Baked Bacon Wrapped Chicken

This a pretty much straight forward recipe for chicken. I uses the buttermilk I have posted in a previous post. I am a big advocate of soaking chicken in buttermilk to make it tender and juicy. Since soaking using buttermilk you tend to use a lot of it and it goes down the drain afterwards. You can not use it again without the HIGH risk of contamination of unwanted bacteria from the meat. At $2.99 a quart, buttermilk tends to be expensive. Therefore making your own is the wisest choice. What you purchase in the store is cultured to begin with why not just keep it going. This is the wisest course of action. I also use buttermilk as a key culture in making my cheeses so I save money there as well. Buttermilk is the mesophilic culture needed to make many different cheeses.

On to this recipe. Marinade your chicken (any parts) for at least half hour to several hours. Spray or oil a baking pan. Shake each piece from the buttermilk. I used my apple smoked homemade bacon and wrapped each piece. Sprinkle some garlic powder and some pepper over the pieces bake at 350 degrees for about an hour or more till done. Time will depend on what type of chicken parts you use. The legs took about and hour and 10 minutes. I do not recommend salting the chicken due to using bacon. If the bacon is salty you will over salt.

The juicy chicken coupled with the smokey flavor of the bacon is truly mouth watering! Another thing, I love plain Greek yogurt on my chicken when eating it. Don't knock it till you try it! It is especially good on fried chicken. Plain yogurt is a great substitute for sour cream and better for you! You can also find my homemade yogurt in my blog. Any questions or comments are always welcome! Let me know how yours came out!

Enjoy!
Steph

www.webdees.com

Home Cured Slab Bacon!

Since I have already posted the Canadian bacon on my website www.webdees.com I thought I would post slab bacon today! This is also a huge hit in my house. The hard part of slab bacon is finding pork bellies. The local Shop Rites here have pork bellies but you have to call and make sure they just got it in and don't cut it up! I buy the whole un-dressed ones from them. I can also get them from a local butcher where they are dressed. What I mean by dressed is that they already cut off the skin and the ribs off the belly and it is ready to go. Since the Shop Rite's are not dressed I have to trim it off myself which isn't so bad as we have ribs that night and pork rinds another as well as the bacon. I don't waste anything! You could ask them to dress it for you and give you everything  back if you ask which I may next time I get it. Hmmm didn't think of that! Pork Belly runs about $2.69-$2.89 but it depends where you get it. They are about 9-14 lbs depends if dressed or not. So let's assume you have a belly all dressed. About 9 lbs. Get yourself some of those 2.5 gal. Ziplock bags. Makes it very easy for our purpose. So here is what you will need.

 

Pork Belly

Morton's Tender Quick

Kosher Salt

Brown Sugar

Optional Liquid Smoke

Optional Black Pepper

 

If you got a full belly you may want to cut in half to accommodate the bags and make it easier to handle. In a bowl mix 1 tablespoon of tender quick per pound of meat, 1 pound of brown sugar and 1 cup of kosher salt (any salt is ok just NO iodine!) and optional liquid smoke. We are going to do a dry cure method and I will explain why in a bit. Put your bellies in the bags and divide your cure between the two and rub them down completely on both sides. I like doing them in the bag, contains the mess. Make sure you get all the surface including the sides. Zip them up and lay them flat in the refrigerator. You can stack them on each other if you want, I do. Turn them once a day draining them after day two, of accumulating liquid. Some people don't drain them but I do. Continue for 7 days. After 7 days remove from bags and rinse off. Soak in clean water for about an hour changing the water twice or more to leach out some of the salt. Pat dry and you can cook as it is or go a bit further. I rub them down with black pepper and I smoke mine in my homemade smoker but you don't have to.

Slice off your bacon

or if you have a slicer, slice off and package into about pound packages and freeze till ready to use. I smoke mine with hard wood charcoal and apple wood from my tree for about 4 hours at about 180 degrees.

Remember to always cook your bacon before eating! Had to say that for safety! Now the reason for dry cure. Your bacon will NOT shrivel up to nothing and it will not spit at you! During curing we took out all the liquid! Your pound of bacon will make a mountain compared to store bought. What you are buying in the store is mostly added liquid they add to add weight and when you fry it the moisture is released into the grease and spits. You will notice that your bacon cooks faster and no spit and is much more tastier than store bought! Believe me once you make your own you will never buy store bought again. Wow your family and friends. My family only eats mine now and I have spoiled them big time! One slab of pork belly keeps us in bacon for each weekend for a couple of months. So for a little prep time and lots of wait time you can make your own. I will be happy to answer any questions or comments below!

 

Enjoy!

 

Steph

www.webdees.com

www.etsy.com/shop/deesshoppe

Quick Homemade Buttermilk Biscuits for Eggs Benedict..All Homemade!

This recipe calls for your homemade buttermilk from a previous post. Thought I would post this as I am making breakfast this morning and didn't have any bread or rolls. I plan to fry up some of my homemade Canadian bacon, homemade hollandaise sauce and poach some eggs...sound like eggs benedict! Well why not! I'll toss some cheese on top and have a go at it! Like I have mentioned in previous posts making things on your own you not only save on money but you can make lots of delicious things with what you have made that you wouldn't otherwise consider because you would have to spend precious dollars for special ingredients. In this case buttermilk biscuits...Canadian bacon, packaged hollandaise sauce mix...pricey. My Canadian bacon is on my website in the recipe section and you can find it here. Which is very inexpensive to make. I keep a ready supply in my freeze for the weekends. At a $1.88-$1.99 a pound it's a steal! Let's start with the biscuits.

 

Bowl

Tablespoon

Large glass

Lard (or substitute shortening like Crisco)

1 teaspoon Salt

1 tablespoon Baking Powder

Flour

1 cup Buttermilk



 

Heap 4 tablespoons of lard (lard makes a better tasting biscuit!) or shortening add 1 teaspoon of salt, 1 tablespoon of baking powder. Add 3 cups of flour and mix with your hand rubbing the lard into the flour till you get a course meal like feel. Add 1 cup of buttermilk and mix with your spoon till it pulls together. Try not to over mix. Drop onto a lightly floured surface and pat out to about 1/2"-3/4 inch thickness.

Cut out your biscuits out with your glass.

Gather the remnants and pat out again, cut till you have nothing left. I just pat out a little round with the last of it.

Place on a greased baking sheet and bake 350 degrees for about 1/2 hour or until lightly golden on top. Makes about 8. You can freeze what you don't immediately use and just toast up when you need one!

 

Fry up your Canadian Bacon. I do mine in a little water. Helps leach out some of salt in the meat.

Now for the Hollandaise sauce.

4 Egg Yokes

2 tablespoon cold water

1 stick UN-Salted butter just melted

Cayenne pepper

Black pepper

salt

2 tablespoon Fresh lemon juice (can substitute bottled if you are short a lemon)

 

Melt butter and set aside. Make yourself a double boiler as shown here.

Bring water up to a simmer. Now tell everyone not to bother you for a bit as if you stop at this point it will not turn out creamy! Believe me. I have had it happen on more than one occasion (it happened making this for you today as I was trying to get some pictures in! Had to start over!) so after that I got prepared! It helps if you have everything handy and within reach at this point. Add egg yolks and water into the pan then place on the simmering water and whisk till it just starts to thicken,

Slowly add the butter

whisking constantly till it is all incorporated and continue to cook till it is a nice creamy consistency. Like a soft pudding. Immediately remove from heat and add your lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste and a dash of Cayenne pepper and there you got it!

Now onto poaching your eggs. Make sure they are fresh. I add more water to my pan I used for the double boiler water and add a dash of plain white vinegar. It helps to keep the egg together when you place, not drop the eggs into the water. Crack the egg and as close as you can just slide the eggs into the water. I am doing two at a time.

Let cook about 3-4 minutes. You don't want to make the yolks hard. So watch them. Remove with slotted spoon dip in fresh water (to remove the vinegar) and then onto your halved biscuits,

add slice of Canadian bacon,

some finely sliced Mozzarella

and spoon on your Hollandaise sauce.

Oh to die for! And you made it!

 

Hollandaise sauce is great on vegetables or baked potato. I hope you enjoy your breakfast as I know I will mine. Let me know how yours came out. I would love to hear from you!

 

Enjoy

 

Steph

www.webdees.com

www.etsy.com/shop/deesshoppe