Excerpt – Life, love, and cooking

Enjoy!

March 10th – Bacon fat

Today’s society has brought a new font of knowledge on the topics of saturated fats. While looking back in the era of our grandparents cooking some of us may remember the old tin can or glass jar where the drippings of the breakfast bacon would go. As a fat it holds itself much to a use like butter, solid at room temperature.

Cook your bacon in the pan on medium heat making sure to drain the fat after every other batch. Before you get the third batch going take your wire mesh strainer and pour the fat from the pan in to the strainer with the can waiting underneath. The strainer will remove the extra shards of bacon still left in the fat.

Due to the amount of salt in the bacon you will have a lot of salt in the drippings. This was the reason why some people would have the can out because so much salt can act as a preservative. Even if this is the case I keep mine in the fridge so that way there is less chance of accidental spills. Even though it is technically a solid at room temperature that does not mean it is a rigid solid. It will be a little softer then room temperature butter if you need something to associate it to.

Collecting, straining, and storing fat aside what would be some things you would want to use it with. The answer stands anywhere you want a savory fat to be heated. It can be added to warm sauces, used in replacement for oil in sautes as well as stir fry’s.

Wash some potatoes and cut them in to rings a half inch thick dry them off before warming your bacon fat in a pan to medium heat. Drop your slices of potato in to the fat and let them cook until they get a good coloration before flipping. As soon as the second side is finished let dry on a paper towel before sprinkling with old bay seasoning for a tasty snack.

Beef and bell peppers over rice

For this you will need the following for ten portions heaped over rice. This is a dish that holds well in the fridge and can be eaten as is or over rice or noodles. When my friends or myself are feeling a little under the weather we eat a bowl of this. It can cure what ails ya.

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Seven large peppers consisting of three red bell peppers, two yellow, a green bell pepper, and one poblano pepper.

One large white onion, one bunch of green onions, one shallot, and five or six good sized cloves of crushed garlic.

Meat wise you will need a half pound of each beef and pork chorizo and a pound and a half of 75/25 ground beef ( 25% fat)

Otherwise you will need a tablespoon of oil. (your choice) I had olive nearby but any will do.

Start by getting your oil in the pot before putting the pot on medium low heat.

Peel and smash your garlic before adding them to the pot. Dice your onion type items ( green, white, and shallot)  before dumping them in to the pot and giving them a good stir. You don’t want to hear a whole lot of sizzling.The pot will be there just to hold everything.

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Give it a good stir before dicing up your peppers. Make sure to remove the white ribs of pith (That’s the kind of soft stuff forming the ribs inside the pepper.) Dice your peppers up and toss them in. Even if you are not the fastest with a knife you should have very little effect on the food. We are letting all the guests know each other flavor wise. Once it is mixed up in a pot take it off to cool. If your doing rice with this you can dump the veggies in to the future rice pot while the meat cooks.

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Place your pot on medium high heat devoid of all vegetable matter before dumping in your chorizo. You want these to cook first because this will allow the spices in the fat to be released so that the beef can pick up the flavor. Once that has been rendered you can dump in your beef and let that cook up. While that is going in this is only going to have the spice of the chorizo which will be very mellow once it is all tossed together with the chopped offerings. This will be fairly mild overall.

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Now the main portion of cooking will be when you dump everything back in to the pot with the warm meat and let everything hit a low simmer. Doing this will draw some of the liquid out of the peppers giving you a very nice well rounded sauce made in pot with little effort to pair with our bell peppers and beef.

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Cook some rice and cook an egg sunny side up and build your bowl. It follows very few diets but by portions it can be tweaked with adding more vegetables or less fat if you need to.

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This recipe was just a guess from the bell peppers and beef mentioned in the Cowboy Bebop anime. I would think that even a pair of bounty hunters could enjoy this. Thank you and see you all next time. Happy Easter.