Rendered Pork Lard

I've purchased rendered pork lard from my farmer for the past several years.  It's so much better than anything you can get in a grocery store (lard, shortening--ew, right?).  Pork lard, you may ask?  Okay, I don't purchase lard, or shortening, from the store, to use in anything.  Yuck.  But the rendered pork lard from my farmer--that is what I use in my pie crusts, other baking, even biscuits and biscuit mix (you still have to store it in the fridge or freezer), mmm.  I'm getting hungry now.  But I digress.  I had heard about rendering your own pork fat, but I didn't have any, so I never ever considered doing it.

Then my neighbor Lorraine offered me several large bags of pork fat which she had stored in her freezer, left over from the side of pork they purchased earlier in the year.  So, I took the bags and stored them in my own freezer--until I realized we really, really needed to use up the stuff in our freezer, which desperately needed (still needs!) to be defrosted.

First of all, since these bags of fat were frozen solid, we moved them to our large cooler in our garage, which was also very cool (we're talking November).  After 3-4 days in the cooler, they were ready and waiting for me to haul them in to the kitchen to get started on the massive project.  Fortunately, I live in a household of guys.  Strong guys. Who willingly help their mom when she asks.  Nice, huh?  :)

I was surprised to find the pork in pieces; I expected to find super large chunks that had to be cut down to size.  A friend (and some blog sites) recommended that I run the pork through my meat grinder, so that's where Thomas stepped in to help.

It really was rather gross, and since there was so much pork fat--the bag above was the first of three--I ended up pausing partway through to clean the parts to the grinder.

After being ground, the fat was put into every available slow cooker I owned.  I added about a quarter cup of water to each pot to prevent burning as the fat heated, turned the slow cookers on low, and let them do their jobs.

After maybe just an hour, the fat started to look like this, below:

The step I didn't take pictures of:  One large metal bowl (about eight quarts), with a colander over it (the handles held it above the bowl), and cheesecloth lining the colander, was set up.  I then simply ladled the liquid into the colander and let it drip down into the bowl.  As the bowl filled, I transferred the liquid fat into a Pampered Chef four-cup measuring bowl with a pour spout, and poured the liquid fat into wide-mouth pint canning jars.

The picture below looks nice, but don't put the lids on yet!  I filled the jars to within about a half inch to an inch from the top, then let them sit and cool on my counter.  No seals/rings on yet!

More Rendering

After a long afternoon of grinding the fat up, I tried to fry up the cracklins--the remaining fat after letting all the liquid stuff drain off.  They're supposed to turn crispy and crackly (hence the name), and you can use them in baking, on salads, etc.  Well, I fried and fried and fried, and they just kept getting stuck in the pan and turned into a gooey mess.  I decided I didn't want cracklins anyway, and dumped the whole mess out.

Then, I further decided I didn't want to put the fat through the meat grinder, either.  So I just started loading it into the crock pot, below.

Success!!  The un-ground pieces produced the same beautiful liquid!  And I was able to fry up the cracklins to use in baking (more on that in a future post).  Back to the rendering now...

Below, you can see that as the liquid fat cools, it becomes paler, then white in color.  This is a very, very good thing!

Once everything is cooled, put seals and rings on, and store them in the freezer.  How easy is that?

Okay, now on to super yummy fried up goodness, almost as good as bacon.  Yep, bacon is pretty much at the top, but this comes in just below it.  I took the little pieces of fat and just fried them up.  More liquid fat was produced, so I drained that off and saved it, much like bacon fat, to be used in frying, and frijoles, and greasing pans...

Fryin' up the cracklins.

The fat from the cracklins will not turn white, and has more of the pork odor (the white stuff is just about odorless), so you won't want to use it in, say, pie crusts.  But it's great for what I mentioned above--frying, frijoles (refried beans), etc.

And the cracklins?  I stored them in quart-sized canning jars, right on the counter, and am still using them.  Because, I discovered Cracklin' Bread.  Seriously.  I'll post that recipe real soon, y'all.  (It's a southern thing.)  UPDATE:  Here's the Cracklin' Bread recipe I posted!

Rendered pork lard.

The end of the story?  Not quite yet.  I had spent an entire day doing this, and I was pooped.  But, I felt accomplished!  Like a prairie woman, doing things the old-fashioned way.  And, thankful for the Lord's provision, even in fat!

A few days later, and a couple days before Thanksgiving, Fernando and I went to our farmer, picked up our Thanksgiving turkey, and brought it home.  We lifted the lid to the cooler to put a bag of ice and the turkey inside, and---there was one more bag of pork fat.  Sigh.  At least the second pork-fat-rendering job took a lot less time, and was easier because I sort of knew what I was doing.

Oink, oink!!


Back to life,
Christine

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Pico de Gallo

November 4.

The tomatoes I had picked a few weeks ago were all ripening, and Joseph was happily incorporating them into his lunches every day.  There was a mountain of them, though, and I knew I had to do something with them as they slowly started getting really ripe.  Time for pico de gallo, which is basically a fresh salsa.

Amazingly (according to my friends), I don't use a recipe for this.  Many people also drain off the liquid from the salsa, but I leave it in.  You pretty much can drink the remaining bit of salsa down when you get to the bottom of the bowl.  Yum!

I also have a pretty new pottery bowl to put my pico de gallo in--I purchased this hand-made bowl at our local farmers market this past summer.

I love all things blue!  But you probably figured that out already.

Pico de Gallo

tomatoes
onion
green pepper (optional, your taste!)
jalapenos
cilantro
garlic
white vinegar
salt

Chop the tomatoes, onion, green pepper, jalapenos, and garlic as coarsely/finely as you wish.  Chop the cilantro and add it in,  Pour in a splash of white vinegar, and salt to taste.

I really can't give you ingredient amounts, but they are listed in order of amount.  If you have, say, four or five tomatoes, use 1/4 of an onion, one small green pepper, one jalapeno (or whatever, depending on your affinity for heat!).  Then go from there--half a bunch of cilantro, a splash of white vinegar, maybe 1/2 teaspoon of salt (better start with 1/4).  Just keep tasting/testing along the way.  That's how I do it!


Back to life,
Christine

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Updating My Organized Kitchen Drawers

Remember last year when I made my own drawer organizers for two of my kitchen drawers?  (And if you haven't read that post, it's the place to start if you want to build inexpensive drawer organizers!)

Well, after a year or so, the silverware drawer looked like this:

The weight of the silverware caused the bottom of the drawer to bow, which then created a gap between my organizer and the drawer bottom, which then caused the silverware to creep around the drawer.  Ugh.  Dearest hubby attempted to glue the organizer right to the bottom of the drawer, but as you can see in the above image, that didn't hold.  After thinking a bit, I decided I would try to use the weight of the silverware to my advantage--and it worked!  (Which is why I'm posting this, lol!)

We pulled the drawer out, and removed the entire organizer.  I traced the middle sections of the organizer onto the leftover sturdy board I had kept from this same project--meaning no extra cost, whew.

After tracing the openings onto the sturdy board, I sweet-talked Fernando into cutting the shapes out for me, and then I positioned each one in the bottom of its compartment then drew a bead of Elmer's Glue around the edges.

Below is what it looked like after all the sections were in.  I ran out of sturdy board, so I decided that since most of the main silverware (forks, knives, spoons) were in those center sections, I'd leave the edges bare and see how that held up--which it's doing fine so far.

Once the glue around the insides was dry, I flipped over my organizer and drew beads of glue around the sections here:

It's always a good idea to let that glue dry thoroughly before using the organizer!  So, the next day, we inserted the organizer back into the drawer, and I filled it up again.  Can you see all the silverware and serving utensils there in the below image, upper left?  I tried so hard to keep them organized the way I had them in the drawer!

And, here you go!  This "new and improved" organizer is doing great, and things are staying neat and tidy!

Back to life,
Christine

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Homemade Ketchup -- Or Is It Catsup??

I've always wondered about those two different spellings.  Apparently they're both acceptable, with ketchup being the more popular of the two.  I hope you were wondering, too.

Necessity is the mother of invention.

Commonly ascribed to Plato, and seen as early as the mid-1500s, this phrase took on pertinent meaning for me this week since I was out of grocery money.  As in--none.  And we were out of ketchup.  Those faint noises you heard a few days ago?  That was the guys.  I won't say if it was screaming or crying. 

Either way, we were out of it, and we needed some.  I had a few hours, and figured, why not.  It's a table sauce, technically, and I've made mayonnaise, barbecue sauce, and various salad dressings, so this would probably be just as easy.  And it was.  Seriously.

When I made this recipe, we didn't have any French fries lying around.  But we did have an almost-gone bag of Kettle ridged potato chips.  Seriously awesome on their own, but I have a few sons who love ketchup on them.  Potatoes + ketchup = happy tummy.

I invented the recipe only so far as to tweak one that a dear friend gave me a long time ago.  Dear friends do that a lot.  That's another reason they're dear.  :)

This recipe called for some unusual spices, and I added one more--turmeric root--to the mix as I tweaked.  Side note--be careful with turmeric, as it will stain yellow whatever it touches.  Even my Corian countertops.  (It's mostly gone now, whew!)

On to my recipe!  I feel a little (tiny) bit of tweaking is still in order, but I wanted to get this up on the blog and share it with you.  Plus I haven't blogged in a month--yikes!  You'll see an "Updated" alert under the recipe if I've done that.  For now, here is the recipe!  It is tangy, and a bit sweeter than I'm used to because of the honey.  You may try substituting cane juice crystals (or plain sugar if that's what you use).  I may reduce the honey as part of my tweak.  Here we go...

Christine's Homemade Ketchup
Yield:  Not quite five half-pint canning jars

four cans tomato paste (those little cans)
1 1/4 cup honey (start with 3/4 cup and taste-test, then tweak)
3/4 cup vinegar (I used about half raw cider vinegar and half white)
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon cloves
1/8 teaspoon turmeric
pinch garlic powder  (literally--pinch a bit between your fingers!)
pinch cayenne powder
pinch allspice

Place all ingredients in saucepan and whisk to combine well.  Heat over medium heat for 10-15 minutes, until it's bubbly and warm.  Allow to cool before storing.  I put mine in Mason jars and am storing it in the fridge.  The ketchup can be made without heating; just combine well (a blender would work great) and store 1-2 days before using to allow flavors to marry.

Since this is mostly tomatoes and vinegar, you could water-bath can it.  I'm going to double the recipe and try canning it next time.  My Ball Canning Book recommends boiling for 15 minutes in pint jars.  I'll let you know how it goes!

If I update this recipe, I'll be sure to let you know!


Back to life,
Christine

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Spice Rack Organization

Another brutally cold winter day means another day sheltered inside my home.  I don't mind this so much, because I know that once the weather warms up just a bit--and by warm I mean the 30s--we'll have more reasons to venture outside.

For now, I'm content to stay at home and spend the extra time I have here organizing and beautifying.  These words are pretty much synonymous for me, because an organized home is beautiful to me--it's neat, orderly, and calming to my spirit.  Not to mention, it also stirs up a sense of accomplishment that I did something!

Today, I'm sharing about how I organized my spice rack.  First, here's the "after" image:

It's still a work in progress, since I don't have enough of the smaller jars for all my spices.   The jars with the blue labels are my "work of art."  Below is the "before" image:

Some jars were large, some were small, some had quickly printed labels of my own, and some had permanent marker "labels."  I love uniformity, though, so here's what I did.

First, in Microsoft Word 2010, I created a new document, with three columns.  Then I created a chart with a pretty border, and used a light blue filler.  I will probably end up changing all these labels to plain white or another color, but I love blue so that's what I chose.  :)

The cells in the "chart" that are empty are there so that when I cut out each spice label, each label will have a complete border around.

The little spice jars are four-ounce jars, and I got them from Penzey's Spices (love that store!).  They sell the empty jars with blank labels (several sizes of jars, too), but these jars I bought with spices in them, and some came from my mom when she finished up a spice.

I lay out all the jars and labels, then I get out the packing tape.  Yep, that's what I use.

I lay the packing tape in strips, sticky side up, and place the labels word side down along each strip.  I used a piece of green paper so you could see the strips of tape.  Technically, what I do is pull out a strip of tape without cutting it off, and let it dangle (I hold the tape end and let the dispenser dangle down.  Then I put each label on, about three or four.  Then I rip off the end.  That way, I don't have "not enough" tape to get another label on.  Hope that makes sense!

Then it's just a matter of cutting between each label, and trimming the tape if it won't fit your jar.  I try to adhere the labels slightly higher than center, which looks prettier (photographer's "Rule of Thirds" and all!).  That was hard to do with these little jars, though, so I did my best.

That's it!  As I finish up spices, I'll soak off the labels (these Penzey's jars have easy-to-soak-off labels!) and replace them with my own.

Back to life,
Christine

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Sealing Bags for Freezer Storage

Often when I cook or bake, I like to double a recipe and freeze the extra for future use.  Figure the time savings with me:

From start to finish, My Very Best Chocolate Cake takes over an hour to reach the final "cooling on the racks" stage.  But, if I add about 15 minutes--if that--of extra time to measure double amounts and grease/flour extra pans, the result is two sets of cakes!  One set will get used right away, and one set will get frozen.  Five or six months later, when I have a hankering for cake, or there's a food event (potluck or some such event) coming up, I can pull out those cakes, whip up a frosting or filling, and I'm quickly set to bring a dessert!  So here's my formula:

Doubling a recipe = Saving time!

Now on to the freezing part.  It's important to keep as much air as possible out of your freezer package, since oxygen promotes freezer burn or at least diminished taste.  I don't have a vacuum sealer, so what do I do?

First, for, say, the cakes I mentioned above, I wrap them in plastic wrap.  I do the cakes two ways (around one side, then turn 90 degrees and wrap that way) because they're not quite narrow enough for the plastic wrap to cover from edge to edge.  And that also gives them some extra protection.

The cakes also fit nicely in gallon-sized freezer bags, so each one goes into a separate bag (can't fit two in one, unfortunately).  Then, I seal the bags.  Yes, there's more; keep reading.  ;)

I open the seal in the center of the bag (easier to seal again once this step is done), and insert a straw into the bag.  Then I seal the bag around the straw as much as possible.  All that's left is lung power!

Suck out as much air as possible.  This may take several inhales; usually two or three will do the trick.  Once you've gotten as much air out as you think you can, use your lips to pull the straw out while using your fingers to quickly seal the bag up completely.

Of course, vacuum sealing is probably much easier, but without that handy machine, this has worked for me very well!

Above are my three sealed cakes, ready for the freezer.  Oh, and in case you were wondering, the "common" name for My Very Best Chocolate Cake is...

Chocolate Cake To The Max

Just in case you were wondering what those letters meant.  ;)


Back to life,
Christine

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Sitting Pretty

I thought for a split second I might title this post Clean Your Seat.  But I thought better.  :)

When we remodeled our kitchen, we had purchased four rather expensive bar stools to be placed around our kitchen counter area.  They were microfiber, which the store sales rep told us was so very easy to clean.  I loved the black metal, and the swirly design, and the "easy to clean" sales pitch sewed it up.  We were sold.

Well, the stools lost their ability to swivel cleanly (an issue with the ball bearings inside the seat), but they were still very pretty and comfortable to sit in.  And, the years passed by, and the seats got dirty.  Every now and then I'd clean them with a damp dish cloth, but there'd still be stains left behind.  And after a while, I ceased to care.

Gross, huh?  Well, after all the cleaning and re-organizing we recently did, I took one look at those bar stool seats and decided I'd better spend some time cleaning them.  An upcoming church meeting at our house sealed my determination to clean--even if men don't care about the cleanliness of the space they're in if you put coffee and food out on the table.  :)

Yeah, the stains were bad.  Looking at the pictures, I can't believe I let it get that bad.  Embarrassing, huh?  But I'm usually pretty transparent on this blog, and I'm sure you have some of your own spaces and places in your home that you'd be embarrassed to show me.  So let's call it even.

I remember reading--and pinning--a blog post telling you how to clean microfiber, over at 551 East.  This is not my original idea!  But I thought I'd try her method and see if it really worked.  Read on, dear reader!

I utilized a teenager in the cleaning process--but only after I exhausted my own arm muscles.  First, take a spray bottle with rubbing alcohol in it.  My own spray bottle leaked, so I simply removed the sprayer and put it directly into the bottle of rubbing alcohol.  Worked just fine.

Over at 551 East, Julia wrote that I should use a white sponge, to avoid possible color transfer onto my microfiber material.  I didn't have white, but I had a pink one and a couple other colors, and they were new, so I figured I was game and tried it--no problems!  I think I would have been more careful had my microfiber been light colored, as Julia's was.

I sprayed the rubbing alcohol directly onto the fabric, saturating it (not until it was dripping, mind you).  Then I took the sponge--which I had damped and wrung out--and began scrubbing.  I pretty much scrubbed the entire seat, though I missed the sides of the cushions at first.  You'll see that below.

When my arms were dead tired, I engaged Thomas' help.  Please don't rest your hand on top of the seat you have just cleaned, as you see Thomas doing below.  He left little finger-shaped marks on the seat and we had to clean it again.  :/

While Thomas cleaned, I enjoyed a cup of coffee.  Yes, I usually fill it to the brim.

Here below is my first effort with the first chair.  You can see the dirty areas on some of the sides, which I later cleaned.  And another note:  rotate your sponge so that you're using a clean section, and once that gets dirty, rotate it again.  Or simple rinse it out really, really, well, and continue scrubbing.

I was seriously amazed.  I couldn't believe I had new-looking chairs again!  The reason rubbing alcohol is used instead of water is its ability to dry quickly.  And since I decided to clean the bar stools on the same day as the men's meeting, I needed them to dry quickly!  I placed one in the patch of sun coming through the patio door, then rotated the chairs around.  Within just a few hours, they were all dry and ready to be sat in once again.

The smell of the alcohol didn't really bother me, but if that's something you'd rather avoid, put a fan out, or open the windows if the weather is nice.  The smell dissipated quickly, so no worries about it lingering around for guests.

Looks like a new bar stool, doesn't it?  I'm so tickled that this method works.  And I read that I can do this once a month.  I don't know that I'll do it that frequently, but maybe just as needed or at the change of seasons--spring and fall cleaning.


Back to life,
Christine

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Another Place for Everything

Blog Commercial:  This is Part Two in a two-part series.  Click here to read the step-by-step how-to, with a list of tools you'll need, in Part One.  Now on to our scheduled programming...

After my successful adventure in organizing my peninsula drawer with all its kitchen tools, I decided to keep the ball rolling and design and organize the only other large drawer in my kitchen:  the silverware drawer.

Since the step-by-step instructions are in Part One, I'll show you the step-by-step process in photos here, with a brief explanation as you scroll down.  Photos are better than words, anyway.

The Before Photo:

Tape together paper to fit the size of the drawer.  (Obviously not the first step--first, clean out the drawer, then remove the drawer onto a table.  There.)

Use a yardstick and pencil to design the spaces you want.  Feel free to erase.  A lot.

Lay out drawer items to make sure they'll fit (generally) on the paper spaces.  Keep in mind that the Sturdy Board (which is what I used for the walls) is about 1/8" thick, and you'll lose a little space once it's in place.

Frame out the drawer.  Don't do the side pieces first--do the long, wide pieces first!  We unknowingly did it right the first time--cut the longer, width-side pieces first, then anchor them in place with the shorter side pieces.  Also, the front long-side piece will bow inward just a bit, due to the drawer face screws and knob/handle screws (which you can see below).  Cutting the long pieces first then anchoring them with the side pieces will help those long pieces stay in place.  Remember, cut the long pieces first!

Start cutting out the inner pieces according to your paper design.  All these pieces are the height of the inner drawer side walls--2.5 inches.  (More on that below.)

All the pieces are in place--nothing is secured yet.  (Don't breathe!)

Take a popcorn break.  I did.

Double check all the spaces.

I set several pieces of silverware inside the spaces to check for depth, etc.  Still nothing glued yet--walls kept falling down on me!

Okay, here's an important note:  See the fallen-down walls in the above photo?  Since those walls are deeper in the drawer, we cut their height to two inches, half an inch shorter than the rest of the walls.  This helped with ease of reaching in to the back of the drawer, which is pretty deep, once the drawer is back in its cabinet.  You can see their shorter height in the image below.

Next step--Elmer's Glue!  Just a little around each joint, then let everything dry.  Go do the laundry or something.  More gluing comes later.

I didn't take pictures of the "more gluing" stage for this drawer, since that's detailed in Part One.  You simply put the drawer on its side and place a bead of glue along each seam.  Once those are dry (do some more laundry, or dust, or something), flip the drawer on its other side and place a bead of glue along those seams.  Let those dry, too.  You get to accomplish lots of chores while all the drying takes place.  I did each drawer over a period of two days.  Patience!

Voilà!  The finished drawer is in place and ready to be filled--the most fun part.  Note the walls that are the shorter two-inch height for ease of reaching in!

In Part One, I noted that my walls weren't exactly square; they ended up just a tad bowed in some spots.  That problem persisted in the silverware drawer, as your discerning eye may be able to see in the image above.  But they're generally, decently square, and my own perfectionist heart does not care.  So you shouldn't sweat it, either.

I made a little slot in the front left corner of the drawer for my twister container:

Notice the glue hasn't quite dried in the above image?  I'm not that patient.

In the front right corner, I created a little space for my clothespins bag closure clips.

Also along the front center is a space for cell phone charging cords.  (And the cords are twist-tied so they don't go all over the place!)

The After Photo:

P.S.  We're Not Done Yet.

I found candles floating all over the original silverware drawer.  What to do, what to do...

I love those little zipper-lock craft bags, about 2x3 inches, that you can find at Hobby Lobby!

The candles are contained!

I found a spot for the candle bag in the peninsula drawer, between my Tupperware freezer labels and the Post-In Notes.

Supreme bliss!


***UPDATE:  If you're using your drawer organizer to store heavy items, such as silverware as I've done in this blog post, please read this new blog post to see how I solved the problem (that you'll end up eventually having) of sagging drawer bottoms and creeping kitchen items!


Back to life,
Christine

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