Notice: Function _load_textdomain_just_in_time was called incorrectly. Translation loading for the wp-ultimate-recipe domain was triggered too early. This is usually an indicator for some code in the plugin or theme running too early. Translations should be loaded at the init action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /home/maryzahc/public_html/adultfoodallergies.com/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6121
denisedaniel – Page 14 – surviving the food allergy apocalypse (archive)

surviving the food allergy apocalypse (archive)

Author: denisedaniel

Quick Thai-Inspired Curry Noodle Stir Fry
Quick Thai-Inspired Curry Noodle Stir Fry

Thai food was one of the biggest losses for me. My husband and I had our first date at a Thai restaurant, and I used to get delivery there so often that the staff knew it was me just from my voice on the telephone. It was not uncommon for us to have Thai once or twice a week, especially when I was still in private practice. But Thai’s kind of hard without coconut.

This recipe’s kind of concept more than a recipe, because there are so many variables and and you can make so many curries, i.e. green, red, yellow, Massaman, etc. I used a commercial curry paste because it looked relatively safe for me, although we’ll see in the next few days whether I got corned or not (corned is like being gluten-ed but obviously with corn). However, there are tons of curry paste recipes on the internet that people can modify for their own diets, if the suggestions are not safe for you. Or you can use use a curry powder spice mix you like. I’ve also used the DIY Singapore Seasoning from our DIY Spice Mix Day post. Also, if you make curry paste, freeze it in an ice cube tray so you can grab a chunk when you want. You can use any meat you want, or not. You can also use whatever vegetables strike your fancy.

Quick Thai-Inspired Curry Noodle Stir Fry

Makes about 3-4 servings, depending on serving size.
- 1/2 of a 1 pound package of rice noodles (I used the kind that I would use for pho, but you can pick the width of rice noodle you like)
- 2 Tablespoons of olive oil, grape seed oil, or an oil that’s safe for you
- 1 cup of cashew milk or other non-dairy milk (If you can have coconut milk, by all means use it. I can’t use commercial cashew milk so I make my own, soaking 1 cup of cashews in hot water for a couple of hours, draining the water, and putting them in the blender with two cups of new water. It’ll make more than you need, but it freezes well.)
- 1/2 cup of water
- 1 package of Kanokwan Green Curry Paste (they have other flavors too, make sure you read labels); or 1 or 2 Tablespoons of Thai Kitchen Green Curry Paste (they have other flavors as well, read labels); or 1 or 2 Tablespoons of Mae Ploy Thai Green Curry Paste (ditto, other flavors, read labels) or 1 or 2 Tablespoons of a curry spice mix you like, similar to those available from Penzey’s.
- 1/2 pound of beef, pork or chicken cut into stir fry sized strips (Chicken’s out for me, but if you can eat it go for it.)
- 3 scallions, sliced into quarter inch pieces
- 1/2 cup of snow peas
- 10-12 asparagus stalks, trimmed and cut into 1″ pieces
- 2 carrots, julienned
- 1 small onion or half a medium onion, cut in half and sliced thinly crosswise to form slices in a curved shape
- 1 medium bok choy (about 6-8 inches long), sliced crosswise to form small bite size pieces
- 2 Thai chilies, de-stemmed and sliced (optional, leave out if really spicy is not your thing)
- 5-6 Thai basil leaves
First up, prepare all your vegetables. Keep the bok choy or any other greens separated from the rest of the vegetables because they will cook quicker and need to be added at end. To do the carrots, I cheat and use a peeler that juliennes.

Julienne Peeler

Fill a large stock pot with water and bring to a boil. Add your rice noodles, boil for 6-8 minutes and then drain. If you’re using smaller rice noodles, you might not need as much cooking time, so check your package’s instructions. Place the noodles aside until the curry is finished.

Prepared Rice Noodles

In a large skillet, add the oil, the cashew milk, water, and curry paste or spice mix. Stir to combine over medium heat.

Curry Paste and Cashew Milk Mixture

Add your meat if you’re using it, and cook until the meat is cooked through. Then add your vegetables with the exception of the bok choy (or other green of choice).

Curry before adding greens

Cover your skillet with its lid and let it simmer for a few minutes to let the asparagus and carrots cook. Then add your bok choy and simmer until the bok choy is ready. When the bok choy is ready, mix in your Thai basil leaves.

Completed Curry/Stir Fry Thing

Place a bed of rice noodles on a plate and spoon your curry over it. If you have extra Thai basil leaves and want to be fancy, garnish your dish with them.

Quick Thai-Inspired Curry Noodle Stir Fry

Hope you enjoy it!
June 23, 2014
Watermelon White Wine Sorbet or Ice Pops
Watermelon White Wine Sorbet or Ice Pops

Sorbet is one of the things I miss terribly because almost all of the commercial versions have corn in some form in them. This is a fairly easy recipe, making it perfect for this weekend, when I was going away for my 20th college reunion. Also, just as a side note, you could also sub out the watermelon for a quart of strawberries or a quart of peeled sliced peaches. I bet they’d be awesome too.

Warning: Before you make sorbet, you need an ice cream maker and if it’s like mine, you need to have frozen the insert ahead of time. Also, it helps to make the simple syrup the day before and let it cool in the fridge overnight. If you’re just making ice pops, just cool the simple syrup to room temperature before mixing it with the watermelon juice.

Watermelon White Wine Sorbet

Makes about 10 or so half cup servings (who ever eats just half a cup though??)
- 1 1/4 cups sugar
- 1 1/4 cups water
- 1/2 cup of chilled white wine (anything will do, but a nice bright citrus-y Sauvignon Blanc or Pinot Grigio would work well. Also, don’t spend a ton of money on this wine, you’re mixing it with watermelon and sugar. Or if you don’t want to use wine because you’re unsure of the wheat or corn ingredients in your wine, you could use a vodka made only from potatoes, but I’d cut it down to a quarter cup. Or not, if you’re not driving. Also, if you don’t want to use alcohol, substitute the wine with some safe-for-you lime or lemon or other fruit juice.)
- 1 quart of watermelon, peeled and cubed
Again, make sure that your ice cream maker is ready to go according to the manufacturer’s instructions, whether that means your insert is frozen or whatever else you might have to do.

The day before you are going to do your sorbet, make the simple syrup. Place the sugar and water in a sauce pan and bring it to a boil without stirring. Turn it down to a low simmer and simmer until all the sugar has dissolved to make a simple syrup. Pour the simple syrup into a heat resistant bowl and put it into the fridge to cool.

Place watermelon in a food processor or blender (in batches if necessary) and blend until smooth. Pour the liquid through a strainer to remove any seeds making sure that you press any large fruit bits remaining through the strainer. You don’t want to waste any of the watermelon. Add the wine and the simple syrup to the watermelon mixture and mix until combined thoroughly.

Follow your ice cream maker’s instructions to make the sorbet, or make ice pops with the mixture by using paper or plastic cups or ice pop molds and placing them in the freezer until frozen.

Hope you enjoy it!

Watermelon White Wine Sorbet or Ice Pops
June 9, 2014
Sourdough Waffles (Gluten-free & Vegan)
Sourdough Waffles (Gluten-free & Vegan)

As some of you know, I’ve been experimenting with gluten-free sourdough breads. And since I have gluten-free sourdough starter that I now need to use because you have to keep feeding it to keep it alive, and there’s only so much bread one person can eat as my husband is diabetic and gluten-free bread is not particularly helpful to his blood sugar, I need to find other ways to use it up. Someone in one of the fermenting groups on Facebook recently mentioned sourdough starter waffles, and I was off and running. I found a couple of recipes, but many of them had things I can’t have, so I’ve played around and substituted until I’ve gotten something I’m pretty happy with. Also, as a side note, these freeze great. You can make up a batch and when they cool, put a layer of parchment paper or plastic wrap in between them, put them in a gallon size zip top freezer bag, and put them in the freezer. You can warm them up in a toaster or in the oven on a baking rack when you’re ready to eat them.

You do have to make the starter ahead of time. I used this post from Art of Gluten-Free Baking to begin my starter. I started using sorghum flour when I was making the bread, but I had moved over to feeding it oat flour before making these waffles (I was running out of sorghum). Also, I cheated and didn’t do the cabbage leaf thing to get wild yeast, I just used a pinch of a safe for me commercial yeast. It worked fine, but do what makes you happy.

If you don’t have safe oat flour, you can take gluten-free certified oats and grind them in a blender or food processor.

Sourdough Waffles (Gluten-free & Vegan)

Makes 6-7 waffles.
- 1 cup of gluten-free sourdough starter
- 1 cup of non-dairy milk (I used homemade brown rice milk)
- 2 Tablespoons of grape seed or olive oil
- 1/4 cup of applesauce
- 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract (Here’s a bunch of recipes for vanilla extract, make sure to use safe alcohol if corn or wheat are an issue for you. I used Luksusowa Vodka because it’s made only from potatoes, where some vodkas may also use grain or corn.)
- 1/2 cup of oat flour
- 1/2 cup of glutinous rice flour
- 1/4 cup of tapioca starch
- 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
- 1 teaspoon of baking powder (For corn free baking powder you can use this recipe)
- 1/2 teaspoon of salt
- 2 Tablespoons of brown sugar
- 1/8 teaspoon of cinnamon
- 1/8 teaspoon of nutmeg
Plug in your waffle iron and pre-heat it. If it has a temperature setting, I find that the highest temperature works best for gluten-free.

Add oat flour, glutinous rice flour, tapioca starch, baking soda, baking powder, salt, brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg to a mixing bowl and whisk it until thoroughly mixed. Now add your wet ingredients, the sourdough starter, non-dairy milk, grape seed oil, applesauce and vanilla extract to the bowl and mix until well combined, but there will be a few lumps.

Batter, mixed but not too mixed.

Pour the appropriate amount batter on your waffle iron, for mine it’s between a 1/3 and a 1/2 cup of batter, and cook according to your waffle iron’s directions. But I do find that I like to let it go a little longer after the indicator light has gone out until the steam stops to get nice really crispy waffles.

Hope you enjoy them!

Sourdough Waffles (Gluten-free & Vegan)
May 26, 2014
Cure Your Own Salt Pork
Two of three ingredients needed to cure salt pork – because uncooked salt pork isn’t that attractive

Since the corn allergy apocalypse, I’ve been making my own baked beans and pressure canning them so they will be relatively free of corn ingredients. Except I’ve been cheating a bit *hangs head in shame* — I’ve been using salt pork from the grocery store which has dextrose and sodium erythorbate, which are corn ingredients. I figured it was only a little bit in each jar (dumb, dumb, please don’t follow my example). But after learning how to cure bacon, I thought, hey, salt pork can’t be that hard right? And then I did some Google-fu and found out that, in fact, making some salt pork would be easier than making the bacon. So I had to do it, because the cleaner I eat, the less full my allergy bucket is, and the better off I am when I have a bigger exposure to something, and the healthier I feel.

Salt Pork
- 1 pound boneless pork belly cut into half inch thick slices, between 1-2 inches long (I removed the skin, but it’s up to you)
- 1/2 cup kosher or non-iodized salt (the stuff they use to iodize the salt is dextrose, a.k.a. corn, get stuff with no other ingredients but salt.)
- 2 Tablespoons cane sugar
Mix the salt and the sugar in a bowl.

Pork belly sliced into half inch thick pieces

Use some of the salt and sugar mixture to rub or dredge the pork belly slices.

Pork belly slices dredged in salt and sugar mixture

In a glass, ceramic, or stainless steel container (I used Pyrex), spread a layer of the salt and sugar mixture. Place a layer of the sugar and salt coated pork belly sliced on top of the layer of the salt and sugar mixture.

Dredged pork belly slices on salt and sugar mixture layer

Sprinkle more of the salt and sugar mixture on top and add another layer of pork belly slices. Continue alternating the pork and salt and sugar mixture until you don’t have any pork belly slices left. Sprinkle the remaining salt and sugar mixture over the top of the pork belly slices.

Completed layers of pork belly slices and salt and sugar mixture

Cover the container with a lid or some plastic wrap and refrigerate it. The pork belly slices will be cured and ready to use in 2-3 days.

Pork belly slices after curing for 2 days in fridge

Rinse the salt and sugar mixture off of the salt pork slices. Pat them dry with a paper towel.

Salt pork rinsed and patted dry on paper towels

They are now ready to use in your beans, chowders (non-dairy of course) or stews, or you can store them in a resealable plastic bag in your freezer.

Salt pork in a resealable plastic bag ready to go into the freezer

Enjoy!
May 12, 2014
UPDATED AGAIN!! – DIY Shampoo if Allergic to Coconut on Whatever Wednesday
Shampoo in re-purposed pump bottle

Since publishing my DIY Shampoo if Allergic to Coconut and the UPDATED-DIY Shampoo if Allergic to Coconut posts, I had a little fortuitous accident. I was making the shampoo, and I grabbed the wrong bottle and added 3 tablespoons of the avocado oil, instead of the grapeseed oil as I intended. When I realized I’d done it, I decided to just add 1 tablespoon of grapeseed oil so that the shampoo wouldn’t have two extra tablespoons of oil. I also used a little less distilled water than normal because, um, I did not plan well and I was mostly out. After the oil mishap, I wasn’t sure whether I’d end up throwing out the whole thing, or using it up as body wash. Well, seriously, the lather is a lot freaking better and shampoo is thicker and more like real shampoo in consistency. It’s weird to think that it makes that much of a difference, but I’m much happier with it than the last version. And so without further ado, I give you the updated post, with the changes in the ingredients underlined, italicized, and in bold:

So here’s the thing. Being allergic to coconut is a b*tch, once you realize that coconut is in just about every cleaning product on the market. To get a list of coconut derivatives, go here, thanks to Becky at the Allergic to Coconut? blog. Due to some issues with breaking out much more than I should be at freaking *40*, I decided I wanted to try cutting out any coconut derivatives that touch my skin.

First, most soap and shampoos contain at least one of the coconut derivatives on the list, if not five to ten of them. Most lotions, face masks, acne treatments, etc., etc., etc., contain at least one of the coconut derivatives as well. When I decided to go looking at my beauty and personal hygiene products, guess what? Every single one had coconut in them, except one lotion, and when I looked up the ingredients I didn’t recognize on that label, it turned out to be two forms of pesticide. Yippy fricking skippy.

The first thing I did was to try to find a recipe for shampoo, because I was breaking out in my hair, which hadn’t ever been a problem before. I posted this information earlier in one of our Fabulous Friday Finds, but I’ve made some modifications.

I found this recipe for making your own shampoo, which calls for castile soap. Just be aware that even some castile soaps, like Dr. Bonner, have coconut in them. I found a recipe for making castile soap from Kiss My Face Pure Olive Oil Soap. Kiss My Face Pure Olive Oil Soap does not have any coconut in it. I made the shampoo with some modifications and found it too drying on my hair, so I added olive oil, but found it could be a bit waxy. This time I think I have it the way I like it. I’ve been using it as a body wash as well.

Denise’s Version of DIY Shampoo
- 1 Kiss My Face Pure Olive Oil Soap – 8 oz bar, grated (I grated it in my food processor, dumped it out, put the blade in, put it back in the food processor and pulverized it some more. Doesn’t take as long to dissolve in the water this way. Make sure you clean your food processor really well afterwards.)
- 4 cups of distilled water
- 1 Tablespoon of grapeseed oil
- 2 Tablespoons of castor oil
- 3 Tablespoons of avocado oil
- 10-15 drops of tea tree essential oil
Grate Kiss My Face Soap. Place in a glass or plastic container with 5 cups of distilled water. Stir well, cover, and leave overnight. The next day, check to see if the soap bits have completely dissolved. If not, stir again and let sit. When the soap has completely dissolved, add, the grapeseed oil, the castor oil, the avocado oil, and the tea tree oil, and mix together. I used a whisk, I found it incorporated the oil better. This makes about 48 oz of shampoo. I put half in a pump bottle (Yes, it’s a store-brand hand sanitizer bottle, reduce, reuse, recycle, remember?) in the shower and half in the fridge until I run out. Or you could just make half the recipe 🙂

You can use the shampoo as body wash and facial wash as well, but stay tuned for further posts on facial cleansing options.
April 30, 2014
Vegetable Samosas and Cilantro Dipping Sauce
Vegetable Samosas with Cilantro Dipping Sauce

Indian food, I so miss Indian food. It’s so yummy, and there aren’t a lot of Indian places that would be safe for me between the dairy and coconut thing, even if the corn thing weren’t an issue. Once of my very favorite appetizers to get were Vegetable Samosas. I love them. It’s been a long, long time, so it was time to get around to trying to recreate a safe version. Now I really wanted them to have that egg roll/fried dough/pastry crust type consistency, but without gluten it’s really freaking hard to do. My attempts ended up either being like bad pie crust when I tried baking them, or they flaked apart in the oil when I tried deep frying them. So, not wanting to wait for eternity until I managed to cobble together a dough in the Goldilocks zone, I decided to try rice paper. I love Vietnamese fresh spring/summer rolls, so I have a ton of rice paper in the house. I knew you could fry rice paper wrapped spring rolls, although I’d never done it before, so I decided to just wing it. Apparently you don’t deep fry rice paper wrapped spring rolls. You ever want to see a spring roll bubble up like it has tumors, just deep fry one of these. After doing research on how you’re actually supposed to do it, they came out pretty good, other than being shaped like spring rolls instead of cone or triangle shaped like samosas. Let me know what you think.

Vegetable Samosas and Cilantro Dipping Sauce

Makes about 14, more or less.

Do the sauce first so that it’s all ready to go so that you can eat when you’re done frying.

Cilantro Dipping Sauce:
- 2 cups of tightly packed chopped cilantro
- 1 garlic clove
- 1 jalapeno pepper (use half a habanero if you want to kick things up a bit) de-stemmed, seeded, and minced
- 1/2 inch long piece of peeled ginger
- 1 teaspoon garam masala (I used Penzey’s version, but I’m sure there are a ton of recipes on the interwebs)
- 1 teaspoon olive oil
- 4 Tablespoons of lemon juice (or the juice of one lemon)
- 1/2 teaspoon of salt
Put all the ingredients in a blender or food processor. Blend until smooth. (Ta-dah! That was easy wasn’t it?) Put in a container and pop it in the refrigerator until you’re ready for it. (The picture below is all fancy, you get a lot more sauce than that.)

Cilantro Dipping Sauce

Samosas:
- 3 potatoes, washed, peeled, cubed, and boiled (like you’re making mashed potatoes)
- 1/2 cup green peas (or whatever other vegetable you’d like in it)
- 1 teaspoon of grated fresh ginger
- 1 clove of garlic, minced, or whatever it is when you put it through a garlic press
- 2 Tablespoons of fresh chopped cilantro
- 1 jalapeno pepper (or the other half of that habanero if you used it for the dipping sauce) de-stemmed, seeded, and minced
- 1 teaspoon of garam masala
- 1 teaspoon of salt
- 1/2 teaspoon of cumin seeds
- 2 Tablespoons of lemon juice (or the juice of half a lemon)
- Spring Roll Rice Paper Wrappers (Round 22cm) – the link is here so you can see what you’re looking for, but we’re not affiliated with Amazon in anyway. Also, any brand will do.
- safe for you oil to use for frying
Once you’ve got your potatoes washed, peeled, cubed, and boiled, you’re going to want to give them a fairly rough mash. You don’t want them smooth, lumpy is good.

Potatoes, roughly mashed

Let them cool for a bit. In the meantime, get all your other ingredients (except the rice paper and oil) in a bowl large enough for the ingredients and the potatoes. When your potatoes have cooled a bit (you can stick them in the fridge to hurry that along), mix the potatoes with the other ingredients so that they are well combined.

Samosa filling

Now to assemble your samosas. You’ll need a bowl of warm water (I use the water as hot as I can get it out of the tap) big enough for you to dip the rice paper in. You’ll also need a smooth clean surface to place your rice paper after moistening it. I used my dough rolling mat, but you can just use a plate if it’s big enough. Also, you’ll need a tray or sheet pan with some parchment paper or waxed paper on it to store your completed samosas until you’re ready to fry.

Dip your rice paper into the water, making sure that the entire surface is moistened.

Moistening your rice paper

Be careful that you don’t let the rice paper fold against itself, I’ve never been talented enough to get it back apart again, although I’m told it’s possible. Lay the rice paper out flat on your working surface.

Rice paper getting ready for filling

Place some filling on your rice paper. I used about two tablespoons. You can use more or less depending on your preference, you’re just going to make more or less samosas.

Samosa filling on rice paper

Fold the two sides over the samosa filling, making it so that the sides angle in towards the top, making it somewhat triangular.

Sides folded over the samosa filling

Fold the bottom edge up over the samosa filling.

Folding bottom edge up over filling

Roll the filling over the rest of the rice paper, like you’re rolling up a sleeping bag, or a burrito, depending on your arbitrary cultural reference. The end should stick to the roll.

Completed samosa

Repeat the process until you have lots of samosas ready to fry.

Samosas ready to fry

Now we need to prepare a place to stash our samosas once they’ve been fried. Cover another tray or sheet pan, with a couple layers of paper towels, and then place a cookie rack on it upside down so that the cookie rack is laying on the paper towels (more oil gets absorbed this way).

In a frying pan, pour enough oil that when you put a samosa in it, the oil will only go half way up the side of the samosa and does not cover the samosa. Less oil is better than more. Heat your oil over medium low to medium heat. Be very careful to space them out, because if they touch each other the rice paper will rip when you try to separate them, and then you’ll have filling in your oil, which will burn up into little dark bits and cover the outside of your samosas. Look at the pictures and then ask me how I know, haha.

Samosas frying

Also, these are going to take so much longer than you imagine. I don’t know if its the rice paper or if it’s the moisture content in the potatoes, but expect to be frying for some time. Also, don’t go any higher than medium on the heat, otherwise you’ll get really big bubbles on your wrappers potentially causing holes and scorching. As you’re frying turn them occasionally with a pair of tongs to make sure they cook evenly. When the rice paper wrappers look like this, they’re done:

Fried Samosas

Yours will not have the little burned bits on the outside because you will be more careful about keeping them separated than I was, but if you do have little burned bits, they don’t affect the taste of your samosas. Although the rice paper wrapper is a different texture than a dough or pastry wrapper, they had a good bit of crunch and were yummy. Enjoy!
April 28, 2014
Making Bacon, Squared (i.e. two versions)
Home cured bacon

Bacon. It’s bacon, how do you live without bacon? Unfortunately, commercial bacon has dextrose, sodium erythorbate, ascorbates, and other corn ingredients. At the beginning of my corn-free life, I would cheat a bit, but then I would get a blister on my foot a couple days later, and I eventually decided that it had to go. So no bacon. For months and months. And then I started Googling how to make bacon, and looking for pins on Pinterest. It didn’t look that hard. And compared to fermenting (which I very much enjoy, so this is not a slam), it seemed much less evil scientist-bubbling concoctions, and more of a dry rub marinade in the fridge for several days longer than you would normally. What was the worst that could happen? I mean, besides making myself sick, and that was going to happen if I ate commercial bacon anyway. But I still didn’t do it because I was going to have to make a special effort to get some pork belly, and it’s not like I don’t have enough other stuff to do. But one day, Mary Kate and I were dubbing around at the Saigon Market in Nashua and we saw some pork belly all packaged up and ready to bring home. So I bought it, and I made some bacon. It was good, but I thought the recipe needed some tweaking. So I called McKinnons in Salem and ordered five pounds of pork belly. And I then played around some more.

Now that I’m done experimenting, I’ve got two versions to share with you, one that’s a more basic cure, and one that’s a bit more savory. I like them both, but I prefer the basic cure, as I tend to be a traditionalist about my bacon.

In all likelihood, you are going to special order the fresh pork belly. Some grocery stores may be cooperative, or you might have to go to a specialty butcher store.

Making Bacon (two versions)
- 2 lbs of pork belly, skin removed
- 3 tablespoons sea salt
- 3 tablespoons brown sugar
For a basic cure, you will add:
- 2 teaspoons whole peppercorns
For a more savory cure, you will add:
- 2 teaspoons whole peppercorns
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 1 tsp rosemary
- 1 tsp celery seed
- 1 tsp dried thyme
- 2 bay leaves
Put the salt, brown sugar, and the spices for your choice of cure in a blender or food processor, with the exception of the garlic clove in the savory cure. Blend or process until the peppercorns are well ground. If you’re using the savory cure, mince the garlic clove and set it aside.

If your pork belly still has the skin on it, as shown below, you will need to remove it. (The picture below shows five pounds of pork belly. I used it to make approximately two pounds of each bacon cure and one pound of salt pork, the recipe for which will be posted in the not too distant future.)

Five pounds of boneless pork belly before the skin is removed

Using a very sharp knife, remove the skin cutting it as thinly as you can manage. You don’t want to waste any of the pork belly.

Removing the skin from the pork belly

Once you have trimmed off the skin, your pork belly will look like the picture below:

Pork belly with the skin removed

Rinse the pork belly in very cold water and pat it dry with a paper towel. If you are doing the savory cure, now is the time to mix your ground salt, sugar and spice mixture in a bowl with the minced garlic. Spread half your salt, sugar, and spice mixture on a large piece of parchment paper, a large casserole dish, or a sheet pan, whatever you have in your kitchen that’s large enough to accommodate your piece of pork belly. Place the pork belly into the salt, sugar and spice mixture, and pour the remaining mixture over the top of the pork belly. Rub the mixture all over the pork, making sure to get every inch covered.

Put the pork belly in a 1 gallon resealable plastic bag, and add any of the excess salt, sugar, and spice mixture from your parchment paper, casserole dish, or sheet pan to the bag. Close the bag and shake it up to evenly distribute and coat the pork belly with the mixture. After shaking, try to remove as much of the air from the resealable plastic bag as you can so that the spice mixture stays on the pork belly and reseal it.

Pork belly coated with salt, sugar, and spice mix in resealable plastic bag

Place the bag on a plate, tray or small sheet pan so that it can be placed in your refrigerator and stay level. Refrigerate for five to seven days, flipping the bag once a day, until the pork feels firm throughout. The longer you let the pork belly cure, the saltier it will be. I preferred a cure of five days.

When the pork belly is finished curing, remove the pork belly from the resealable plastic bag and wash off the salt, sugar and spice mixture thoroughly under cold water. Pat your pork belly dry with paper towels.

You now have a choice to make. You can slice the bacon as is and then cook it, which appears to be the closest to commercial bacon, and was often referred to as “green bacon” in recipes I saw. Or you can smoke or roast the bacon. I don’t have a smoker, so I’ve not tried smoking it. I did do one batch of the roasted bacon, but I think I prefer the green bacon.

Green bacon:

We got a meat slicer as a wedding gift because my husband really wanted one, so it went on the registry. It was really helpful in slicing the green bacon.

“Green bacon” sliced

I fried some in my cast iron skillet over medium heat, as you would normally cook bacon. The home cured bacon seems to take longer than commercial bacon to cook.

“Green”bacon” frying in cast iron

Which results in yummy looking bacon:

Fried “green bacon”

Or you can use the oven method to cook your bacon, and you get yummy bacon too:

“Green bacon” cooked in the oven

Roasting the Bacon: When your bacon has cured, and you’ve rinsed and patted it dry with paper towels, pre-heat your oven to 200°F. Place the bacon in a 9 x 13″ roasting pan and roast until you’ve reached an internal temperature of 150°F. This will take between an hour and a half and two hours.

Bacon roasted in the oven

You don’t want to cook the meat, so once it reaches 150°F, remove the bacon from the oven. Let the bacon cool to room temperature.

Once your bacon has been roasted or smoked and has cooled, wrap it up in parchment paper and put it in the refrigerator until it has completely chilled. Once chilled, you can slice it and fry it up or use the oven method to cook your bacon. In the picture below, I used a chef’s knife and my knife skills aren’t all that great so the slices are a bit thicker than I would have liked. Which is why I decided to drag out the meat slicer in later experiments.

Roasted bacon after chilling and slicing

We cooked the bacon two ways here too, frying it and using the oven method.

Roasted Bacon, cooked two ways, fried and using the oven method

Smoking the Bacon: Again, I have not tried this because I don’t have a smoker, but one of the recipes I found gives the following directions. When your bacon has cured, and you’ve rinsed and patted it dry with paper towels, smoke it over hickory or apple wood at a very low temperature until bacon reaches an internal temperature of 150°F or about three hours. Let bacon cool to room temperature. Once your bacon has been roasted or smoked and has cooled, wrap it up in parchment paper and put it in the refrigerator until it has completely chilled. Once chilled, you can slice it and fry it up or use the oven method to cook your bacon.

My husband and I both preferred the oven method for cooking the bacon and we both preferred the “green bacon”, but you should experiment and see what you like best. Here’s a chart for how long your bacon will keep from the USDA. The bacon cures presented here would fall under “Bacon cured without nitrites.” I don’t want to weigh in on the nitrites being good or bad issue, it’s just that I can’t get seem to get my hands on curing salt that doesn’t also have corn (dextrose) in it.

I hope this helps those of you who can’t get commercial bacon for whatever reason. Enjoy, I did 🙂
April 14, 2014
WW: DIY Dishwasher Detergent if Allergic to Coconut
DIY Dishwasher Detergent – coconut free!

So I’ve been ignoring the coconut allergy with respect to my dishwasher detergent because it all rinses off right? Except that it really doesn’t, as shown by how soapy the water left on some of my dishes that feels when I’m cleaning it off after opening the dishwasher. And it’s probably not a good thing, and Cascade Complete is freaking expensive. My younger sister pinned this recipe for dishwasher detergent one day and I looked at it, and thought, “geez, I have all the stuff, except I’ll have to make castile soap like I do for my shampoo.” (Dr. Bonner’s has coconut in it, don’t use it if you’re allergic to coconut). So I thought I’d give it a whirl with my substitute to de-coconut it, and I thought I’d share.

DIY Dishwasher Detergent if Allergic to Coconut
- 16 cups of water, divided
- 1 1/2 cups of Washing Soda (not baking soda, they are totally different things)
- 1 cup of Borax
- 1/2 cup of liquid castile soap (1 Kiss My Face Pure Olive Oil Soap – 8 oz bar, grated in my food processor, then pulverized with the blade after grating, dissolved overnight in 4 cups of distilled water, or 1 Olivella Face and Body Soap, Fragrance Free, All-natural 100% Virgin Olive Oil From Italy, 3.52-oz Bars, pulverized and dissolved in about 1 3/4 cups of distilled water. Make sure you clean your food processor really well afterwards. Once dissolved, stir to make sure there are no lumps. Store the extra amount in the fridge, you’ll make more dishwasher detergent, or you can use it for the dish soap recipe I will post eventually.)
Just an FYI, if you can find the borax and the washing soda locally, buy it locally. I can get a box of each for between $3-5 dollars here, and the prices for them on Amazon are extreme. You can find them in the laundry aisle of your grocery store. In New Hampshire, I’ve had pretty good luck at Hannaford and Marketbasket. Shaw’s not so much.

Also, you will need a non-reactive pot, stainless steel or ceramic, and a whisk and some containers to store your finished dishwasher detergent in. I used 1/2 gallon mason jars to start, but then transferred the contents of one of the jars into an empty gallon vinegar plastic container so that I could pour easily and shake it up before using. An empty gallon container for water would work well too, or recycle one of your old dishwasher detergent bottles.

Bring 8 cups of water to a boil in your pot. Once the water is boiling, remove the water from the heat, and stir in the washing soda, borax, and liquid castile soap until dissolved. Stir in the remaining 8 cups of water and then allow the mixture to cool to room temperature.

Pour the dishwasher detergent into your containers. I’ve been using half of the amount in my dishwasher as my old detergent, but see what works best for you. I have noticed that if you use too much it will leave a film. Overall, I’m pretty happy with it, and if you only knew how compulsive I am about the dishes being clean. Strange how that doesn’t extend to the rest of my apartment, but what can you do.

Enjoy!
April 2, 2014