Bacon. In a Jar. On the Shelf.

A while ago, I had the privilege of introducing guest blogger, Priscilla Unger, creator of Memories of Home, with her extraordinary Wild Rose Petal Ice Cream. In her own words Priscilla is a homemaker, a homebuilder, a homesteader, and a homeschooler. And in her spare time, she is a hobby food creator. Today Priscilla is back with Bacon. In a jar. On the shelf.

If you love bacon as much as we do in our house, you\’ll be hard-pressed to finish reading this post without drooling. Enjoy!

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BY GUEST BLOGGER – Memories of Home

Why, bacon in a jar?

Well, mostly because we\’ve been recently experimenting with the scientific thrill of curing and smoking meats, and with Thanksgiving coming, there\’s just not room for the resulting twenty pounds of bacon in the fridge.

But wouldn\’t it be nice just to be able to grab a jar of bacon, and sprinkle it on a couple of baked potatoes, dress a quiche, garnish a salad, or simply snack on it while watching world news?  I figured it was wise to make the splattering, grease popping mess all in one day, yielding a shelf full of ready-to-eat preserved bacon in perfectly portioned one-serving sizes; about 15 lovely strips per jar.

I\’ve had an on-and-off relationship with my pressure canner over the years.  The pressure canner was there when the boys were born, faithfully preserving everything from baby food to spaghetti sauce, chicken, salmon, soups and chili.  A couple of failed attempts at chocolate pudding (what a mess) and cheese sauce (what another mess) shelved it for a time, but hey – I forgive.

I was recently inspired by Rural Spin\’s method of canning bacon, and so I turned my oven up to 400 degrees and started oven frying stacks and stacks of thinly sliced bacon.  (This way, the splatters are contained, see.)

The house smelled really good.  (My hair smelled like bacon too.)  (And so did my breath.)

Then, I laid out several strips of gently cooked bacon onto a length of parchment paper and sprinkled them with Maple Sugar, leaving an approximate two inch fold of paper at one end for easier roll-up.

Rolled snug, each bundle of bacon-y goodness was shoved into a hot sterile jar, lids snapped on.

The jars went into the readied pressure canner at 15 pounds of pressure for 90 minutes.  I live at a high altitude here in south central Alberta, so this changes the pressure and time at which I need to process low acid food like meat.  (Check the manual that came with your pressure canner to be sure your times and PSI are correct).

And that\’s it!  So simple and easy!  Ready for the zombie apocalypse.  Or a BLT.

Pig out…