What you see here, constructed out of cinder blocks and rebar, sitting in my garage, is what I'll call a "Pig Pit". On this pit, this September 11th, our church is going to roast a whole hog.

The pit is based on instructions from the 3 Guys from Miami, who do up a mean looking Cuban pig bbq. Being from Hawaii, I've had enough kalua pig, so it's time to expand the horizon. For sure pig photos will be available after the roast on the 11th.

Click for photo gallery

Here is the low-down: if you have been reading this blog, you know I have been working on a low-carb peanut butter cookie recipe for some time. This is the latest, and in my opinion, best version yet. Previous versions tasted great, but were so delicate they were required a very gentle hand. This version is sturdier, and still tastes great. The secret ingredient? Vital wheat gluten. I added in a tablespoon of it, and a matching tablespoon of water to keep things from drying out. Turns drying out was the least of my problems. When these cookies went into the oven, they released a lot of oil and really smoked things up. They overflowed the flat Pampered Chef stone I put them on, and peanut-almond-butter-oil on the bottom of the stove. Was it due to my using a new jar of almond butter that I had to stir up? Was it some weird reaction due to the wheat gluten and water? I don't know, but can say they did come out great and hold together much better. In fact, I think I'll have to have another one now, just to verify they aren't too delicate after cooling off a bit on the cookie rack.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup Maranatha Natural Almond Butter
• 1/2 cup Skippy Super Chunk Peanut Butter
• 1 cup pourable Splenda
• 1 tbsp Vital Wheat Gluten
• 1 tbsp water
• 1 egg

Directions

• Preheat oven to 350°f.
• Combine all ingredients in mixer and mix well. I suggest add the pourable splenda first, carefully add everything on top of it, and start the mixer slow.
• Use a small cookie dough scoop to form 12 cookies on a cookie sheet that has an edge. I actually got 13 cookies.
• Important:You must imprint each cookie with a fork in the classic criss-cross pattern.
• Bake for 15 minutes. In my instance as the photos show, the cookies released a lot of oil and basically fry in their own juices.
• When done, transfer cookies to a cooling rack so they don't soak in the oil.

Here are some photos for your viewing pleasure:Our new shed. All this summer I've been working on constructing a shed. On Father's Day, my loving family got me a shed for the storing of our stuff which we were tripping over in the garage.

What you don't see is the work it took to clear the land, pour the concrete pilings, and so forth. You also don't see the massive cost overruns. What started out as a $749 shed kit ballooned into an over $3,000 project. I was making trips to Home Depot and Lowes almost daily.

Did I mention that after completing the outside of the shed, Anchorage then went into the official Worst Summer Ever, recording the most consecutive rain days ever? Over 30! I'm blessed to say the shed didn't dissolve into a pile of mushy wood pulp. Oh, but the blessed sun did finally appear, and I got out the airless sprayer. The interior of the shed has about 4 gallons of Killz latex, and the exterior has over gallon or so of Sherwin Williams latex. I should note, the interior paint is courtesy of our municipality's hazmat recycling program. I got the interior paint for free! Makes up for the exterior paint which was $98 for two gallons. Well, it's time for me to go to work so I can't drag this story on. Give the photos a look.

(later on this evening) I'll go into detail a bit. Our backyard is basically unimproved land on a hill behind our home. I had to put the shed where I did because it was the only bit of terrain that wouldn't need significant work to use. I cleared the land out, after getting a utility locate done, sank in six concrete footings. On that went a subfloor, and on that went the shed.

The boardwalk leading up to the shed is constructed with pressure-treated wood, and is secured using 4x4 concrete post bases. There are metal spikes driven through the wood at strategic points, adding stability to the boardwalk and preventing it from shifting over time.

When I took the pictures seen here, we finally had a few days of sun, so all the plants were nice and green. Considering we had a full month of rain, they were well watered, thus they look good. Of course, during that rainy period, working in the backyard was like working in a slimy bog because, well, it was working in a slimy bog. Once the sun came out, though, ahh, how glorious! I tell you, Anchorage in the summertime is so beautiful.

As far as applying the paint goes, I used my airless sprayer, a Ryobi something-or-other from Home Depot. It was at time cantankerous, miserable, and yet, how else can one apply gallons of paint in a few minutes? You just can't paint rafters any easier, a brush or roller would have been a pain. As for the outside, the whole shed's exterior took about an hour, and that includes having to prop up ladders and everything. It took more time to clean out the sprayer than it did to use it. The airless sprayer is cleaned out, boxed up, and residing in the very shed it painted.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup almond butter
• 1/2 cup chunky peanut butter
• 1 cup pourable Splenda
• 1 egg
• 3 tablespoons sliced almonds

Directions

• Pre-heat oven to 350°f.
• Combine all ingredients thoroughly
• Use a small cookie dough scooper to scoop out 12 dough balls and place on a cookie sheet
• Use a rubber spatula to flatten the balls out to the desired thickness
• Use a fork to impress the universal symbol of peanut butter cookies on top of each one.
• Bake for 15 minutes, or until they seem done.

Now I should note, this version is a tad more complex, so it isn't really an "Idiot Cookie" anymore. I want to use almond butter, as it is a low carb alternative to peanut butter. I did not have enough almond butter, so crunchy peanut butter came to the rescue. I added in some almond lices, using Almond Access salad topping almonds. I think they have just a slight bit of salt added, which worked great with the cookies.

So how did they taste? They were excellent! Only problem is, they are delicate. They crumble with the slightest bump, so eating over a plate is a necessity. I should know, as I've already eaten three in an hour, and am contemplating eating another. Yeah, these came out good.

What's the carb count on each cookie? Well, crunchy peanut butter has almost the same carb count as almond butter, so I'm not too concerned on that. The carb count? Atkins-wise, it should be a tad over 3 net carbs per cookie. I'll guess, oh, 3.14125. Pi in carbs. Sounds reasonable. I guess that means I ate 12 carbs worth of cookies tonight, so I guess I'll skip that fourth cookie. You are welcome to eat as few or as many as you wish, though.

You may have seen my other idiot cookie recipe. This one uses almond butter instead of peanut butter.

Ingredients

• 1 cup MaraNatha Almond Butter
• 1 cup Granulated Splenda
• 1 egg

Directions

• Mix all the ingredients together using a mixer. The resulting consistency will be a bit dry.
• Use a small scoop to produce 11 dough balls (I couldn't get 12 out of it), and place on a cookie sheet
• Bake for 350°f. for 15 minutes
• Press down on the cooked cookies lightly with a fork to squish them down a bit and put that nice fork pattern. Hm. Maybe I should have done this before cooking them. Whatever.

According to my nutritional info calculations, MaraNatha almond butter has 3 net carbs (total carbs minus dietary fiber) per two tablespoons. One egg has two carbs. One cup has sixteen tablespoons. Granulated Splenda has "zero" carbs per tablespoon, but I'm going to guess "zero" means "just under a half", so I'll say it has eight carbs. Calculations come up with what, 24 + 2 + 8 = 34. 34 / 11 = 3.09. So, each cookie has about 3 net carbs.

So how do they taste?

They ain't bad, really. Even though they're made with almond butter, they don't taste like an almond cookie. More like a peanut butter / almond butter hybrid. Texture is a bit too crumbly maybe? hm. I'm not sure. I better eat another one now to give a good statement here.

(2 minutes later) They are good! The outside is a bit dry, and the inside is a bit underdone; like the inside of a red bean manju. I've eaten three cookies in an hour, so I don't think I'm staying within my carb numbers today. Oh well. Ah, but these do taste good. I'm typing this up about 45 minutes after baking them, so I can't say how they will be the next day. They are a bit delicate, certainly not cookie jar material. I think they'll have to be carefully placed on a plate, otherwise they will crumble to bits. Of course, eating them solves that problem.

Well, first off, I'm not sure. Here's why: the Carls Jr. Nutritional Info listing. Give it a look.

• The Original Six Dollar Burger®: 58 carbs
• The Low-Carb Six-Dollar Burger®: 7 carbs
• The Guacamole Bacon Six Dollar Burger®: 53 carbs
• The Western Bacon Six Dollar Burger®: 81 carbs
• The Portobello Mushroom Six Dollar Burger™: 52 carbs
• The Jalapeño Six Dollar Burger™: 52 carbs
• The Six Dollar Cheeseburger™: 53 carbs

From a low-carb viewpoint, obviously The Low-Carb Six-Dollar Burger® is the winner at 7 carbs. All the others are at least 52 carbs. But oddly enough, the Original Six Dollar Burger® is 58 carbs. Amongst it's not-low-carb Six Dollar brethren, though, it's pretty high. Only the Western Bacon is higher.

I cannot prove it, but my theory is that The Jalapeño Six Dollar Burger™ is lowest, based on a raw guess that if 58-52=6 (Original - Jalapeno), then a "Jalepeño Low-Carb Six Dollar Burger" (you'd have to ask for that) should be what, one carb? I know that can't possibly be right but I'm thinking it should come up better than their default Low-Carb version.

Homemade bacon 'n eggs

Pork belly in the drying pan

Fry bacon fry!

Slab of bacon, waiting to be sliced

This week I tried my hand at making my own bacon. This turns out to be even easier than making a ham. All one really needs is a pork belly, some salt, and a Tupperware container or something similar. Rather than relist what somebody else has said so much more elequently, here are the instructions I went by to make my own bacon.

So you click that link and give the process a look. What I did specifically was I went sort of crazy on the spices. I parked that pork belly in the fridge for a few days, and each night as I went to pour off the excess liquid, I was overcome with the desire to apply something different. Salt, black pepper, blackstrap molasses, ginger powder, plenty of Splenda, and more.

I don't have photos of the smoking process so you'll just have to read it and use your imagination. I fired up my grill, got the fire low, and put on plenty of hickory chips soaked in water. Using the nice remote temp probe I got as a gift, I waited for the temp to rise to 150°f. It took almost four hours, but reach it at last it did. It smelled very smoky, as it was. I immediately cut off some slices from the slab, and they were ultra-smoked. Okay, I admit I threw on a handful of dry mesquite chips at the end, right on the fire. This made a pungent cloud of smoke indeed, and the bacon is very smoked.

So at the top you see a plate of bacon and eggs. The bacon doesn't taste entirely bacon-y, but is very good nonetheless. Next time I think I will wet cure the meat like a ham. This bacon is good. My only regret is that I lack a rotary slicer to get perfect slices. Thick-cut bacon is okay, but after a while I was craving some nice uniform slices. So, stay tuned, I'm planning on more bacon adventures.

The other day I decided I wanted to make a low-carb ham. Having not a clue on how to go about making my own ham, I googled around and came up with a few different articles on cold curing, which is just what I did. Having acquired a nice ham roast (refers to the cut of pork, not it actually being ham yet), I used the following brining solution, which came out too salty.

Too-salty* ham brine

• 12 cups cold water
• 36 packets Splenda
• 3 cups Morton® Tender Quick®
• 1 tablespoon ground clove
• 1 tablespoon black pepper

Combine all ingredients in a big ol' stock pot. The roast will soak in this stuff for a recommended one day per 2 pounds of pork. Obtain a pork roast, preferably a ham roast. Ask your butcher if in doubt. Tell 'em you are making your own ham. They will know what you need.

The brining process

• Trim off all the excess fat around the edge of the pork.
• I got this tip from a site, but can't find it now. Anyhow, get a meat injector, and shoot a bunch of the brine into the ham, especially around the bone.
• Get a suitable container to submerge that roast in. This must go into your fridge for a few days. Me, I used the plastic marinade bucket which came with our FoodSaver vacuum sealer. I slid the roast into the vacuum canister, and poured in all the brine that would fit, then I vacuum sealed the roast in there. That's me, though. You, you follow the directions on the Tender Quick package. I stuck the whole container into the fridge and let it brine.
• So, the Tender Quick package has brining instructions on it. I let my ham, which was probably 3 pounds, soak for what, 4 days after being vacuum sealed? Yeah. Probably too long. The vacuum sealer probably shortens the amount of time needed in the brine anyway.
• Drain off the brine and refill the container with cold water. Return to the fridge. This will draw out excess salt from the ham. I only did this for a half-hour, and regretted it. Next time I'll let it cold-water soak for a couple hours.


So as you can see the piece of plain boring pork I started out with (not shown) has been transformed into a lovely ham. I cooked it in a dutch oven at 350°f. for 1 hour, and left it in the oven for an additional half-hour.



Sliced up and looking like a good ham should. To me, at least. It was quite good, but certainly too salty. After our first meal, I returned the ham into the cleaned vacuum seal marinade container and filled it with cold water for an overnight salt-extraction soak. The ham had an intense clove flavor, which I will probably tone down next time. I'm thinking of adding in some ginger, too. but for a first ham, I'm very happy.

So that's my first ham. It was quite fun. Now for trying my hand at homemade bacon...

Oh, and the standard disclaimer: This info is presented as entertainment, if you use it, you do so entirely at your own risk.

This is for satisfying a late-night sweet tooth. This will feed one, and you'll be eating it in minutes. No, it ain't pretty, but then, well, you want it now, right? Right.

Ingredients

• 1/2 package cream cheese. What is that, 4 ounces? Yeah.
• 3 packages Splenda (or Nutrasweet)
• 1 egg
• Splash of sugar-free coffee syrup. I like Kahlua flavor, but any flavor will do.
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• sprinkle of cinnamon

Directions

• Get a 2-cup (or larger) Pyrex measuring cup. Toss in a half-package of cream cheese. Use your microwave oven to soften the cream cheese. With my microwave, that means 2 minutes at 20% power.
• Add in all the other stuff. Stir it all up good. You'll want something like a stiff wooden spoon. The consistency will be like lumpy pancake batter. Don't bother trying to get rid of all the lumps.
• Cook in the microwave oven for 5 minutes.
• Don't burn your mouth. Eat it right out of the cup with a spoon.