five thirty and made coffee, and I went downstairs to sit on the couch – just to get off my feet for a little bit – he brought me a big mug of coffee, and I fell asleep without even taking a sip.

The Pork Butt Smokes at Midnight

Well, it smokes at one a.m., anyway.

Yep,  it’s the middle of the night, and I’ve just put a 9+ pound pork butt in the smoker.  It should be done around twelve hours from now.  Lunchtime tomorrow.  Or, actually, lunchtime much later today.

My husband thinks I’m nuts.

Scratchy

Who’s a cute boy?

(Don’t worry – more bacon posts coming.  And craziness.)

Homemade Smoked Mozzarella

When my husband got home from work yesterday I told him “I am SO cool!”  And to prove it, I showed him what I’d done.

Actually, I wasn’t quite this far along when he got home – the cheese was still in the smoker.

But wait, I’m getting ahead of myself.

Bacon, Interrupted

I’m interrupting my own bacon series today to bring you something equally cool – smoked cheese.

Stay tuned…

Making Bacon – Step Two - Smoking

If you missed part one, head over here to see what’s going on…Making Bacon – Step One – Curing

Just like we experimented with two cures – one with maple syrup added, one without – we also experimented with two smoking methods – hot and cold.

Hot smoke is faster, cold smoke…isn’t.  But cold smoke seems more authentic, somehow.  You know, like people would have done it back in the olden days.

Making Bacon – Step One – Curing

I cooked jonnycakes and bacon for breakfast for Bill yesterday (Father’s Day) and I think that triggered the need to write about our experiences in making bacon.  We made bacon twice last year, and we’ll definitely be making more this summer. 

Why?  Because it’s cool.

The Bacon Posts are Long Overdue

It’s about time I wrote about making bacon.

We’ve done it twice now, and we’ll do it again this summer, because it’s yummy, and it’s cool to be able to make your own stuff.

That’s why we make lots of our own stuff – bread, cheese (well, working on expanding that, but still…), beer, we grow lots of plants, we can things and pickle things and make sauerkraut and kimchee…there’s probably more, but you get the idea. 

So yes, last year, two times, we made bacon.

And I took pictures, and meant to write about it, but the giant Painting The House Ourselves project took over, and then other things came up, and I just kept not doing it.

That has to stop.  And stop now.

So stay tuned…the Makin Bacon Saga will begin shortly….

Thank You, Dad, For Not Poking My Eye With the Scissors That Day

When I was in the first or second grade I rode the bus home from school.

I was a very shy child – I remember being terrified going to Nursery School for the first, oh, 180 days – and so when a fight broke out between two boys in the seat in front of mine on the bus that day, and the boys were hitting each other with their metal lunchboxes, I just sat quietly in my seat, you know, like you’re supposed to.

And when one of those lunchboxes (this all happened within seconds – the bus driver did, in fact, intervene, but she probably had to pull the bus over safely to the side of the road first because we didn’t have bus monitors riding shotgun back then) hit me right between the eyes, I did my very brave best not to cry and make a scene, because I didn’t want all that potential attention.

School Play

When my nephew was very little – two or three, I think – one of his favorite stories was “Jack and the Beanstalk.”  I remember reading it to him over.  And over and over.  Andoverandoverandoverandover.

“A-den!”

“Again?”

“A-den!!”

A lot.

I kind of grew a bit tired of that one.  And Little Red Riding Hood, too.  And the Three Little Pigs.

Well, this morning I got to revisit those stories, plus a couple more.

Pulled Pork Tamales

Bill made pulled pork not too long ago, and we had about 2 cups’ worth of the meat left in the freezer.  (Odd as it may seem, there’s only so many pulled pork sandwiches we can eat over the course of a week.)

Anyway, this was the first week in May, and I decided to make tamales for Cinco de Mayo.  I thought it would be a fun group project for the kids and me.  Bill had to work late, and so I figured it would be a nice surprise for him, too.

And since I had some pulled pork in the freezer, why not use that for the filling?

Why not, indeed!

Mozzarella with Natalie and Mozzarella with Basil

Yesterday afternoon the kids and I went to my sister’s house.  I was helping Natalie with a cooking project for school, and after we did that, I showed her how to make mozzarella! 

Crashing on the Sand

Sometimes when I’m driving around I’ll write parts of posts in my head.  Or I’ll have conversations with various people, either as a rehearsal or as a “if only I’d said it THIS way” rewind kind of thing.  Sometimes I have conversations with myself.  Sometimes the conversations I think I’m having in my head with other people are, really, just more conversations with myself.  Because, after all, the words coming from the “other” people in my head are really just me with a different voice.

Sometimes I wish they’d all – me included – shut up.

So there’s that.

Garden Slaw

When I asked Alex what he wanted besides ribs for his birthday dinner, he asked for curly french fries (I bought them frozen and then totally forgot to bake them that night.  Ah well – we had them at lunch the next day.) and some cole slaw “so you and Daddy have something that you won’t have to share.”  He’s not a fan of slaw – particularly any mayo-based versions.  But that’s okay – it was his birthday.  I wasn’t about to force anything on him.  And I knew his main focus would be the ribs anyway.

So I decided to make a slaw using whatever we could to pull from the garden.

7 Hour Ribs

“It’s an awesome pork bone with smoked meat and a little sprinkle of Heaven.” – Alex Maker, age 9

Alex’s top two favorite meals are sushi and ribs.  I’m not sure which is #1 – I think it changes periodically.  Right now, I’d bet it’s the ribs.

Becoming Frogs

This is the oldest one.

We’ve concluded that because he/she has pretty much lost the tail entirely and looks most like a teeny tiny real frog.

Isn’t it cute???

Garden Pictures

Years ago I used to watch CBS Sunday Morning with Charles Kuralt.  (He wasn’t at my house watching it – he was the host.)  I loved the show for its varied stories – long pieces, compared to sound bites on news programs.  The show was always interesting, informative, sometimes fun, sometimes sad.  There were reviews, done by that guy whose name I can’t think of at the moment – I loved his way with words, though…and then, for the last few minutes of the program, there was silence.

Well, an absence of human voices, which is about the same thing, in my opinion.

The camera would pan across a vast prairie, for instance, and all you would hear would be the rush of the wind…distant birds…the ssshhhhhhhhhh of leaves.  Such a lovely, peaceful way to close a program.

I don’t have audio, so there are no sounds of nature for you…but here are some pictures from my gardens…and I’ll shut up now, too.

Strawberry Shortcake with Rhubarb Sauce

My mother used to make me strawberry shortcake for breakfast on my birthday when I was a kid.  My birthday is in early July, which was at the end of strawberry season around here, but no matter – if she couldn’t get ripe local berries, she’d buy what was available and macerate them in some sugar for a while before making the shortcake.

I also remember that sometimes instead of the traditional biscuit, she’d get those spongy yellow mini-cakes (you can find them near the strawberries in most grocery stores this time of year).  I loved those little cakes.  Light and fluffy, they reminded me of another childhood favorite – Twinkies.  Yep.  Twinkies.  I think my introduction to those has been blamed on my paternal grandfather. 

But I digress….

We’re Up to Ten Legs!

Yep, two of our tadpoles have front legs now – I bet the other guy will sprout them by tomorrow.  It happens so quickly!

One day they’re just little blobs and the next minute – teeny tiny froglets!

Sniff…they grow up so fast!

6.10.2011 at 5:51 pm

Pretty ominous, huh?

Today was cloudy on and off, but these clouds didn’t seem interested in leaving.

Bill and Alex were playing catch and Julia might have been in the pool. 

A few minutes after I took this, enormous fat raindrops fell quickly and only for a short time. 

And that was the end of it.

“And Next Year I’ll Be TEN!”

He thinks it’s funny to say that.

Probably because I glare at him and tell him to shut up.  And we’re not supposed to tell people to shut up in this house, so I don’t know if he delights in the fact that I actually SAY that or because he knows it is torturous to imagine him in double digits.

Nine. 

Freakin’ NINE, this boy of mine.

Yesterday, he looked like this:

Salmon Omelet with Homemade Feta and Chives

I’ve been on an omelet kick lately.  Or a scrambled-eggs-with-stuff-mixed-in kick.  This morning my eggs and additions took omelet form.

Here’s what I used:

From the top right – two eggs, some leftover grilled salmon (wild caught, Alaskan), chives from the garden, and homemade Feta from last week’s cheesemakingpalooza.  Okay, I guess I didn’t make enough cheeses for it to qualify as a “palooza,” but I made four kinds.  And one was Feta.  (The short-term version, fyi.)

Anyway, back to breakfast…

Our Trio of Tadpoles – Now With More Legs!

Time for breakfast, little tadpoles!  Are they still tadpoles once they get hind legs?  Yep – I just looked it up.  They remain tadpoles (or polliwogs) until they’ve got all their legs, their lungs have developed, and their tails are disappearing.  Then they’re called froglets.  I can’t wait til we can refer to them that way – it’s cute.

Here’s what we’ve been feeding them – lettuce.  Bits of lettuce (organic, from the garden – nothing but the best for our tadpoles!) that have been frozen (to break down the cell structure) and then chopped up into little bits.  They thaw at this point and get all mushy. 

Posting Was Delayed Today Because I Finally Decided to Fix My Dishwasher

My name is Scratchy, and I will be no help at all in this story.

At some point within the past year, our dishwasher started leaking.

Neither Bill nor I have plumbing or electrical skillz, really, besides knowing how to shut off breaker switches and press "play" on the stereo or "start" on the stove.

Okay, we're not that useless, but still, we're not pros.

And the bad thing about that is that pros generally cost money.

Money we'd rather spend on cooler things like pressure canners or skiis.

And I said, months and months ago, that I'd rather just hand wash the dishes than pay someone gobs of money to fix the thing!  Besides, maybe I could figure out how to fix it myself!

And time has gone on and on and on and on...and I'm finally sick of washing the dishes - all the dishes - by hand.

Little Visitor

It’s the baby bunny again!

A Few Recent Meals, Courtesy of Our Garden, Farmers Markets, and Other Local Sources

Baby Bella Mushrooms stuffed with Ricotta, Fresh Herbs, and More Mushrooms.

I love being able to throw together dishes like these.  I have no real recipes for any of them; no measurements, quantities or times.  I just had a garden, a recent trip to the Farmers market, some homemade cheeses, and a few other ingredients – mostly local.  And a hungry family.

Viewing Our Land

Those (above) are blossoms on one of our potato plants.  I’m very excited about our potatoes this year – several varieties and they’re growing well.

I’m posting the pictures I took this morning as Bill and I walked around the yard and looked at what’s growing.  We do this on weekend mornings right now, and once school lets out, it will become part of our nearly-daily morning routine.

Pea Pod Pickin’

First harvest!

So, this morning Bill and Julia went out to pick peas.

It’s Got Leg

Fascination

That was Softie this morning, staring at the tadpoles….

Peonies

I think these have become my favorite flower.

Irises used to be my favorites, and I still love them…but these peonies have climbed a little higher over the years.

These peonies in particular.  We’ve got these, and we’ve got dark pink ones that have slightly smaller blossoms.  Both had grown in Bill’s mom’s yard, and when she passed away, they were among the plants we brought to our gardens.

Bill Junior

Got his tie on and his morning cup of coffee.

One more sip and then it’s time to head to work.

“Hey, you – sit down and be quiet over there!”

It’s not easy being a teacher, you know.

Dipping into Tortilla Chips

Four kinds. 

From the top left – Plain, Black Sesame, 4C&G, and Thai Red Curry.

You know how sometimes when you’re experimenting in the kitchen and things are just SO easy and SO much fun that you want to keep playing around for hours and hours and hours?

That’s the kind of fun I had making these chips.