Pioneer Woman
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L1zardQueen wrote: »MonkeyMel21 wrote: »cmriverside wrote: »collectingblues wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »collectingblues wrote: »cmriverside wrote: »Ohhh....so many good little recipes when you type in lard macaroni and cheese.
https://centslessdeals.com/macaroni-cheese-secret-ingredient/
Now I want some. With bacon. Maybe a side of hot dog.
I'm 140 pounds, 5'7".
Is that okay to eat???????
You know what’s awesome? When you sautée the bacon first, and use the rendered fat for the roux for the cheese sauce.
I've done this.... sooo good!!!
I tried it on a whim the night I realized I was out of butter, but already had the other ingredients ready to go with no backup meal plan. I figured it couldn't do any harm, since fat is fat, and OMG it was fantastic.
I admit to using rendered bacon fat for just about anything that calls for butter...much more flavor.
I keep a jar of bacon fat next to the stove at all times. We use it very often.
Here's a li'l ol' lady reminiscence for you young'uns:
Loooong before the "obesity crisis", when I was a child (1950s), it was pretty standard for kitchen cannister sets - y'know, the ones that say "flour" "sugar" "salt" etc., on them, for storing staples - to include a cannister that said "grease". It would normally have a strainer inner lid. The idea was that you'd pour your rendered meat-fat into it through the strainer to strain out the chunky stuff, then you'd have a nice supply of cooking-grease right handy to use in other cooking.
Like I said, standard/common thing.
You can still buy individual jars/cannisters like this.
Forgive me for asking what's probably a dumb question, but I often hear about people saving & reusing cooking grease... is this with or without refrigeration?
Without, mostly, I believe, back in the day. Didn't have much refrigeration pre-REA in the sticks among the subsistence farmers, except the ice house, and that's too far from the cookstove to be handy. Then the habit persisted. Regular reheating is helpful. But I'm not expert - I was a towheaded tiny person in the 1950s.
Dunno about modern usage. I'm a veg.
Salt was the precursor to the ice for keeping foods safe to eat. Bacon was cured with salt.
So we're saying the salt content of bacon grease keeps it safe? I just can't wrap my head around the idea that grease with little bits of meat in it (even after straining) would be safe at room temp. No biggie though... don't plan on using it anyway
Actually it is the very low or zero water content. Think jerky.4 -
French_Peasant wrote: »French_Peasant wrote: »If you want to see someone who really gets into it, with a focus on food, check out https://www.youtube.com/user/jastownsendandson for colonial cooking. Think super geek, Colonial America style. My husband watches his channel all the time. It's a bit earlier than the pioneers, but pretty interesting! I draw the line at using a bunch of twigs as a whisk, though
Dude! I literally live an hour away from his store, and my whole family has an 1812 era outfit from Townsend’s because for a few years we volunteered at a festival requiring period dress. I love this channel!
Really? That's awesome! My husband so wants to visit his store.
Does he reenact? There are some big events in this area, like Feast of the Hunters Moon near Purdue University, Battle of Missinnewa, etc. The store is pretty small but completely legit with all the old timey stuff. You feel like you are in a time warp.
Oh I used to love going to the Feast when I was a grad student at Purdue! loved all the crafts and foods (they had the best cider I ever drank, the Boy Scouts heated it up in a cauldron over a fire, and clove-studded oranges floated in it). One of the pharmacology profs was a blacksmith. Although one exhibit, of dental tools, made me glad I live in THIS century.1 -
Loooong before the "obesity crisis", when I was a child (1950s), it was pretty standard for kitchen cannister sets - y'know, the ones that say "flour" "sugar" "salt" etc., on them, for storing staples - to include a cannister that said "grease". It would normally have a strainer inner lid. The idea was that you'd pour your rendered meat-fat into it through the strainer to strain out the chunky stuff, then you'd have a nice supply of cooking-grease right handy to use in other cooking.
Like I said, standard/common thing.
You can still buy individual jars/cannisters like this.
Years and years ago, my parents and I were crossing the USA. We stopped at a diner for breakfast in Missouri. At the time, Dad was on an elimination diet to figure out what was causing some allergies, and at that time he wasn't eating dairy.
Mom asked the waitress what the eggs, bacon etc were fried in (if butter, it would have been a problem).
Waitress: "Griddle grease"
Mom: "What's that?"
Waitress: "Y'all don't know what griddle grease is?!"
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I've enjoyed the Pioneer Woman's blog since its early days, in spite of the contrast with my own impoverished version of the country life.
I discovered the importance of a tight cover on the bacon grease can when a mouse jumped out of it one morning.12 -
snickerscharlie wrote: »L1zardQueen wrote: »
OMG so much fat and calories in that recipe (bacon grease, butter, lots of cheese, etc.)
Not in my house!
Why not? Sounds delicious for every once in a while.
all this talk about it, guess what im going to make this weekend? LOL hubby and the boy will be super happy;
now ... what to have WITH it? lolol
and i store bacon grease and butter on the counter.4 -
My mother stored bacon grease in a container with a lid on the stove top. Great for frying eggs as well as potatoes. A very flavorful frying choice. I refrigerate it, but because I don’t use it that often. I do leave butter out on the counter in a covered butter dish. We go through a quarter pound per week.
A lot of people would cringe at this, my Grandma would give us a slice of homemade bread with homemade butter sprinkled with sugar when we visited her at the farm. You wouldn’t believe the amounts and variety of foods they had daily for breakfast, dinner (served at noon) and supper. They were cooking and baking for hours daily. All this with no indoor plumbing. Water had to be heated for everything. This was during the 50’s and early 60’s. They finally got indoor plumbing in the mid 60’s.12 -
The British equivalent to bacon grease is 'beef dripping' which is the rendered fat of the Sunday Beef Roast and a bit of salt. Lots of children were brought up having 'bread and dripping' for tea [although strict food rationing during the 1939-1944 world war meant hardly any meat during this period so even 'bread and dripping' was a real treat. I was born in 1948 [some food rationing still in force] and can remember having 'bread and dripping' during my childhood......slobber slobber.6
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I keep my bacon grease in the fridge... I don't trust things left out. That's just me after taking a semester on food safety. 🤷🏼♀️3
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Bacon grease in the fridge, butter on the counter in a covered dish - usually around a 1/4lb worth. Few things worse in life than trying to make a sandwich with hard butter and then ripping big holes in your bread. #firstworldproblems
Whoever uses it and sees that there isn't enough for the next person adds butter from the fridge to the dish. There is hell to pay if anyone shirks this sacred duty. 13 -
missysippy930 wrote: »My mother stored bacon grease in a container with a lid on the stove top. Great for frying eggs as well as potatoes. A very flavorful frying choice. I refrigerate it, but because I don’t use it that often. I do leave butter out on the counter in a covered butter dish. We go through a quarter pound per week.
A lot of people would cringe at this, my Grandma would give us a slice of homemade bread with homemade butter sprinkled with sugar when we visited her at the farm. You wouldn’t believe the amounts and variety of foods they had daily for breakfast, dinner (served at noon) and supper. They were cooking and baking for hours daily. All this with no indoor plumbing. Water had to be heated for everything. This was during the 50’s and early 60’s. They finally got indoor plumbing in the mid 60’s.
This made me think of visiting my aunt & uncle on their farm in the 70s. I once stayed with them for a few days in the summer, and like you say, it seemed like she would bring out every single thing that was in the fridge and everything was homemade. And she always had a ton of food on hand whether it was just for the family, or if they were having some of their frequent visitors. My favorite thing was this amazing beef salad that she made. They were the most hardworking people I've ever known and they needed to fuel up!5 -
Chef_Barbell wrote: »I keep my bacon grease in the fridge... I don't trust things left out. That's just me after taking a semester on food safety. 🤷🏼♀️
@Chef_Barbell I'm currently refrigerating bacon grease but not butter...am interested in knowing if there is a scientific reason why bacon grease would be less safe out than butter.0 -
kshama2001 wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »I keep my bacon grease in the fridge... I don't trust things left out. That's just me after taking a semester on food safety. 🤷🏼♀️
@Chef_Barbell I'm currently refrigerating bacon grease but not butter...am interested in knowing if there is a scientific reason why bacon grease would be less safe out than butter.
Actually it is the opposite. Butter has a higher water content. I think most people that store BG in the fridge, like me, are probably just taking an extra step because it gets used much less frequently than our grandmother's who always stored it at room temp.
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Actually there is an ancient French technique for food preservation called confit, in which high-fat meats like duck or pork would be cooked in a pan (or vat) of fat for an extended period of time, and then poured into crocks or barrels and kept for months in a cool cellar. I think bacon grease on the counter would follow the same principal, even with the little bits of bacon in it, which seem to sink to the bottom, but you would still want it to be cool and have a high turnover; like butter it can go rancid.
(This has likely not been tested by the any university extension for safety; it's just an ancient technique.)
Our old farmhouse is so chilly, I wouldn't be concerned about leaving either bacon grease or butter out on the counter, but in the summer heat our butter will often become rancid. I refrigerate my grease as a matter of course, because I don't actually need it to be soft, like the butter. It's soft enough to spoon into a pan for frying. My brother in law gave me a butter bell for Christmas, so we will see how that will work in the summer.
Here is a Serious Eats article on it: https://www.seriouseats.com/2013/01/ask-the-food-lab-what-the-heck-is-confit.html
ETA: Here is a discussion of confits and botulism on Chowhound. https://www.chowhound.com/post/confits-cassoulets-botulism-details-606416?page=2
It didn't list confit, but I did find an entertaining peer reviewed article on botulism in which one incident happened when some folks bought refrigerated chowder, left it to sit on their counter for 5 weeks unrefrigerated, and proceeded to eat it despite its disgusting taste or smell. Apparently the issue was it didn't have a "keep refrigerated" label, not that these people were insane idiots:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3320287/
Also, don't eat traditionally fermented Inuit fish products.
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I would literally swim the Atlantic to sample some of her food.
It's a cooking show, not a diet show, and not everyone spends their days eating dust and low fat cream cheese.
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I've always stored bacon grease in a jar by the stove. I use it pretty frequently, but even when I don't (like it sits out for a week or more without use), I've never had it go rancid. My mom and grandmother did this, too, and we mostly lived in the South (high temps in the summer, limited a/c because it was expensive) and it's never been a problem. I don't think I saw anyone use olive oil for cooking until I was an adult and started reading recipes on my own. It was always bacon fat or vegetable oil (like Crisco) at my house. FWIW, I was the only chubby one in the family, so it wasn't particularly contributing to weight gain.3
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kshama2001 wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »I keep my bacon grease in the fridge... I don't trust things left out. That's just me after taking a semester on food safety. 🤷🏼♀️
@Chef_Barbell I'm currently refrigerating bacon grease but not butter...am interested in knowing if there is a scientific reason why bacon grease would be less safe out than butter.
No science other than 40-140 degree danger zone. I'm personally squeamish about leaving things out especially when I don't use it often.1 -
I guess I am sort of alone in finding her show somewhat boring. She never seems to fix anything that I don't already know, could not figure out on my own, or have no interest in preparing.4
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I guess I am sort of alone in finding her show somewhat boring. She never seems to fix anything that I don't already know, could not figure out on my own, or have no interest in preparing.
Should I confess that although I have read this entire thread, I have no idea who she is, her blog, or her show?
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MonkeyMel21 wrote: »cmriverside wrote: »collectingblues wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »collectingblues wrote: »cmriverside wrote: »Ohhh....so many good little recipes when you type in lard macaroni and cheese.
https://centslessdeals.com/macaroni-cheese-secret-ingredient/
Now I want some. With bacon. Maybe a side of hot dog.
I'm 140 pounds, 5'7".
Is that okay to eat???????
You know what’s awesome? When you sautée the bacon first, and use the rendered fat for the roux for the cheese sauce.
I've done this.... sooo good!!!
I tried it on a whim the night I realized I was out of butter, but already had the other ingredients ready to go with no backup meal plan. I figured it couldn't do any harm, since fat is fat, and OMG it was fantastic.
I admit to using rendered bacon fat for just about anything that calls for butter...much more flavor.
I keep a jar of bacon fat next to the stove at all times. We use it very often.
Here's a li'l ol' lady reminiscence for you young'uns:
Loooong before the "obesity crisis", when I was a child (1950s), it was pretty standard for kitchen cannister sets - y'know, the ones that say "flour" "sugar" "salt" etc., on them, for storing staples - to include a cannister that said "grease". It would normally have a strainer inner lid. The idea was that you'd pour your rendered meat-fat into it through the strainer to strain out the chunky stuff, then you'd have a nice supply of cooking-grease right handy to use in other cooking.
Like I said, standard/common thing.
You can still buy individual jars/cannisters like this.
My mom used to have 3 of these in the fridge, one for bacon grease, one for vegetable oil, one for chicken grease. And then the Crisco can. She got rid of them all on doctor's orders.1 -
quiksylver296 wrote: »I guess I am sort of alone in finding her show somewhat boring. She never seems to fix anything that I don't already know, could not figure out on my own, or have no interest in preparing.
Should I confess that although I have read this entire thread, I have no idea who she is, her blog, or her show?
:laugh:0
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