Who Doesn't Love Bacon?

Crazy people, that's who!

Well it's been about a year since I've updated this blog! In that year we've gone from two babies to three, upped our production of rabbits and much, much more. I solemnly swear to get better at this blogging thing...and now that I've made my apologies, let me make it up to you, dear readers! Today, I'm going to talk to you about something that everyone loves: Pork. Specifically, homestead cured and smoked, all natural bacon.

So, to get into it! We butchered hogs a while back and I had about 200 pounds of pork in the chest freezer. Only one thing to do now, let's say it together: MAKE BACON!

The first thing to do, of course, is thaw your pork bellies in the refrigerator. When the belly is thawed, give it a good rinse, pat it dry and marvel at the gorgeous chunk of meat you are about to handle:

Go ahead and take a moment to gaze into its perfect fattiness....yes yesss, here's a closer look:

That is nice, is it not? Now that you want it (BAD!) let's chop it in to pieces that are easier to cure and, later, hang and smoke:

My first belly sliced into four perfect pieces. Now that we have manageable pieces of belly, let's prepare our curing agents. I have been around bacon-making but have never done it alone with my own bellies before. So I decided to go with a basic dry cure...the usual suspects you'll find in many a recipe. Tried and true:

                                                               1C kosher salt
                                                      3/4C Organic Brown Sugar
                                                                3TBS Thyme
                                                        1TBS Fresh Black Pepper
                                                              1TBS Coriander

The Coriander is just because I put at least a little bit of curry in everything. Yeah, just about everything. It's good, try it...just start sprinkling it in everything you cook. Anyway, it gets to looking like this when you mix it up:

Next, rub it all over the pork!  Always be generous with your bellies, you need lots of salt rubbed in there to suck out the moisture in the meat and generous amounts of everything else for good flavor, so have at it! It will look something like this when you are done:

 Now, stack it in the fridge in the bins and let it sit for about a week, making sure you turn it over once a day so that as the pool of juices seeping out of the meat begins to form, you do not have it sitting in juice on one side and not the other. NOTE: Use plastic or glass for dry curing meat, NOT metal.

These bins were super cheap at Market Basket and fit perfectly right where I wanted to keep them, so that is excellent. A couple of days into curing, the bellies are starting to feel firm and are looking (and smelling!) fantastic!

The recipe for the curing ingredients gave me a good amount more than I needed..so I saved the extras and every other day would rub a bit more into the slabs.

On day six, they are looking very nice:

After seven full days of curing, I'm getting antsy to start smoking them. They are just as I think they are supposed to be...feeling firm, turning a lovely shade and showing a nice collection of juices in the bottom of the dish they are curing in. The next step will be smoking them in our brand new smokehouse that we've been killing ourselves to make! Intrigued? Stay tuned.... ;)