Busy Kitchen

I started the day yesterday by mixing up and baking a carrot cake for Son .  It calls for baby food carrots.  We love it because it's dense.  I am able to locate organic, non-gmo baby food at our local store

I made a batch of homemade tortillas with lard.  

My puppies are now officially way over board spoiled.

Homemade Flour Tortillas with Lard ~ From Pile to File ~ Fire Powder

I mentioned a while back that I would try another tortilla recipe, but this time I used lard.  I forgot I even had the recipe until I was looking for my whole wheat pancake recipe one day.  Tip:  Tortilla presses are more for corn tortillas (or masa), so you'll need a rolling pin for this recipe.

This recipe got all thumbs up from the family.  The tortillas are softer and we all like these better than the tortillas I have been making with organic canola oil.

No Eggs? No Problem

I adapted the recipe for Eggless Peanut Butter Cookies, by using natural peanut butter, and lard (vs. shortening).  Once we have goat's milk again, I will bake these again, using organic butter and goat's milk (vs. the buttermilk).

These were pretty good, and I got about 6 1/2 dozen cookies, by using my smaller pampered chef cookie scoop.  

I think these would make a wonderful addition to our Christmas cookies next season too.  And I am betting they would freeze well.
 

Baking and Cooking with Lard ~ Chocolate Cherry Crunches

(The upper two on the right were made with a half cherry and the others a whole cherry)

Another future goal of ours, is to raise pigs for meat, and of course have lard.  

I spend a lot of time researching ways to utilize something before we raise it for food. 

 

(Photo source: Amazon)

I have found this wonderful book at the library (again, a great place to read books for free).  However, I may have to add this book to my personal homesteading library. 

I did not have enough dough to cover 24 whole maraschino
cherries.  I started to cut them in half, however, in the end, preferred the whole cherry in the cookie.  Next time, I need to use less dough per cookie.

These would be great for Valentine's Day or Christmas.

I am sure the debate over shortening and lard will continue for years, and doctors will have their opinion.  But when it comes down to it, it's about what's real and what's not real.  And of course, everything in moderation.