We have been using local beef tallow for maybe a year now, but it is $5.99/pound. We have located a better resource for buying it, and at a lower price of $2.49/pound. Thankfully, we can freeze it, so we are re-stocked for a while. We only fry fish (perch and walleye), and that is only when we are gifted the fish. Once a year I make homemade corn dogs with all beef hotdogs. I have used the beef tallow to grease pans, and that works great too.
I have been substituting oil with the tallow, for when I make steel cut oat patties, squash patties, or anything similar needing "oil" to pan "fry" or cook.
The same resource also sells local lard, and that can be frozen as well.
I have been checking around at prices for vanilla beans, and the online resource (for organic) is still the best price. In store prices seem to be high. The above photo was taken at a bulk Amish food store.
The daffodils are starting to bloom here. We have several varieties growing in the flower beds.
Green onions are continuing to spring back to life. I'll be adding them to meals very soon.
Chives are springing back to life as well, and they will soon be in our daily meals too. As you an see, I have not cleaned out the herb garden or even the flower beds. It's too soon, although it's tempting on warmer days around here.
April is bringing us a lot of rain. A lot. It's also bringing more back and forth weather, and with the warmer days, it's bringing in tiny ants.
I had to put out soaked cotton balls to get rid of the ants again. I mix a 50-50 solution of borax and granulated sugar. I add enough water to mix up a "paste" solution. I coat cotton balls with the solution, and put them on small pieces of waxed paper in the areas where the ants are coming in. The wax paper just makes clean up so much easier. Otherwise the borax mixture will leave a mess on the surface of where you place the cotton balls. The ants will devour it, but the borax kills the ants within a day or less.
