More Bacon

Made another batch of bacon. One sweet and one savory.

Post cure bacon, Savory (left), Sweet (right) Post Smoke Bacon, Savory (bottom), (Sweet top)

Sweet

• 2.12 lbs pork bellie
• 1/4 cup Dry cure (includes sodium nitrite, salt and sugar)
• 2/3s of 1/4 cup Maple sugar
• 2/3s of 1/4 cup of brown sugar (not compressed)

Savory

• 1.71 lbs pork bellie
• 35g Dry Cure (added a table spoon a few days later)
• 2 smashed garlic cloves (size of my pinkie tip)
• 2 crushed bay leaves
• black pepper

Put the bellies in separate Ziploc bags with the listed ingredients and let them cure in the refrigerator for 10 days. They didn’t seem to lose  as much water and get as firm as my first Bacon endeavor. I smoked them for 2 hours at 200-225F using alder wood chips to an internal temperature of 150F. I added less smoke this time around.

The smaller Savory Bacon was very salty, though I had tried a piece from the smaller, thinner side. It was not releasing any water so I thought I had not added enough cure so I had added more. I could also taste the pepper, but not the garlic or the bay. Maybe a different section will have more of those flavors.

The sweet bacon tasted really good, not too sweet. I think for my first sweet bacon I had added too much sugar.

The pork bellie was from Western beef so It might not have been as good as the first pork bellie from Fairway Market.

Skin side – Looks great, like a piece of mahogany wood hand rubbed with Tung oil. I trim off the skin and discard it , but I should be making my own Fried Pork Rinds. This time I left more fat on the bacon when trimming off the skin.

Half Year Post

Summer is here, feels like August. Went to the beach this morning with the dog. The breeze felt great, but the sun was too hot, should have worn a hat, though I’m not a hat guy.

Nelly Moser Clematis – received from a friend, didn’t bloom last year. This is the second bloom this year. I guess it earned its keep. Day lily – Tang Sunburst* (In Memory of Gramps) We have 2 big patches of these. Coreopsis – It wants to take over, but it is easy to pull up the portions you don’t want. We had a pink variety, but it didn’t come back one year. There is a strong variety in white, but I’ve been told it is very boring.Lavender – We also have a pink version, but it looks washed out and not very special.Pink Lavender – I may move it somewhere it might show up better or put it in a planter. Roses – Something Cool Pink*, from the same friend as the Clematis. Sedum – not my favorite family of plants, but serve their purpose of allowing me to skip watering the front garden.Campanula – in a trough    Hydrangea Something from the Mum family, thought it was Chrysanthemum parthenium, but this doesn’t have a yellow center. I think we did at one time have Chrysanthemum parthenium, but no longer. This here I think is a weed, but it grows in a neglected spot and adds some color.Leontopodium alpinum – Edelweiss, it is well established and keeps coming back each year. Maybe I’ll try to divide it this year.  * – more made up plant names

Garden Tool Carrier

It is finally done, it turned out pretty good, though the ends are not quite perfect. So I will plan to keep my day job (I hope). Next, the garden fountain? A very productive weekend. Number 1 disappointment, Fairway did not have pork bellie so no homemade bacon.

Size: O.D. 14 3/4 “ L x 8” W x 9” T, I.D. 13 3/4” L x 7.5” W x 4” T

Parts:

1 – rubber covered extruded aluminum handle (dumpster treasure from Bell Labs days, I knew I saved it all these years for something)

2 – 4” x 14 3/4” side pieces, oak (reclaimed from dresser drawers)

2 – 7.5” x 9“ end pieces, oak, Drunken Gothic Arch shape

1 – 1/4“ hardware cloth, 10” x 19” (metal screen base)

4 – inside corner brackets for the screen base

4 – oak strips for the screen base

14 – 1” x 6 brass round head screws (6 screws hold the screen base in place)

14 – brass brads

Notice I did not include any end on pictures.

I also put some polyurethane on it (after the photos) to protect the wood in case I forget to bring it in out of the weather. OOOO I can’t wait to use it.

Peony

The Peony bed, once they die back, there are hostas, a red twig dogwood, Russian sage and later in the fall cyclamen to take their place. Earlier in the season there were Lilly of the valley and English bluebells. Double red Double whitePaeonia x ‘ Bowl of Beauty’, a hybrid (that’s what the x means)

Double Pink Sensation*Campenula – This one is in the garden and blooming, a sibling from the same original plant is in a trough (below) and not blooming yet, though they are just 3 feet apart. I lost the tag so don’t know the full name.Science experiment - aka I had no room in the veggie beds for more tomatoes. Proof that I actually started my Non-Dirt Accumulating Garden Tool Carrier as I claimed I did. It could double as a soil sifter or a Koi katcher.Espaliered tree, that I found sprouting in my backyard. We’ll see how it progresses. The witch-hazel that I bought to Espalier is doing well but, I don’t yet know how it wants to be trained.Ever vigilant watch dog, guarding me from evil. And by evil I mean crazy people. And by crazy people I mean a particular crazy person. And by a particular crazy person I mean to imply that there is someone who does crazy stuff, blames me for all the ills of the world and lives in the same country as I do. * my made up name I used for the Pink Peony

May Already

Hard to believe, but it is May. Almost half a year gone. This past week I have been listening to Big Audio Dynamite, E=MC2, The Globe, Medicine Show and Rush to name just a few. Big Audio Dynamite features a lot of sampling, dance beats and Mick Jones of The Clash. This is typical for me, I’ll get stuck on a song or group for awhile and then give someone else a turn. I guess I just have a wide range of musical interests and just about everything else too. If I could focus on just one area… My friend Frank, yes Big Frank was into Big Audio Dynamite for awhile. A reunion of BAD may be possible in 2011 says Mick Jones, if so I would love to go, since I never got to see The Clash, one of my favorite bands.

I started on a small garden tool box, it will be made of oak with a hardware cloth bottom so dirt doesn’t accumulate in it, will hold most of our hand tools and my purple twine. Maybe I’ll finish it up this week.

Enough about me, here are the Flowers of May so far. Some snuck up on me, I didn’t realize they had bloomed till I went out to take pictures of the garden. Star of Bethleham (Ornithogalum umbellatum) – well contained where I have it, slightly weed like. It can be invasive. I didn’t plant it, it just showed up.Azalea – it came with the house. I keep it well trimmed and always expect it to disappear.The troughs, with new alpines in the front.The new lewisia, it’s a dwarf versionAn older lewisia, sorry more mature.the new dwarf Coral bell for a trough – I didn’t know there were dwarf varieties. fairy Foxglove ( Erinus Alpinus ) in a trough. Siskiyou evening primrose, spreads pretty quickly.A little rose my sister gave us long ago. Spiderwort blue bearded iris Dianthus family, planted along the wall of the front steps. There are 3 – 4 of them and now they share the location with some small rose bushes a friend gave us.