Waste Not, Want Not in the Kitchen-- Bacon Grease

I know bacon grease is not the absolute healthiest thing in the world to eat, but when you cook bacon (and nitrate free bacon is EXPENSIVE), there's a lot of grease left to throw away. I have been trying new ways to use it up. Here are two:

~Use it in muffins. Prepare a basic muffin recipe (I like the one in this book), but substitute bacon grease for the oil. This makes a really savory muffin that hubby loves (I can't eat more than one. They are really strong tasting.).

~Season green beans. We have been using fresh or frozen green beans and I think that they are kind of bland. But if you boil or steam them and then saute some chopped onions in bacon grease and stir in the green beans, they are absolutely delicious!

How do YOU use up leftovers?

Waste Not, Want Not in the Kitchen-- chicken

I am constantly learning to waste less in the kitchen. Right now I don't do a big weekly meal plan because I never know how much of something I will have leftover, and I need the flexibility to use up the leftovers. Here is how meals went down last week with chicken.

Day one: Roasted chicken, bread, misc. veggies (made carcass into stock)
Day two: Chicken and Dumplin's (We always have tons of broth leftover from this but not so many dumplings, so the broth usually goes to waste... not this time)

Day three: Chicken pot pie. I just used the tiny little pieces of chicken I had leftover with a bag of mixed veggies and the Chicken and Dumplin' broth as gravy in a pie crust.

I also used my tiny little leftover bits of pie crust. Just tossed them in the toaster oven to be tasty chips/cookies.

Stay tuned for my yummy chicken and dumplin' recipe!