Recycling bacon grease

As a bed and breakfast, you can imagine all of the bacon and sausage grease that is generated from cooking big meals. I have been collecting it in jars for sometime now and pondering what to do with it. I wondered if it could be used in lieu of lard to make soap and I considered adding some to the dogs food to help them shed their winter coats but had made no serious effort to do anything with it until this morning.

The bird feeders are empty yet again after only a couple of days. I have a huge following in the bird world and attract almost all of the normal residents of Arkansas as well as the transients. I am documenting the species I see with photographs and dates so that I can publish a list for guests who would like come and bird watch. I need to expand my feeding stations but the quality seed is hard to come by in my rural area and, with fuel at $3.99/gal. for the farm truck, I don't make many local trips much less to Ft. Smith or Russellville, both about 40 miles away.

Over the years, I have purchased suet cakes for my winter residents to provide some extra energy with the fat. I recently stumbled across my suet feeder that was hiding since my move to Arkansas and set it aside to await my next trip to town and the purchase of a new cake. In cleaning the griddle this morning, it occurred to me that I could make my own suet using the grease and the birdseed.

I have lots of random sizes of plastic containers so I selected a square one that is slightly larger than the suet basket. I heated some additional grease from my stash and poured in just enough to cover the bottom of the container. Next, I poured in seed to the approximate depth that would fit in the suet holder and filled in the voids with more grease.

Once it hardened, I cut it to fit the holder and, voila, I had made my own suet cake for pennies worth of seed and about 5 minutes of my time. I do wonder how well these will hold up in warmer weather and if adding a small amount of wax would be reasonable the way we do when making candy. If anyone has any ideas, please email and I will include in a future post.