Sunday I cooked up a slice of the "Newsom's Old Mill Store Hickory Smoked Country Bacon" for Chris who promptly swooned under it's influence. He even went so far as to try and lock me in my shed so as to get the rest of the bacon. I served the rest as a desert after dinner to several members of my family. all who tried it liked it (yes some people refused to try it).
This morning I cooked up a batch of "Dan Philips Special Brown Sugar Hickory Smoked Country Bacon". My initial reaction was one of a let down. I may have over cooked it a little, and mixed with eggs and toast, didn't allow the full flavor to come through.. Kathi reported it wasn't her favorite, and tasted sour. I thought it was very salty. However just a few minutes ago I cooked up a small batch for tasting purposes.
Here is The grateful palates description:
Artisan: Gatton Farms
Tasting Notes: This is my own, secret, private cure. Only Charlie Gatton and I know the recipe. I set out to custom design the perfect bacon and I think this is it. It has an incredible balance between sweet, hammy pork flavors and salty, savory flavors. The flavors are intense and the meat is succulent. A bold new bacon that stands up and says 'Eat me!'
My review:
This bacon is not as heavily smoked as the previous review, but it is definitely more smoked than your run-o-the mill bacon. one thing I have noticed with these Bacon's (so far) is that when cooked they shrink but they do not curl. Thus making for even cooking. anyways... This bacon has a nice smoked flavor, the ham flavor is more apparent then the previous bacon. The bacon is sweeter than the previous but I would not be able to identify the sweetness as coming from brown sugar. The bacon is salty and the saltiness varies with the width of the bacon. The narrow sections of the bacon are very salty and the wider ends are more sweat. This bacon is slightly more chewy than the first one. Personally I would expect a bacon with the words "Brown Sugar" to have a prevalent brown sugar/molasses taste which it does not. At times the hickory flavor explodes from the bacon and other times it is not as strong. All in all a good bacon.
11/11/2008
11/06/2008
Bacon Tasting Part I
Having become disenchanted with the bacon I can buy from the store, and accidentally stumbling on the website www.gratefulpalate.com while checking out an article listed on www.fark.com, I decided to check out some of the bacon's listed in the article. The bacon I ordered were rather pricey, ranging from $10.00 to $15.00 per pound. I ordered the following bacon:
Dan Philips Special Brown Sugar Hickory Smoked Country Bacon
Newsom's Old Mill Store Hickory Smoked Country Bacon
Tripp Country Ham-Country Bacon Brown Sugar Cured
Nodine's Smokehouse Double Smoked Bacon
J. Samuel Whiting Bacon
I received the Bacon in 2 days, it came in a silver pouch made of padded bubble wrap and a single Ice pack. I was a little worried as it arrived at room temerature, a quick email to The grateful palate confirmed what I pretty much knew. Since the bacon is cured and smoked it would be fine.
The First bacon I tried was "Newsom's Old Mill Store Hickory Smoked Country Bacon".
The websites description is as follows...
"Tasting Notes: Sweet, salty, lovely, delicate powerful like an iron fist in a velvet glove, the kind of bacon to write odes and sonnets about. Silk, silk, silk. Like a virgin bacon eater, touched for the very first time. Life begins with Newsome's bacon."
At the time I tried this bacon I did not know which one it was (no label), I had to contact the The Grateful Palate to get a list of what I ordered.
Upon opening the package the smell of hickory smoke wafted over me, encircling me like an anaconda ready to constrict. I cooked the bacon as recommended, on low heat in a frying pan. The hickory smoke smell was absolutely intoxicating. I am a big fan of smoked meats and barbecue (I have a smoker), so I knew I would be in for a treat. The bacon wasn't as wide as most bacon and cut to about 1/8 inch thick. I noticed that unlike cheap bacon there was no buildup of water on the uncooked side of the bacon, as a result when the bacon was turned over it did not splatter and throw grease everywhere. The bacon cooked up golden brown. I took my first bite and was nearly overcome with a feeling of pure smoked bacon ecstasy (I think I saw God), each bite invoked an image of camping. The smoke flavor was very strong, the bacon was salty and tender, with just a hint of creosote (not always a bad thing). I detected only a slight hint of sweetness. The smoke flavor lingered for a long time after eating it. WOW, I can never go back to the cheap stuff again.
continued in part II
Dan Philips Special Brown Sugar Hickory Smoked Country Bacon
Newsom's Old Mill Store Hickory Smoked Country Bacon
Tripp Country Ham-Country Bacon Brown Sugar Cured
Nodine's Smokehouse Double Smoked Bacon
J. Samuel Whiting Bacon
I received the Bacon in 2 days, it came in a silver pouch made of padded bubble wrap and a single Ice pack. I was a little worried as it arrived at room temerature, a quick email to The grateful palate confirmed what I pretty much knew. Since the bacon is cured and smoked it would be fine.
The First bacon I tried was "Newsom's Old Mill Store Hickory Smoked Country Bacon".
The websites description is as follows...
"Tasting Notes: Sweet, salty, lovely, delicate powerful like an iron fist in a velvet glove, the kind of bacon to write odes and sonnets about. Silk, silk, silk. Like a virgin bacon eater, touched for the very first time. Life begins with Newsome's bacon."
At the time I tried this bacon I did not know which one it was (no label), I had to contact the The Grateful Palate to get a list of what I ordered.
Upon opening the package the smell of hickory smoke wafted over me, encircling me like an anaconda ready to constrict. I cooked the bacon as recommended, on low heat in a frying pan. The hickory smoke smell was absolutely intoxicating. I am a big fan of smoked meats and barbecue (I have a smoker), so I knew I would be in for a treat. The bacon wasn't as wide as most bacon and cut to about 1/8 inch thick. I noticed that unlike cheap bacon there was no buildup of water on the uncooked side of the bacon, as a result when the bacon was turned over it did not splatter and throw grease everywhere. The bacon cooked up golden brown. I took my first bite and was nearly overcome with a feeling of pure smoked bacon ecstasy (I think I saw God), each bite invoked an image of camping. The smoke flavor was very strong, the bacon was salty and tender, with just a hint of creosote (not always a bad thing). I detected only a slight hint of sweetness. The smoke flavor lingered for a long time after eating it. WOW, I can never go back to the cheap stuff again.
continued in part II
11/02/2008
Kathi Carpe Cyprinus carpio
Back in October Kathi and I were going to take a weeks vacation at Woods Canyon Lake. Due to her Mothers illness, that didn't happen (I'm not bitter). In preparation for this, (among other things) Kathi bought a state fishing license, so she could try fishing, and help me catch some crayfish, (must have a state license for this) on the trip we didn't take (I'm not bitter).
Now that summer is FINALLY coming to an end. We have had a couple of weekends that were rather cool. The first weekend we went out Kathi (who hasn't fished in almost 20 years) in her excitement at getting a bite, either nearly ripped the fishes lips off, or (if she had hooked one) would have launched it across the park. So needless to say (though she got some bites) she did not succeed in her efforts to land a fish. On that Trip I caught 3 Carp. I do not remember if Chris caught anything.
The next trip was not much better, I think I caught one, and Kathi caught none. I think Chris caught one.
On this trip I caught a small Bass using a rattle trap (on my second cast) which I released.
Kathi insisted on taking my picture with it.
The real fun began when after about an hour of waiting, Kathi got a bite, I could tell right away it was a pretty good sized one. At first she started to panic because it was putting up quite a fight, I told her to set the hook and she did without hurling it's lips across the park. Then she said "aren't you going to help me?", no! (if you want credit for it you have to reel it in). Her drag wasn't set quite right so I reached over and modified it so the fish could get some slack without getting off the hook. The fight only lasted a few minutes with Kathi saying "I don't want it to be mad at me" (she feared it would come out of the water cussing and bite her). Once she got it close to shore, Chris was able to get it in a net. It weighed 7.5 pounds. In order to get a picture of it and her, I gave her some rubberized gloved and she went to pick it up, causing it to start flapping about, which caused Kathi to make a weird freakout noise. I took her picture,
and she released it (again making a weird scream). We stayed for about another hour, we would have stayed longer but it started getting hot. No one else caught anything.
Now that summer is FINALLY coming to an end. We have had a couple of weekends that were rather cool. The first weekend we went out Kathi (who hasn't fished in almost 20 years) in her excitement at getting a bite, either nearly ripped the fishes lips off, or (if she had hooked one) would have launched it across the park. So needless to say (though she got some bites) she did not succeed in her efforts to land a fish. On that Trip I caught 3 Carp. I do not remember if Chris caught anything.
The next trip was not much better, I think I caught one, and Kathi caught none. I think Chris caught one.
On this trip I caught a small Bass using a rattle trap (on my second cast) which I released.
Kathi insisted on taking my picture with it.The real fun began when after about an hour of waiting, Kathi got a bite, I could tell right away it was a pretty good sized one. At first she started to panic because it was putting up quite a fight, I told her to set the hook and she did without hurling it's lips across the park. Then she said "aren't you going to help me?", no! (if you want credit for it you have to reel it in). Her drag wasn't set quite right so I reached over and modified it so the fish could get some slack without getting off the hook. The fight only lasted a few minutes with Kathi saying "I don't want it to be mad at me" (she feared it would come out of the water cussing and bite her). Once she got it close to shore, Chris was able to get it in a net. It weighed 7.5 pounds. In order to get a picture of it and her, I gave her some rubberized gloved and she went to pick it up, causing it to start flapping about, which caused Kathi to make a weird freakout noise. I took her picture,
and she released it (again making a weird scream). We stayed for about another hour, we would have stayed longer but it started getting hot. No one else caught anything.
9/08/2008
Aspersing Asparagus
Some of you may or may not know that Kathi was recently diagnosed "Insulin resistant". She was told to eat healthier and exercise. So in an attempt at expanding our diet and to eat "healthier" we have been experimenting with Asparagus.
Mind you this was not something we were looking forward to as we both had experiences with this so called vegetable when we were younger and neither of us has really touched it since. In my case my mother made me eat it when I was very young and I nearly barfed. Several months ago while at Karen's house she served Asparagus, and taking a "no thank you" serving I tried it and pronounced it "edible" (this had nothing to do with Karen or her recipe).
To ease us into this I looked up some recipes that we might possibly be able to tolerate.
First up was Rachel Ray's Bacon Wrapped Asparagus (what can go wrong with a recipe that includes BACON).
This is pretty simple, coat several sprigs of asparagus with extra virgin olive oil and pepper, wrap with bacon and bake or grill.
First impression:
There was practically no flavor from the asparagus. The asparagus did not taste like bacon, and the bacon did not taste like asparagus. Asparagus taste like.... asparagus. The closest thing to it would be a mixture of grass and very, very, very...... very mild broccoli.
Next up Alton Browns asparagus and mushroom risotto.
I never had risotto before, it takes a rather long time to make.
First Impression:
Once again "is there asparagus in this?" The risotto was pretty good but next time I will leave out the white wine, asparagus, and lemon zest. The portobello mushrooms were extremely good.
and finally pasta salad with portobello mushrooms, grape tomatoes, and asparagus. This is a Paula Dean recipe.
First impression:
What's the point of putting asparagus in this? The recipe as written was pretty bland. I had to spice it up with some zesty Italian dressing and extra red wine vinegar. The salad otherwise was very good, next time I will add some red bell peppers, cucumber and feta cheese (leaving out the asparagus).
Conclusions:
If asparagus is put in front of me in the future I will eat it, but I won't go out of my way to use it. It's relatively expensive and brings nothing to the recipes it is put in. Asparagus is boring and bland. How my mother made it taste terrible I will never know. Like zucchini recipes, asparagus recipes were invented to dispose of the offending item with out actually throwing it away.
It does have one interesting side effect....
Mind you this was not something we were looking forward to as we both had experiences with this so called vegetable when we were younger and neither of us has really touched it since. In my case my mother made me eat it when I was very young and I nearly barfed. Several months ago while at Karen's house she served Asparagus, and taking a "no thank you" serving I tried it and pronounced it "edible" (this had nothing to do with Karen or her recipe).
To ease us into this I looked up some recipes that we might possibly be able to tolerate.
First up was Rachel Ray's Bacon Wrapped Asparagus (what can go wrong with a recipe that includes BACON).
This is pretty simple, coat several sprigs of asparagus with extra virgin olive oil and pepper, wrap with bacon and bake or grill.
First impression:
There was practically no flavor from the asparagus. The asparagus did not taste like bacon, and the bacon did not taste like asparagus. Asparagus taste like.... asparagus. The closest thing to it would be a mixture of grass and very, very, very...... very mild broccoli.
Next up Alton Browns asparagus and mushroom risotto.
I never had risotto before, it takes a rather long time to make.
First Impression:
Once again "is there asparagus in this?" The risotto was pretty good but next time I will leave out the white wine, asparagus, and lemon zest. The portobello mushrooms were extremely good.
and finally pasta salad with portobello mushrooms, grape tomatoes, and asparagus. This is a Paula Dean recipe.
First impression:
What's the point of putting asparagus in this? The recipe as written was pretty bland. I had to spice it up with some zesty Italian dressing and extra red wine vinegar. The salad otherwise was very good, next time I will add some red bell peppers, cucumber and feta cheese (leaving out the asparagus).
Conclusions:
If asparagus is put in front of me in the future I will eat it, but I won't go out of my way to use it. It's relatively expensive and brings nothing to the recipes it is put in. Asparagus is boring and bland. How my mother made it taste terrible I will never know. Like zucchini recipes, asparagus recipes were invented to dispose of the offending item with out actually throwing it away.
It does have one interesting side effect....
9/04/2008
Time to Photoshop
I'm bored....
Eric's Shop of Horrors.Hey... What do you want for 20 minutes of work.
Eric and the holy Grail!Yeah... Yeah... Another 20 minutes.
American Pie anyone?OK, I'll stop now.
8/29/2008
THE GREAT STORM OF 2008
Queue ominous music....
Last night here in Phoenix at about 21:30 a couple of huge storm rolled through the valley. Winds were measured at 85 to 90 miles per hour (officially) and at 100 mph (unofficially). The first storm passed just barely to the south of us and dropped 1/2 inch hail. It also knocked several branches off of our pine tree in the front yard.
Our power went out for about a half an hour. When power came back on I checked out the Weather channel and found that another storm was heading right for us. We went to bed and the second storm hit some time after I went to sleep. It knocked out power again at some point. I got up arround 00:00 and called SRP they were aware of the outage. I went back to bed. I had a 700 watt inverter connected to a truck battery to power a fan so I could sleep. At around 05:00 I woke up again and power was still out. I called SRP again and they said power would be out until about noon. I got up and deployed my 3000 watt Coleman generator (you do have one as well, right???). I used it to keep our Refrigerator and freezer working. I also broke out the new 1200 watt 2 stroke camping generator and used that to power our TV so I could see what was going on in the world.
I drove around to see some of the damage. I found trees down everywhere.
7th street between Oak and Camelback was hit the hardest with multiple poles down in the street.
Plus all the signs over the suicide lane were blown at a 45 degree angle.
Some time around 9:30 the power came back on.
Kill ominous music...
Last night here in Phoenix at about 21:30 a couple of huge storm rolled through the valley. Winds were measured at 85 to 90 miles per hour (officially) and at 100 mph (unofficially). The first storm passed just barely to the south of us and dropped 1/2 inch hail. It also knocked several branches off of our pine tree in the front yard.
Our power went out for about a half an hour. When power came back on I checked out the Weather channel and found that another storm was heading right for us. We went to bed and the second storm hit some time after I went to sleep. It knocked out power again at some point. I got up arround 00:00 and called SRP they were aware of the outage. I went back to bed. I had a 700 watt inverter connected to a truck battery to power a fan so I could sleep. At around 05:00 I woke up again and power was still out. I called SRP again and they said power would be out until about noon. I got up and deployed my 3000 watt Coleman generator (you do have one as well, right???). I used it to keep our Refrigerator and freezer working. I also broke out the new 1200 watt 2 stroke camping generator and used that to power our TV so I could see what was going on in the world.I drove around to see some of the damage. I found trees down everywhere.
7th street between Oak and Camelback was hit the hardest with multiple poles down in the street.
Plus all the signs over the suicide lane were blown at a 45 degree angle.
Some time around 9:30 the power came back on.Kill ominous music...
8/19/2008
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
