Pro tip: a 1970s home ec teacher in Ohio taught me to save bacon grease in a coffee can, and my grocery bill dropped $40 a month | Cooking with Leftovers Only - Talk Freely
Pro tip: a 1970s home ec teacher in Ohio taught me to save bacon grease in a coffee can, and my grocery bill dropped $40 a month
My grandma kept a Folgers can of bacon grease next to the stove for 30 years and I always thought it was just a Depression era habit. Then I read a USDA note saying about 30 percent of the food we buy in the US gets thrown out at home, and that number floored me. So I started saving drippings again and using them to fry potatoes, eggs, and leftover rice. Last month I made it through a whole week of dinners using nothing but pantry stuff and half a bag of frozen peas. It is not fancy, but the food tastes like my childhood kitchen did. Does anyone else keep a grease can going, or am I just the last one doing this?
Did your grandma's can have that little strainer thing on top or did she just spoon it out? I used to roll my eyes at the whole grease can thing because I thought it was gross and unhealthy. Then I watched how much oil and butter I was buying every month and it hit me that I was just pouring money in the trash with every pan of bacon. Now I keep a jar in the fridge and use it for potatoes, cornbread, and greens, and it adds so much flavor that I barely touch the expensive stuff anymore. The food waste number got me too, half the stuff in my fridge used to rot before I could cook it. Cooking from the pantry with drippings made me way less likely to toss things out, simple as that.