Regaining Balance after the Momofuku Pork Belly

So you take a couple of pounds of pork belly, you rub it all over with a mixture of even parts salt and sugar, and you throw it into a 500 degree oven for an hour, followed by an hour at 200 degrees. Then you slice it, slap it into a steamed bun, and serve it with quick pickles and hoisin sauce. You have guests, because this is a lot of pork, but by then end of the night you feel... you feel like you just ate all of the saturated fat in the world. All of it. Even your thoughts feel greasy.

So you eat nothing but lentils and greens for a week, and do not even feel deprived.

Now you have the last few slices of belly, and about four cups of beautiful rendered fat. You may have even saved a half cup of soy sauce colored drippings. What are you going to do with this bounty?

Use it to make vegetables wonderful. Obviously.

Why yes, you could skip the beautiful greasy belly part and just use bacon and bacon fat.

So! Take the tough outer leaves and dry base off of about twelve brussels sprouts, and then quarter them lengthwise. Microwave them for a minute. Chop up a bacon slice sized piece of pork belly. Heat a cast iron pan so that it's quite hot. Add a teaspoon of pork fat. Let melt. Add the belly. Stir. Add the sprouts. Stir. Cook for about three minutes, tasting occasionally. Season with salt, Sriracha, or lemon juice. (Oh, or kimchi! That would be awesome!)

Cut two heads of broccoli into florets. Repeat the chopped slice of belly, hot pan, dab of pork fat plan from the above recipe. Stir fry the broccoli until just tender. Drizzle about a tablespoon of the pork pan drippings and eat. (Hunched over the dish, on the sofa, ignoring the rest of the meal.)

Microwave about half a pound of potatoes for three minutes. Place three tablespoons of pork fat into a cast iron pan. Quarter the potatoes and put them in the pan cut side down. Cook in a 450 degree oven for fifteen-twenty minutes. Prepare a decoy starch to distract your spouse. Laugh maniacally.

The pan will always be very hot. At no point should you remove the pan from a heat source with a potholder and then transfer the still hot pan to your unprotected hand. I just thought I should mention this. In case.

Greens with bacon stir fry

Our farmer's market is right next to a Ranch 99 superstore- which means we have a greater variety of produce, more reasonable prices, and the actual ability to buy all of the produce that one will eat in a week. I love multiculturalism and the long-term consequences of poorly conceived wars.

There are usually three to seven types of greens for sale- huge two hand bunches for a dollar. I'm terribly unclear on the names (and occasionally the families) but I tend to prepare them all the same way:

Chop one slice of fatty bacon into small bits. Fry on medium-high heat until crispy. Add one bunch chopped greens and stir until greens are tender. Serve.

Sometimes I fry a little onion or garlic with the bacon. Real vegans could just do that and add some oil. I sometimes garnish with lemon juice, chili paste, green onions, or cilantro.

As a pro tip- Ipomoea aquatica is absurdly tasty, the stems of bitter melon and chayote are not.

Savory Pumpkin Pie

This is not vegan. It does not contain pumpkin. It is not technically a pie.

Now that your expectations are low, allow me to state that I served this dish to my avowed carnivore parents as part of a plant-based dinner, and they ate it up and did not complain about the lack of giant carbon hoofprints on the table. It's a vegetarian meal you can serve to Midwesterners.

Bacon's a vegetable, right?

My mother states that this first bit is unnecessarily finicky and without benefit. I'm willing to accept that it's coincidence that every squash I've roasted turned out to be delicious while those cooked near liquids turned into insipid yellow things, so leave this out if you're pressed for time. And hate rainbows. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Cut a winter squash in half and scrape out the seeds. Brush with oil, if you're fancy. Bake for 30 minutes- 1 hour, until the squash is soft. (I used a Delicata, but acorn, Hubbard, or even a pumpkin would also work. If you're leaving out the pre-roasting, use the frozen bagged kind, since you're clearly in some sort of rush. Also because the amount of effort it takes to peel a raw acorn squash is greater than the amount of effort it takes to abandon your standards.)

Obtain a pie crust. There will be no veiled snark if you obtain one from a store, with money. Once your skill with pastry making is great enough so that it's not a huge pain, you will make pie at all times and have moderately elevated cholesterol at an unusually young age. (Quick recipe: 10 parts flour, 5 parts shortening, pinch of salt, one part cold water, one part vodka. Mix half the flour with the shortening, then blitz in the other half (and the salt). Add the liquids, chill briefly, and then smash the Play-doh like substance with a rolling pin until it resembles a crust. It's sticky, so do this on saran wrap. Oh, and use about 20 tbs of flour for one crust.)

Dice an onion. Saute in oil, or perhaps the rendered fat of a solitary strip of bacon. Crumble said bacon into tiny bits.

Peel the squash. Cut into bite sized chunks. Place within crust. Dot with onion and possible bacon.

Make a roux with 1 tbs. white flour and 1 tsp. oil. (Look, the shortening's already out, and we can't pretend this recipe is healthy, so...) Add about 1/2 cup vegetable broth or milk. Stir vigorously, until there are no more lumps. Add 1/4 cup grated jack cheese and 1/2 tsp thyme. (I'll bet it would be entirely edible with just a white sauce, no cheese. However, I was aiming for something my father would eat.) Pour the sauce over the squash. There won't be quite enough, and you will feel virtuous about not being decadent.

If your pie crust is very generous around the edges, fold it in for a nice tart appearance. Otherwise, fine. It is actually a pie. Bake for 15 minutes at 350 degrees.