On the Garden Path at 5~Acre Farm: Is It Bacon Day? (Homer Simpson)

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Is It Bacon Day? (Homer Simpson)

"Life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables smelled as good as bacon." ~ Doug Larson

My sister and her son are coming for a visit today. They live an hour-and-a-half away from Five Acre Farm, and they come to spend the day with us about once a month. It's their chance to spend time with our father, whose been living with me and John since my mother passed away in August, 2010. We usually spend the day catching up on things, sharing a meal, and watching a movie together before they head back home. Pretty sedate, but not too boring! In honor of their visit, I'm making Bacon Scones for breakfast, and BLTs for lunch.

My sister has become a true bacon fanatic in recent years. I've delighted in hearing her stories of discovering things like bacon chewing gum, bacon lollipops, and bacon scented air fresheners, among other (bacon-ey) things. So, for Christmas I decided to pick up the bacon challenge. I made my sister a variety of bacon food gifts.

There was the expected chocolate covered bacon, which I kicked up a bit with sea salt and/or chopped pecans. Then there were the bacon sugar cookies, which had a deliciously smokey flavor! Also, bacon cheese biscuits, and (her new favorite) candied bacon. The candied bacon was really the star of the show. Absolutely decadently delicious! And then, I covered some of it with chocolate! I'd never made any of these things before, but I found them surprising easy to accomplish.

My dad loves bacon too! Since he moved in with us a year and a half ago, I've cooked more bacon than I've consumed in my whole life! Don't get me wrong! I also love bacon, but it's the greasy mess cooking it makes that I can't stand. I absolutely won't cook bacon on the stove! Grease goes everywhere! Yuck! So, for my dad's sake, I had to find a way to cook bacon without all the grease. For a while I was cooking it in the microwave buried in thick layers of paper towels. No grease, but I ran out of paper towels too often. Now, I'm still cooking bacon in the microwave, but I'm using one of those bacon racks that lifts the bacon up out of the grease. I lay a piece of wax paper over it and the grease is pretty much contained.

I try not to serve bacon more than twice a month, but my dad keeps asking for it. When I mention the challenge to good health that bacon is, he reminds me that he's almost 85 years old and it really doesn't matter any more. I give in, and give him bacon, but I do try to limit how much John and I are eating.

What's your relationship with bacon? Have you ever tried any strange bacon-oddities? What do you think?

On a side note, I love the story behind this bacon rack. The little girl in the picture invented it. Then, a big copy cat company stole it from her. With determination and patent in-hand, the girl and her father fought to get it back, and after several years, they won! I always root for the underdog!

Candied Bacon

1 package thick sliced bacon

Brown Sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.

Lay the bacon out on the parchment covered baking sheet. It’s okay to pack the bacon close, but not overlapping.

Cover the bacon with the brown sugar, covering each piece completely (about 2 tsp per slice).

Bake for 15 minutes. Remove baking sheet from oven. Turn bacon over, dragging it through the now-liquid sugar. Put the baking tray back in the oven and continue cooking for another 15 minutes, or until you are satisfied with the color of the bacon.

Bacon should be dark, almost a mahogany color.

Remove bacon from pan and let cool on a wire rack.

Bacon will stiffen as it cools.

This candied bacon can be eaten as is, covered in melted chocolate, or chopped and added to biscuit mix or cookie mix.

1 comment:

parkerplace@gmaildotcomFebruary 4, 2012 at 5:55 PM
This stuff is awesome! And it's not too sweet. It's almost as if the bacon and brown sugar were meant for each other, like kitchen soul mates.
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John and Michelle, and 5 Acre Farm

How We Came To Be

John was born and raised in Georgia by parents who lived incredible lives of their own, and passed on to John a rich family history from both sides. He was a die hard Boy Scout, and later, spent 17 years as a Troop Leader. He earned a dual Agriculture/Agricultural Engineering degree at ABAC in Tipton, where he also started the college's radio station. After college, John served on nuclear submarines in the Navy, where he once saved the lives of his shipmates, and, rumor has it, did many incredible things in the service of our country. He married and had a family, and after the Navy, worked briefly with the EPA before opening his own HVAC-Refrigeration company. John was inventive as a child, and that carried over into everything in his life. He is a fixer of severe mechanical problems, and an inventor of all kinds of things that improve on or simplify existing machinery, equipment, and ideas. His inventions are unique, and some of them may some day aide humanity, save lives, and save our planet if we can get the right people to listen.

My dad was career Army. I was born in France, and introduced, at a very young age, to the Virginia countryside, where we raised rabbits and chickens. After dad retired, we moved to North Carolina, his home state, where we spent many years on the coast, near Wilmington. Here, we had a garden, raised cows, pigs, chickens, and ducks, and fished commercially. Our freezer was always full of fresh Spot and shrimp, and oyster roasts were a weekly event! As a young adult I lived with my family in the mountains south of Asheville. Here too we had a garden, raised cows, pigs, chickens, and ducks, as well as geese and peacocks. I worked for many years with an arts council, Christian organizations, and other non-profits. I helped train missionaries, researched/wrote grants, produced professional documents, edited newsletters, and wrote a lot of publicity materials. I already had two Associate degrees, but in my late 30s I finally completed an undergraduate degree in English/Art History. For 20 years I was active in community theater, sang solos with a community choir, and danced with a show choir. Treasured memories! I moved to Georgia in late 1998, and married my first husband in 2002. I was 45. Eighteen months later, I was widowed.

John and I first met in 2000. After I was widowed, and John was divorced, we found each other again. Of like minds, spirits, and goals, our hearts came together quickly, and we married in 2005. Each of us has undergone Elijah House training, and we were both ordained into ministry in 2006. I have been a Christian counselor and prayer warrior for probably 30 years. John and I live to put God first in our lives, and in our dreams for this small piece of earth of which we are the caretakers.

We call our place "5 Acre Farm." John's father took this barren, overworked field from a larger parcel of farmland in the mid-70s. He fenced off about three-quarters of an acre for the house, and added plants, flowers, and trees. Elsewhere, he transformed the property through years of hard work, adding an apple orchard, peach trees, pears, two fig orchards, grape vines, and a greenhouse. John and I have been trying to continue his father's work on this land, adding to it with our own hopes and dreams, and our late-in-life efforts. Not a day goes by that I don't feel great respect for John's father, for the man he was, for the work he did here, and gratitude for the bounty we reap because of his hard work.

John and I are in our 50s, just starting life together, but with age and health trying to work against us. We aren't ready to sit down and take it easy. We have a goal to become self-sufficient by growing our own food (meat and vegetables), and getting off the grid. The challenges we face in doing this are age, health, and finances. John's inventiveness is being strongly applied, as is my gift for budget stretching and frugality. Our strength? The love we have for each other, and the trust that we are working inside the will of God.

One of the things we ask ourselves now and then is this: "Is it worth it?" I never had children. John's son has set his own path with family and career. There does not seem to be anyone we can leave this property to who will continue the work and the dream; one of John's grandchildren, perhaps, but they are very young right now, and do not yet notice or care.

So, is it worth it (all the work and expense) if there is every chance this land will end up in the hands of developers after we're gone? Well, our answer to that question so far is always "Yes, it's worth it." It's worth it to us, because of what we are accomplishing here in our lifetime. It's worth it because what we grow here we share with family, with friends, and with our community. And not just what we grow, but our faith and philosophy, our hopes and dreams, and our very desire to leave at least our little part of the world better than it was when we found it. We are living - consciously, and deliberately - a lifestyle that expresses who we are and what we believe. Does anybody care? Why don't read our blog, leave a comment, and let us know.