MIA this weekend, sort of

I'll be canning. Stumbled on a great deal on bacon. No, not the Levitical food of choice, but I happen to like bacon. And a good seasoned sausage, too. Save the emails, ok?

Anyway, a local store had several 10#cases of bacon out. I passed them up first -- "several" anything not on an end cap usually means junk for sale. But I kept coming back past them (must have been to smokey whispering of my name...)

These casesof bacon are usually "ends", which again translates into junk. The ends aren't always a good bargain. The last few times we had bought this way, it was acase of mostly fat, without even a sliver of anything truly porky involved. Yes, I know -- not a total loss, as I could have smiled and rendered my own lard instead of bemoaning the fact I wasted $12 on a box of fat strips. But, I didn't think lard at the time. And, yes I'm kicking myself big time now.

But, as usual, I digress...

The case we brought home...10# for a great price of $9.00...wasn't "ends" at all. It was bacon, baby. Real bacon. Real thick cut, smokey scented, hunger bringing b-a-c-o-n.

Now I'm kicking myself for not trusting my gut (er...stomach) instinct and getting more. I'm hitting the store again this morning, in about 1/2 hour, to get another 4 cases at least. Man, if I could strike a deal with the manager and skim a little bill money off the budget list this week, I'd get more than that!

So, at least 2 cases will meet me in the kitchen on Saturday and I'll be frying lightly or baking in the oven, bulk quantities of bacon, dicing/chopping/crumbling, and packing into jars to process at 10# for 75 mins (quarts...). Yum.

Pantry-stored bacon pieces to be pulled out later and gently heated and crisped a bit for salads, omelets...who knows!

Bacon cans just like regular meats...I believe the timing for pints is about 45 mins but don't quote me. I don't use pints for anything pantry-related around here.

I've read that you can par-fry slices of bacon and lay them on parchment sheets, then roll the sheets/bacon into a tube and place that in your jars for processing. I wouldn't mind that, but for us non-picky folk, crumbled bacon and larger bacon pieces work just as well. I'm not a bacon-purist that requirs a pristine and flat slice of bacon :o)

I'm just cooking 'just to barely done' tearing or cutting it to pieces, packing my jars and adding in the bacon drippings. Then lids and into the pressure canner at 10# for 75 mins per batch of quart jars. Nothing fancy here :o)

I'll try to remember to do some photo's and share next week! Remind me if I seem to forget!