Frugal Living, Making Bacon results.

Well we did it... it wasn't an absolute complete success, but we ate it for lunch and it wasnt bad... the trouble was we dont generally take salt with much at all, and not in cooking ever... and this seemed very salty to us. It was edible though and we will defo make some more soon I just need to play around some with the mix.
I got the recipe from a thread on Self sufficientish , a website that you can finsd a link to on our 'friends' links on here . The forum they have there is an excellent place to find out all kinds of things you never realised you needed to know...
Right.
What I did...

I bought a piece of belly pork, about 12 ins x 12ins ... and washed and dried it well. In a bowl I put one large handful of sea salt and equal measure of cooking sugar, here its açucar amarelo. A sort of golden sugar... lovely stuff. I then rubbed the mix into the meat as much as I could, paying special attention to the cracks and crannies...
Then I folded it as my tub I had was too small, and sealed it in a plastic ice cream tub... and left it a few days, 2-3 is about right...
Drain the juice off and re rub. do this every 3-4 days for three or four times. The meat should go hard.. if there are any soft spots make sure you rub them with more mix. After around two weeks or so, drain, and then rinse well. Leave in a cool place to airdry... I put mine on a cake drying rack in a cool cupboard for three days...
For my next lot, I'll add a bit more sugar and less salt... I think its a trial and error thing, to personal tastes.

Frugal Living,. Making Bacon.

One of the things I really love is bacon, the Portuguese bacon is delicious... but for me with our limited budget, far too expensive to even think about buying, generally about 7-9 euros a kilo, but it is so good! Smoked and tasty with none of that horrible slimy white gunk that comes out of English/uk type bacon whenever you start to cook it... the stuff they put in that meat is disgusting... and I'd never want to eat it...
So having said all that, Ive been looking at ways to 'do it myself'... No, I really dont want to kill and butcher a pig... but the sheets of belly pork that is generally used for making bacon , I can buy very cheaply...
Ive found an excellent recipe on another site that seems to be working well, Ive had some curing now for almost two weeks. Hopefully after the weekend it should be about ready for eating...
Ive taken a picture and will take a couple more and then once Im happy with it... I'll post it on here and let you all know the results...
If it has worked, I'll have a large chunk of bacon ready for slicing, that will have cost me under two euros the lot...

Frugal Living - Cheats Baked beans.

Well to be honest, my recipe doesnt involve baking the beans...
I soak my dried beans overnight, we prefer a combination of white beans and the blackeyed beans.

I then cook them till soft, with an added bayleaf & garlic clove but no salt as it hardens beans before they are cooked. Drain, then set aside .
Meanwhile, I open a jar of my homemade tomato sauce, or Pasta sauce,(a bought jar of passata would do if you had it) blitz it till smooth with the blender, pour over the beans , stir well and return to gentle heat for flavours to meld well. Maybe add a little sugar to taste. Pour over bread or toast... yummy.

Beesa.

We get so much feedback about our dogs, and emails asking for pictures of Beesa , well here are some I took the other day, she's certainly filling out now. She doesnt seem to have grown as big as we were told she may, but she's still growing so maybe she will in the end. She's six months old now and we adore her, such a character, a real comedienne... Her bark is really really deep, her paws are huge, and she has an appetite to match..Bonnie and her are best friends and really love each other, playing a lot. They often cuddle up and generally sleep together.