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sarea
I've heard of making the most of your living space, but these really take the cake!
Well, here, a Boeing engineer has created a condo with three living levels -- with 182 square foot of space. THAT'S RIGHT. You have to see it for yourself. The Seattle Times has a slideshow of the place. Again, totally admire the form/function/preciseness, but could not live that way. I like the bathroom, though.
Then there's this architect in Hong Kong, which is like a less-spacious New York City. People live on top of each other. Anyway, he has a 344 square foot apartment -- I know, gargantuan compared to the other guy, right? Except he lives with his parents AND sisters. WTF? So what did this awesomely talented and creative person do? He created a sliding wall system to transform the space into 24 different room options. !!!!!!!!!! Seriously. It blows the mind.
I really, really admire the ingenuity, economy and beauty behind these tiny homes. There's part of me that definitely understands wanting everything to have its place, and to maximize the most of what you have. BUT I also think that I would suffer from claustrophobia in the first one, and in the other I'd probably simply get too lazy to move anything around, and end up having my bed lowered 99% of the time.
OK now flist, steel your arteries. I finally got off my duff and have pictures of the bacon and other stuff that I've made recently. It's not for the faint of heart. I knowelle_blessing was particularly interested in the bacon because of the massive quantities of it that are consumed in her house. :))
The Bacon
Let's start with the bacon. Homemade bacon is insanely good. Not only does it taste better than store bought bacon, it's also healthier for you because you can cure it without using sodium nitrates. I said healthiER, ok. Not healthy. >.> It's also really easy to make. However, while others will say that the smoking step is optional, I don't think it really is. It's what gives bacon that distinctive flavor. So if you're going to make bacon at home, I think you need a smoker. Also, strictly speaking, a meat slicer is not necessary. After all, if you have a knife, you can slice a slab of bacon. But, again, imho you need a meat slicer -- it's the only way you'll get it as thin as store bought bacon and make really uniform strips. So there you go. It does require a little investment, but if you love bacon and/or eat a lot of it, I think it's worth it.
First you start with these beauties: pork bellies. That's right, there's 3 of them. What? If you're going to make homemade bacon you might as well make the effort worthwhile! You want about 5 pounds of pork belly.
Make a wet cure. I used 1/4 cup of packed brown sugar, 1/4 cup honey (or maple syrup), and 1/4 cup of kosher salt. This slightly sweeter cure is good for breakfast bacon. If you want to use sodium nitrate (aka pink salt) for extra protection against botulism, go for it, I won't judge you much. Mix the cure ingredients together until well blended. Put the pork bellies into heavy duty freezer Ziploc bags so that they're not stacked on top of each other. (I used 2 bags.) Rub the cure all over the bellies. It might seize at first, but as you keep rubbing the cure will soften and stick to the bellies. Release as much air out of the bags as possible, then seal them. Every other day, flip the bags over so that the curing liquid gets evenly distributed. And yes, there will be liquid. The curing process is basically drawing as much liquid out of the meat as possible so that it will keep. As the days pass, you can check the bellies' firmness... as the water draws out they'll get firmer and firmer. Do this for about 7 days, give or take. They're ready when the bellies feel very firm at the thickest point.
At the end of the 7 days, rinse off all the cure and pat the pork bellies dry with a paper towel. They'll look something like this:
Some would say that at this point, you have bacon. You can slice it and fry it, and I'm sure it would taste pretty dang good. But for me, true bacon requires another step.
Put the cured bellies on a tray and store them in the refrigerator for another half day or so, uncovered. This will help dry off any remaining moisture, and the meat will feel tacky when you touch it. This will help the smoke stick.
Prepare your smoker. Smoke the bellies (unstacked, so it might require doing it twice, as mine did) at 200°F for about 2 hours, until a thermometer inserted at the thickest part reads 150°F. Once it's smoked, it might look like this:
Slice off the skin while it's hot, leaving as much fat on the bacon as possible. (You can make the skin into delicious pork crackling.) NOW it's bacon. Taste some of it off the side -- it's OK, you've earned it, and it's fully cooked now. You can hand slice it at this point or bust out your meat slicer and make those thin slices. Here was my final haul:
Though you can't tell as well from this particular photo, my bacon wasn't red/pink like supermarket bacon. It looked like cooked pork. That's because in addition to its preservative function, sodium nitrate also gives the meat a nice, attractive red color. And of course, I didn't use that. Once you fry it up, though, it just looks like regular bacon. I like my bacon on the burnt side. :D
Commercial bacon is pumped full of water, so when you cook it, the bacon shrinks. Homemade bacon shrinks very little, if at all. I froze most of it once I sliced it up, in 'packs' of 8. Once I unfreeze a pack, I'll eat it as quickly as possible because this bacon doesn't have the preservative power of sodium nitrate. It just has deliciousness!
Since I had the bacon, and I have an ongoing love affair with mushrooms, I decided to make a bacon & mushroom stroganoff. Because I also have a love affair going on with beef stroganoff, but I didn't have beef, I had bacon.
The Bacon & Mushroom Stroganoff
Normally I'd serve it over pasta, but I had leftover rice so I ate it with that instead. That was quite good too.
Also, here's the olive oil & maple granola and garlic bread I was talking about the other day:
The Granola
The Garlic Bread
And FINALLY, because I have not traumatized your arteries enough, I made some butter. (In reality, butter is actually good for you, in moderate quantities. It is certainly better imho than putting chemicals in your body with the fake stuff.) I love making butter at home. It's so flipping easy. If you have access to heavy whipping cream, you can (and should) make your own butter. If you already do this, I am not directing this to you. You have obviously already been blessed.
The Butter
This is sweet cream butter, the kind that's most common in the U.S. Cultured/European-style butter is on my list of things to make, but I don't have the bacteria culture that I've ordered yet, so sweet cream butter it is.
Get your heavy whipping cream, preferably organic. You can make a small amount of butter using a pint, or just go for the gusto like I did and use a quart. Why the hell not.
There are several methods you can use. A food processor, a stand mixer, or just a Ball canning jar, tightly sealed, and shake the heck out of it. (A guy on my foodie list at work said that his mother used to put a marble in a jar with heavy cream and told him to shake it until he couldn't hear the marble anymore. Brilliant use of child labor.)
I used my stand mixer. You know how to make whipped cream, right? Just put the heavy cream in a big bowl and whip and whip and whip. Keep going. You'll hear the changes in the sound of the beater as the cream goes through the different stages. After whipped cream is like, curdled-looking cream. You're well on your way now. Very quickly after that, all this trauma happens on the molecular level and the fat globules are separated from the buttermilk and start clumping together. And that's when you get this awesomeness:
Butter... and buttermilk!! Watch it carefully after the curdled-cream stage because when the fat separation occurs it happens pretty suddenly, and you'll want to slow down your mixer asap so the buttermilk doesn't splash everywhere. Keep beating the butter a bit longer to squeeze more of that buttermilk out. Pour as much of it as you can out into a separate container. Do NOT throw it away. It's not sour like commercial buttermilk, it's sweet and lovely, and you can use it to make pancakes, waffles, etc. Anywhere you'd use whole milk or buttermilk.
OK, so now you've got this leaky clump of butter. You want to get as much buttermilk out of it as possible, or it'll go rancid more easily. Fill a bowl with really cold water, as cold as your hands can stand. Knead your clump of butter in that water. It'll get cloudy. Dump that water out and fill it again, then knead. Keep doing this until the water is clear.
(At this point, you can also add salt to make salted butter -- 1/2 tsp for every 4 ounces -- or add dried herbs to make herb butter.)
JUST THE BUTTER NOW:
Now you've got room temperature butter. EAT SOME. Spread it on toast or some crackers. That is your reward for all this difficult (haha) work.
I separated my ball of butter into 3 portions of ~4oz each (the weight of a stick of butter) and wrapped them in wax paper. Two got placed in the freezer (homemade butter freezes just as well as commercial butter) and one got put in the fridge for eatin'. I'm still deciding (with anticipation) what I'll do with the buttermilk.
Well, here, a Boeing engineer has created a condo with three living levels -- with 182 square foot of space. THAT'S RIGHT. You have to see it for yourself. The Seattle Times has a slideshow of the place. Again, totally admire the form/function/preciseness, but could not live that way. I like the bathroom, though.
Then there's this architect in Hong Kong, which is like a less-spacious New York City. People live on top of each other. Anyway, he has a 344 square foot apartment -- I know, gargantuan compared to the other guy, right? Except he lives with his parents AND sisters. WTF? So what did this awesomely talented and creative person do? He created a sliding wall system to transform the space into 24 different room options. !!!!!!!!!! Seriously. It blows the mind.
I really, really admire the ingenuity, economy and beauty behind these tiny homes. There's part of me that definitely understands wanting everything to have its place, and to maximize the most of what you have. BUT I also think that I would suffer from claustrophobia in the first one, and in the other I'd probably simply get too lazy to move anything around, and end up having my bed lowered 99% of the time.
OK now flist, steel your arteries. I finally got off my duff and have pictures of the bacon and other stuff that I've made recently. It's not for the faint of heart. I know
elle_blessing was particularly interested in the bacon because of the massive quantities of it that are consumed in her house. :))The Bacon
Let's start with the bacon. Homemade bacon is insanely good. Not only does it taste better than store bought bacon, it's also healthier for you because you can cure it without using sodium nitrates. I said healthiER, ok. Not healthy. >.> It's also really easy to make. However, while others will say that the smoking step is optional, I don't think it really is. It's what gives bacon that distinctive flavor. So if you're going to make bacon at home, I think you need a smoker. Also, strictly speaking, a meat slicer is not necessary. After all, if you have a knife, you can slice a slab of bacon. But, again, imho you need a meat slicer -- it's the only way you'll get it as thin as store bought bacon and make really uniform strips. So there you go. It does require a little investment, but if you love bacon and/or eat a lot of it, I think it's worth it.
First you start with these beauties: pork bellies. That's right, there's 3 of them. What? If you're going to make homemade bacon you might as well make the effort worthwhile! You want about 5 pounds of pork belly.
Make a wet cure. I used 1/4 cup of packed brown sugar, 1/4 cup honey (or maple syrup), and 1/4 cup of kosher salt. This slightly sweeter cure is good for breakfast bacon. If you want to use sodium nitrate (aka pink salt) for extra protection against botulism, go for it, I won't judge you
At the end of the 7 days, rinse off all the cure and pat the pork bellies dry with a paper towel. They'll look something like this:
Some would say that at this point, you have bacon. You can slice it and fry it, and I'm sure it would taste pretty dang good. But for me, true bacon requires another step.
Put the cured bellies on a tray and store them in the refrigerator for another half day or so, uncovered. This will help dry off any remaining moisture, and the meat will feel tacky when you touch it. This will help the smoke stick.
Prepare your smoker. Smoke the bellies (unstacked, so it might require doing it twice, as mine did) at 200°F for about 2 hours, until a thermometer inserted at the thickest part reads 150°F. Once it's smoked, it might look like this:
Slice off the skin while it's hot, leaving as much fat on the bacon as possible. (You can make the skin into delicious pork crackling.) NOW it's bacon. Taste some of it off the side -- it's OK, you've earned it, and it's fully cooked now. You can hand slice it at this point or bust out your meat slicer and make those thin slices. Here was my final haul:
Though you can't tell as well from this particular photo, my bacon wasn't red/pink like supermarket bacon. It looked like cooked pork. That's because in addition to its preservative function, sodium nitrate also gives the meat a nice, attractive red color. And of course, I didn't use that. Once you fry it up, though, it just looks like regular bacon. I like my bacon on the burnt side. :D
Commercial bacon is pumped full of water, so when you cook it, the bacon shrinks. Homemade bacon shrinks very little, if at all. I froze most of it once I sliced it up, in 'packs' of 8. Once I unfreeze a pack, I'll eat it as quickly as possible because this bacon doesn't have the preservative power of sodium nitrate. It just has deliciousness!
Since I had the bacon, and I have an ongoing love affair with mushrooms, I decided to make a bacon & mushroom stroganoff. Because I also have a love affair going on with beef stroganoff, but I didn't have beef, I had bacon.
The Bacon & Mushroom Stroganoff
Normally I'd serve it over pasta, but I had leftover rice so I ate it with that instead. That was quite good too.
Also, here's the olive oil & maple granola and garlic bread I was talking about the other day:
The Granola
The Garlic Bread
And FINALLY, because I have not traumatized your arteries enough, I made some butter. (In reality, butter is actually good for you, in moderate quantities. It is certainly better imho than putting chemicals in your body with the fake stuff.) I love making butter at home. It's so flipping easy. If you have access to heavy whipping cream, you can (and should) make your own butter. If you already do this, I am not directing this to you. You have obviously already been blessed.
The Butter
This is sweet cream butter, the kind that's most common in the U.S. Cultured/European-style butter is on my list of things to make, but I don't have the bacteria culture that I've ordered yet, so sweet cream butter it is.
Get your heavy whipping cream, preferably organic. You can make a small amount of butter using a pint, or just go for the gusto like I did and use a quart. Why the hell not.
There are several methods you can use. A food processor, a stand mixer, or just a Ball canning jar, tightly sealed, and shake the heck out of it. (A guy on my foodie list at work said that his mother used to put a marble in a jar with heavy cream and told him to shake it until he couldn't hear the marble anymore. Brilliant use of child labor.)
I used my stand mixer. You know how to make whipped cream, right? Just put the heavy cream in a big bowl and whip and whip and whip. Keep going. You'll hear the changes in the sound of the beater as the cream goes through the different stages. After whipped cream is like, curdled-looking cream. You're well on your way now. Very quickly after that, all this trauma happens on the molecular level and the fat globules are separated from the buttermilk and start clumping together. And that's when you get this awesomeness:
Butter... and buttermilk!! Watch it carefully after the curdled-cream stage because when the fat separation occurs it happens pretty suddenly, and you'll want to slow down your mixer asap so the buttermilk doesn't splash everywhere. Keep beating the butter a bit longer to squeeze more of that buttermilk out. Pour as much of it as you can out into a separate container. Do NOT throw it away. It's not sour like commercial buttermilk, it's sweet and lovely, and you can use it to make pancakes, waffles, etc. Anywhere you'd use whole milk or buttermilk.
OK, so now you've got this leaky clump of butter. You want to get as much buttermilk out of it as possible, or it'll go rancid more easily. Fill a bowl with really cold water, as cold as your hands can stand. Knead your clump of butter in that water. It'll get cloudy. Dump that water out and fill it again, then knead. Keep doing this until the water is clear.
(At this point, you can also add salt to make salted butter -- 1/2 tsp for every 4 ounces -- or add dried herbs to make herb butter.)
JUST THE BUTTER NOW:
Now you've got room temperature butter. EAT SOME. Spread it on toast or some crackers. That is your reward for all this difficult (haha) work.
I separated my ball of butter into 3 portions of ~4oz each (the weight of a stick of butter) and wrapped them in wax paper. Two got placed in the freezer (homemade butter freezes just as well as commercial butter) and one got put in the fridge for eatin'. I'm still deciding (with anticipation) what I'll do with the buttermilk.
