Bacon and Eggs - New Twist for Me

I have been writing about our Whole 30 Journey for almost three weeks, and how surprising it has been in some ways (see Redefining Our Relationship with Food). One of the surprises is that while the food tastes good, it has lost some of its zest. Well…not anymore thanks to homemade bacon!!

That is right, I made it myself. The meat guy at Whole Foods overheard me telling Colson that we couldn’t buy bacon because of the sugar and he directed us over to the prepackaged section with the pork bellies that he just received because someone else wanted sugar-free bacon. I had heard about making my own bacon with pork bellies, but I hadn’t quite gotten a handle on it - I was kind of scared of what a pork belly looked like. Well, it looks like a big brick of bacon. Yay!

I quickly bought three pounds (stage 4 on the Whole Foods animal welfare scale), sliced it up, soaked it in some water and Celtic sea salt for about an hour, and fried it. Double Yay!! It was the best bacon ever, and no sugar to deal with!

Soaking for an hour isn’t the official way to wet cure bacon, and we aren’t going to dry cure it either. My one hour way was quick and effective and now my official way (although I may try an official wet cure.) The seasoning options will be fun to play with too. The final really cool feature is that these three pounds of bacon cost us just over $4. So much for the $10 a pound I was paying for honey cured bacon, which was inferior. Ha! Next I need to see how much my local, grass-fed pork farmer will charge me.

Now for the eggs. This is a bit of a rant against store bought eggs. I haven’t bought eggs from the store in almost four years, only purchasing from local farmers, with my premier farmer not feeding soy (victory!). Last week I had to purchase eggs from a store because I forgot to purchase extra for our camping trip.

What a tough and disappointing purchasing decision. They were scrawny, expensive and from Texas! How fresh could they be? Even though they were organic from Organic Valley farms, the yolks couldn’t stand up to the eggs that I normally purchase from a local farmer: pastured, non-soy fed, eggs from bug eating chickens.

And the size…for the price…blew my mind. Most people are experiencing rising food prices, but my local farmers have not had to raise their prices, thank goodness.

Here are a few pictures for comparison. The white eggs are from my local farmer. I know the third picture with the cute boy’s eye in the picture doesn’t show much comparison, but hey, he is cute and he is mine!

 

Comments

[Schelli Whitehouse]

Great article Laura, I can't wait to try and make my own bacon! I'm making pork carnitas tomorrow.

So glad I saw your blog on the Wackies board!

[Laura Combs]

Thank you for reading, Schelli! Pork Carnitas...yum!

[Noel]

Hi Laura!
I'll have to try this suggestion b/c my son loves bacon. (I am allergic : ( )
My tip for you is to bake it -- so easy!
My dad learned this technique from a restaurant -- line a pan with foil, then wax paper (or maybe use silicone? or parchment???. Bake bacon on top rack at 400 deg. for.... I think 30 minutes. Not totally sure about the time.
just fyi -- I find cooking a good quantity of bacon tedious and time consuming.
Thanks for this post. : ) Noel

[Laura Combs]

Rock on, Noel! Thank you! I will definitely be baking it next time. YUM!

[erin]

Another good deal at Whole Foods--I buy "Fish Chunks and Medalions" in the seafood department. It's the leftover pieces of fish from when they cut their fillets. The pieces are still a decent size and $5.99/lb verses sometimes $18.00/lb! I just got grouper chunks yesterday and breaded them in egg, freshly ground flax seed, parsley, garlic powder s&p. Baked them in the oven. I served them with turnip root fries. I got rave reviews even from my in-laws who eat a very SADiet. :-)

[erin]

Oh-I can't wait to try making this bacon!

[Laura Combs]

Great to know!

Also, there is a fish store in Cary that sell NC fish - very fresh. Snapper is most expensive at $6.00 a pound. It has been excellent! Amazing NC shrimp at $6 a pound too.