Wednesday, October 24, 2012

My horrible confession


You may or may not know that I consider myself a southern girl.  I was born in Florida, moved to Alabama, then to Virginia.  I now live in Arizona.  I have never lived further north than Virgina.

Anyway, the point is as a southern girl you would think that I love to cook; I do, I love to cook.  You would also think that I would know how to cook certain things like apple pie, collard greens, fried okra, fried chicken, etc.  Again, I know how to make all of these things (I hate
pie though).  So what is the big deal right?

Well I have never ever tried to render my animal fat!  I know, I can't believe it either!  I have been throwing my fat away for years and it has never even crossed my mind to render it and re-purpose it.  That is until today.  Shame on me!

Today while breaking down the ham into ham steaks, lunch meat, and cubes for soups and such I had an abnormally large pile of fat and didn't want to toss it.  Then it hit me like a ton of bricks......I could render it and use it in place of shortening, butter, and oil.  I am not sure why it has taken me so long to think of this.  So I am in the middle of the rendering process.

I am not sure I am doing everything correctly and probably didn't clean the fat well enough but this is a learning process for me.  Another staggering fact is I have never had cracklings.  I know yet another southern-girl fail.  So this will be my first time having them as well.

I know all you fellow southerners out the are about to fall out of your chairs about now but sadly it gets worse.  This is also the first time I have ever saved my ham bone.  To be perfectly honest I am not sure what I will do with it because I usually make thicker, milk based soups.  Any ideas?

I would love input on rendering fat and what to do with the bone!  I am trying to save money through not tossing as much and think going back to my southern roots might help in that respect!

No comments:

Post a Comment