Has anybody tried blanching bacon? Does it really remove some of the salt? How does it affect the bacon for cooking and eating it without incorporating it into a recipe?

I love to snack on bacon but end up with a lot of water retention afterward. Which wouldn't bother me except that I like seeing the scale move south and it doesn't do that if I retain water.

Let me know if you've tried blanching bacon!

I had the 2004 version of the cookbook, and I gave it to Goodwill. It seemed to me that most of the recipes required some sort of Atkins product...like the
Atkins Bake Mix, etc. There was very little "natural" kind of cooking in it. I was not impressed at all, and a little irritated that I spent my hard-earned money on it.

I haven't tried it, but I have wondered about it. I read that it takes away some of the strong bacon flavor...but that is my favorite part of bacon! So, I probably won't try blanching.

I have been wondering what "bacon rind" is though. She mentions it in several recipes, but nowhere is it explained. (or else I just can't find it.)

I think the bacon rind is probably something you only get if buying bacon in slab form from the butcher.

I've always blanched the bacon when the recipe indicates. It does take away some of saltiness and smokiness. I think the reason she does this is that the recipes originally called for salt pork or something similar. If you've ever had hamhocks & beans, what you're supposed to end up with is that same rich pork flavor, rather than an in-your-face bacon flavor. (The first time I blanched the bacon, it took me forever to figure out where I recognized the resulting background flavor in the recipe from--my Mom had made ham & beans a few times when I was a kid.)

I love bacon and it tends to work on its own with the recipes she has you blanching for, it works in a different way after blanching.

The bacon does seem edible on its own afterwards, just much less salty (amazing how hard it is *not* to eat from a pile of small bacon pieces, no matter what's been done to them).

I'll look next time I'm in the grocery store. I've never seen a slab o' bacon just hanging around in the meat department...but then my butcher is just Albertson's meat counter... Maybe I'll have to branch out and see if there are any actual meat stores around here...

I'm going to try making quenelles for dinner today, using ground turkey. (It was on sale, but never a favorite.) Maybe it'll be tasty this way. I'll report tomorrow!

I am very excited about this. So much so I dug up my late mothers copy of Julia's French cookbook. Along with the cream and the butter is a LOT of flour in the recipes (boo!). Nevertheless I made a chicken recipe with butter, cream, mushrooms, shallots and sherry minus the flour. Served it w/sauteed spinach instead of potatoes. It was sooo tasty. I think many of the butter/cream recipes can be made w/o the flour.

Cleveland, was that the poulet au porto recipe? I tried that one but the port wine I bought was very sweet.

I've been using Carbalose in many of these with reasonably good luck.

The recipe for quenelles does call for 3/4 cup of flour, but I figured I'd just grind up some almonds into almond "flour" and possibly throw another egg into the mixture (to hold it together better.) I'll know after I make these tonight whether the flour can be left out or not! ; )

port and medieria are very sweet, esp if you are eating low carb.
I did the Chicken breasts with mushrooms in cream (Supremes de Volaille aux Champignons), but used dry sherry instead of vermouth in the sauce.

The turkey quenelles turned out pretty good, and everybody liked them. For the flour, I had ground up almonds and dried coconut. But then, in one of the steps, it says you have to stir the butter with the flour "until it forms a mass." Well, my concocted flour didn't form a mass, and I started to worry that it wouldn't work, so I did throw in a heaping teaspoonful of white flour...and then it did quickly form a mass. But the next step, when you start beating in your eggs, it doesn't stay in a mass anyway...so maybe I didn't need to bother with adding the flour?

I should have stuck to my guns and not added ANY white flour, because now I'll have to wonder how it would have been without the flour. I think it probably would have been okay. If I make these again, I'll not use any white flour at all. The first time you make a recipe it's hard to know what's important!

By the way, the quenelles are sort of like tender, light and "fluffy" meatballs. I made a sauce to serve them with. It made the turkey much tastier than ground turkey usually tastes.

Thanks for bringing up this discussion! After reading about Julia here, my husband took me to the movie and I got the Vol. I cookbook and "My Life in France". I've really enjoyed reading about her life...my daughter was in the hospital for a few days, and I stayed there with her, but I was REALLY in 1950s Paris through reading Julia's book. After we got home I got busy cooking! I am usually one to tweak recipes to suit myself, so Julia would probably not be pleased with me, but my family is very happy that she has come to live with us

I love the fact that the dishes are so satisfying, even when leaving out the carby parts of the meal. Last night I made a pork roast with the braised cabbage, sauteed mushrooms, and baked acorn squash from our garden...I didn't have any of the squash, but was so satisfied with the meal. We actually find ourselves eating less because of the higher fat content.

Tomorrow I will be working on cassoulet...I plan to pick the meats out and let the family eat the beans. I am having so much fun in the kitchen again!

Any more cooking a la Julia Child?

And the gourmands amongst us (me in the past), can take heart to something I heard her say, "Small servings and no seconds".