Test Kitchen: Day 3 (Homemade Bacon)

"Pip Pip and good day chaps. I'm Mr. Bone, brand new ambassador for bone broth. Fear no bone mates, you have nothing to gain but health and welly! Now back to the MVJ Diaries. Cheerio!"

Bahahah, don't you love Mr.Bone? He's so cute. You haven't seen the last of that saucy Brit, I can promise you!

Busy busy busy in the test kitchen....Bone Broth round 2. The first thing I did after a very needed sleep in was examine my bone broth. I was slightly horrified to realize the water level had dropped so low. I mean it's good because it's nice and concentrated but bad because I have less actual volume of liquid and this level was still with the bones in it. For future batches when I remove the veggies at the 24 hour mark (I found that this is my method rather than throwing them in later I put them in at the start then fish them out after 24 hours) I will add more water then instead of around the 30 hour mark

Since the level was so low I wanted to see what state the bones were in...they were in a very very good state. This knife went in rather easy.

I let the bone cool and I was able to flake the bone off with my finger nail. SUCCESS! I was totally in position to do what I was unable to do last time...

I fished out the huge shank bone...no dice...it was still freaking rock hard and scalding hot but I noticed the marrow was still clinging to the inside so I grabbed tongs and turned the bone over to let the marrow slide out which slide out in a long 6 inch intact piece. So I fished it out an took a picture...just for you. It is the circular tan tube on the left. I dropped that fantastic-ness back in the pot although admittedly I was tempted to take a bite.

The bones were soft enough to do what I was too much of a vagina to do last time, which was blend the bones in a high powered blender...*PLEASE ONLY DO THIS IS A VITAMIX OR BLENDTEC FOR THE LOVE OF MR.BONE!* or just smash 'em with a hammer for the truly low-tech, free workout way.

Bones ready for take off. I'll admit, I was kinda terrified and have totally junked up my expensive camera with animal products

I put the lid on, flexed my yoga biceps and ran the longest cycle. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. Bone mash after 35 seconds.

A better look at the bone mash or bone slurry that technology gave me. Thank you progress for high powered appliances.

Licked clean?

Next up...Zeee BA-CON! After slow roasting last night, then cooling, then getting a luxurious one night stay in Hotel Frigidaire he was ready to FINALLY be cooked and nomed. This bacon is 100% made by me. Only sea salt and a pinch of garlic powder went into this belly. I started this bacon last Monday.

Time to slice it up...THICK CUT FOR YOUR BUTT! (bahaha...EMT I love you)

Fry it up. With all the busy-ness in the test kitchen I didn't really make myself a proper breakfast and I was out of bone broth so no normal morning but I had a hard boiled egg and a glass of homemade almond milk with about 2 tbsps of cold pressed organic virgin flax seed oil it to hold me over until the bacony goodness. I am pretty sure that oil is not compliant so I am trying to finish up as much as I can before Saturday. Here it is in the shaker cup before shaking. After shaking I just pound it or else the oil and milk separate quick. Cold pressed flax seed oil was the very first supplement I ever took over 10 years ago. I like it. I used to eat it mixed into Greek yogurt. It has a kind of nutty taste. It is only good in the fridge after opened for 4 weeks and it is not for heat cooking.

Bacon cooking...my cast iron seems to smoke a lot. I am not sure if I am doing something wrong but I have no hood fan and the world's most sensitive smoke detector so back to the non-stick for now.

 The beautiful perfect, finished product *cue angel music* Soooooo good... salty, fatty, crunchy with a slight pork taste that is covered up by sugar and fake maple flavor in store bought products.

Sliced up and ready for the freezer (since it's not smoked, it needs to be frozen. From my research I am under the impression that smoked bacon can be stored in the fridge once sliced. Correct me if I am wrong meat lovers! I love knowledge.)

The bone broth was a success. I strained the meat but it had a more granular texture from going through the blender....sooooo...if the bone broth isn't mega gelatinous I won't do the blender trick again because I am not big on the grainy-ness on the meat. That meat is a large portion of my meat intake for the week and I don't want to have to just choke it down.

These were the larger chunks that were not quiet as grainy. This stuff I will eat with breakfast. The other stuff I have ideas of pate and meatloaf floating in my head.

The hollow shank. The batch went for just over 48 hours and all the other bones broke down but not the shank. I am curious to know how long it would take it to fully beak down (possible experiment)

CONFESSION: I ate bones. All the small bits of bone were soft. The crumbled like a cheap candy when pressure was applied. I tried a small piece, then a bigger piece and it wasn't as awful as one would assume. Slightly granular and it kinda sticks in your teeth but not utterly revolting. Not that I would sit down with a bowl of boiled bones but I had to try it.

Also just a quick article on "canola" oil...there is no such thing as canola, "canola" is a made up word that was made up because heavily processed rapeseed oil just wasn't selling. I have lived in Canada for damn near my whole life and most of that information was new to me (I found out about the rancid oil and deodorizing about a month ago...disgusting!) And the fact that it basically looks like the Canadian government strong armed the FDA into giving it the GRAS (generally recognized as safe) certification even though there are no long term studies...TERRIFYING!

READ HERE    "canola"

Test Kitchen: Day 2

More weird and funky things coming out of the test kitchen because it's frigid here and all I want to do is stay toasty and make yummy foods. Look at all the buildings running their heat. I didn't even go outside yesterday.

Breakfast prep...ramekins greased with tallow

Broth warming

I lined the bottom with ox tail meat

Then a layer of zucchini and spaghetti squash

Homemade bbq and more meat because a gal can never have too much meat.

Eggs cracked on top of the lot and in the Breville

Precious drink ready to go

Eggs after about 20 minutes. I am still figuring out the fine nuances of the Breville. Me thinks the convection should not have been on but whatevs.

While the eggs cooled a little I mixed more oxtail with the homemade bbq sauce for dinner.

Breakfast... since my avocados weren't ripe so I quickly chugged a glass of homemade almond milk with about 2 tbsps of cold pressed flax seed oil shaken up (no pic sorry!). Easy, yummy omega 3 and good fats. I personally need a lot of fat protein and veggie carbs in morning to set me up properly for the day and of course the bone broth.

With the egg mixed in

Lunch...I am really bad for eating half my meal while I am prepping the half. What you don't see was celery loaded with half a can of tuna and homemade mayo the way you make ants on a log. I ate 3 of those while making the other half of my lunch which you do see. The lone leftover burger with bbq sauce and mayo and huge salad with homemade dressing (raw apple cider vinegar, extra light evoo and some weird brown compliant mustard all shaken together)

Check out my cute new travel mug. It's the kiddie mug from David's Tea (you NEED to know about David's Tea...my savior after I gave up coffee. If you don't have a brick and mortar, check em out online) I heart this mug, it's my new hot room cup since I totally demolished my old one I bought only 2 months ago. I am rough on to-go cups.

 FINALLY! Homemade bacon. Apologies for the lighting in the test kitchen, it is awful AND the fixture is in a really weird spot so it casts shadows from almost every angle. This friends is homemade bacon. Uncured pork belly from the Asian grocery store, rubbed in sea salt and a tiny pinch of garlic powder and left to brine in the fridge for a week.

I was unaware I was suppposed to slice the skin off BEFORE the brine step, so I just cut it off after. These pictures make it look awful and it doesn't help that it gets dark at like 4pm here. I tried my best not too cut off too much fat and to not cut into the flesh. I think I did an ok job for the first time and it was cold and slippery as hell.

Bacon and a the removed skin.

Once the belly was doing it's slow bake I was left with the skin and what to do with it. I basically don't throw anything out anymore (almond pulp got made into awesome almond flour, squash seeds saved and roasted) pig skin apparently makes delicious cracklings. I read on the web for about 15 minutes about lots of confusing methods on how to make them one involved a hair dryer...no effing way was I doing that. So I cut up most of em into small squares and cooked em in the cast iron until my smoke detector went off and then I threw them in the Breville with the 2 small strips I put in there to see how they would do.

This is the end product. The end product was delicious. Crunchy, kinda chewy, salty and a little greasy...basically heaven. I got 2 small pieces before the beasts literally devoured the rest. Add pork skin to the list of stuff that was going to go in the garbage but ended up being awesome. That yellow thing is fluff from the towel I put them on to dry...please remove fluff before eating.

Time to start dinner...I riced up a quick bit of cauliflower for fried "rice" to go with the "pulled" oxtail I mixed up in the am.

Dinner...fried "rice", pulled oxtail with homemade bbq sauce and leftover spaghetti squash and chives because I'm fancy.

Lots more goodness in the test kitchen as the bacon has to get sliced and cooked, the bone broth will be done soon and other things!

Bone Broth

Yup, I won't mince words or rant on flowery about the past ummm like 2 months I will just give you a taste of where I am at now. And where I am at now is making my own bone broth. I choose to blame A.C for all of this. Bone broth is a paleo staple...not sure about paleo?...Google friends!

I stole the base of my method from www.nomnompaleo.com She is a paleo kitchen ninja and I am in awe, but I am pretty bad ass in the kitchen so after about 4 days of obsessive reading I headed to the sweet Asian grocery store to pick up all the stuff I would need (and to check out their selection of coconut goods). I left the camera at home but they had the some of the freshest meat I have ever seen. The best bones for making bone broth are marrow bones, joint bones and cartlidge rich things like chickens feet, pork hooves...basically any animal feet...and ox tail..which, doesn't actually come from an ox, it it is just what they call the tail meat. I grabbed some beef ox tail and a crap ton of pork neck bones which were the only other bones they had.

For feces and chuckles and because I needed bay leaves I went to the regular old chain grocery store by my house and asked the butcher man for bones, he left and came back with 2 huge chunks of beef shank...that'll do butcher man, that'll do. I took my bones and my old bones home to start my boney old experiment. Here is the "official" recipe in case you are mad lazy like I know I can be all the time sometimes. I hacked it a little to my own tastes but it's not far off the original

* 2 carrots, chopped...not too big, not too small >I used one big one<
* 2 celery stalks (no leaves!), chop again
* 1 white onion, chopped >I chopped it large so it would be easy to fish out, onions and me are kinda iffy<
* 9 cloves of garlic, chopped >I used 5 and just lightly squished them with the back of the knife so they would remain whole for the same reason as the onions<
* 3.5lbs of beef bones >I used beef ox tail, beef shank and pork neck bones... mixing mammals is fine but I personally wouldn't mix birds and other animals based on my readings and the meatier the bones the more flavor<
* 2 bay leaves
* pinch of kosher salt >I did this, some say not to as the salt concentrates when you boil it, I found the amount I added to be perfect and I personally think it should be slightly salty<
* 2 tbsps apple cider vinegar >Don't skip this, the vinegar draws the minerals out of the bones...and use any old acid you have on hand if you don't have acv...white vinegar or lemon juice should work<
* 10 peppercorns...I read this somewhere else so I added those in too even though it wasn't in the original recipe

(forewarning...I am not, nor will I ever be a food blogger)

Ox tail is not actually the tail of an ox

Meaty pork neck bones purchased from what A.C calls "the bone store"

SHANKS!!

The shanks were frozen the ox tail and neck bones were fresh, I mixed em both not sure if that is "kosher" but I friggin' did it!

Ooooo boney goodness you will be mine!

These are the ox tails, I think they are super cute for some reason (Mom are you grossed out yet?)

"Whatchu lookin' at?"

Cartlidge and bone! I had a great mix of bones

Just a note...it is super gross to handle bones then an expensive ass camera, I am leaving the food blogging to the experts.

Put the chopped veggies in first, then bay leaves, salt, peppercorn, drizzle vinegar over bones and cover with water and set the crock pot on low and walk away for like a couple days.

This is the meaty slurry stage. I have to admit that I had read that the smell might be a bit funky while cooking but all I experienced was a lovely rich smell, almost like gravy.

Scummies are normal and will not be in your end product

Now for some notes....recommendations for adding the veggies later if you plan on doing a very extended simmer (like a couple days) otherwise the veggies boiling too long can make it bitter. I put my veggies in at the beginning and removed them after 24 hours. Which bring me to my second point, I had planned on smashing up the bones at the 24 mark to release more boney goodness but they were just too hard! So I picked out the veggies gave it a poke and a stir and put the lid back on for another 7 hours. I started it on Monday morning and it was done by Tuesday night. Just watch your water level, it shouldn't get too low but if it does add more water. I also didn't roast my bones before hand which I will do next time to impart more flavor into the broth although it is plenty flavourful without the roasting if you want to be lazy efficient.

I strained the broth through a fine mesh strainer. I separated the bones from the meat which was incredibly soft and tender like melt in your mouth pulled pork and beef. I saved the meat and tossed the bones (some people save the bones for reuse which you can do). I put it in a non-porous, non-metallic container with a tight fitting lid and popped it in the fridge overnight for the fat to rise to the top and harden. I was giddy waiting for the final results

I was not expecting the ripple like meat jello waves but I fear no bone broth...WARNING, prepare barf bags if you fear jiggly boiled bone goodness.

I dug in with a spoon and it was pure boney meat jello goodness...a total success!

I scooped off the tallow (fat) because I stored most of the broth in the freezer. If you don't freeze it, don't skim the fat off, the fat is protecting your precious brown gold from creepies.

 Tallow for cooking, no way would I throw this out. I fear I am going to use it all before I have a chance to render it.

 My delicious brew all ready for the freezer

 

I purposely left a few of the little chunks of fat in the broth for extra yummy...it alllllllmost looks like honey here

Hard work and a lost art form. For thousands of years our species ate and thrived on this nourishing liquid which tastes like amazingly savory, umami-ish and has the consistency when hot or warm of a nice thick canned coconut milk...I believe "creamy" was the first word I used. It feels so comforting to drink it, no joke!

So yeah...bone broth....that just happened in my kitchen and it is awesome. I so badly want the husbie to try this, bone broth has amazing health benefits INCLUDING ahem ladies...an impact on stretch marks and cellulite! So drink up.