After my friend Louis told me about the bacon he used to eat while growing up on a farm, I decided that I wanted to try to make my own. I found it extremely easy to cure and smoke bacon but it does take a lot of waiting around. The four main steps to making your own bacon are curing, rinsing/soaking, air drying, and smoking. To cure and smoke your own bacon...
Read MoreThe 2 lbs of shrimp I used for the seafood boil was actually too much for two people, so I saved it for some shrimp and grits the next morning! To prepare the shrimp, I sliced them in half and washed out any veins. This makes the pieces smaller and bite size, which helps integrate it within the dish. I had some cooked polish sausage from earlier in the week and decided to add that. For veggies, I chopped some mushrooms, red onions, parsley, and garlic. I reserved some of the parsley for garnish at the end. I started off sauteing the mushrooms, garlic, and onion in a bit of butter. Once the veggies started to soften, I threw in the shrimp and sausage and added salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, and Old Bay to taste.
Read MoreI'm a big fan of seafood. Although pricey at restaurants, it's fairly cheap and extremely easy to cook it at home if you buy on sale. Cooking it yourself provides enough seafood for two people for around $20. I keep an eye out for sales on snow crab and stock up when it's about $6.99 a lb or less. When I buy it I ask if they have any still frozen because I have no idea how long it has been thawing out in the display case and I don't want crab that's be frozen, thawed, frozen again for storage, and then thawed again for use. I also went with some head-on shrimp that was only $3.99 a lb to save a bit of money. Although you're throwing away some of the weight because of the discarded heads, it comes out to about $5.95/lb, which is still pretty cheap.
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