My Tuesday Twister posts are my weekly round-up of what’s going on in my kitchen and our lives, as it pertains to GNOWFGLINS. We try as much as possible to make use of “God’s natural, organic, whole foods, grown locally and in season.” So here we go – I’ll catch you up on what’s twisting in my kitchen this week!
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This week…
The highlight of my week was going to Eugene with my friend Jami. We attended a “fat rendering event” with the Eugene chapter of the WAPF. About a dozen people gathered in someone’s home and the chapter leader showed us how to render fat using either the crockpot or the stovetop. We helped stirring, straining, and chopping. And we visited, too. I got to meet three people that I’ve met through the internet, two of whom are Marianne and Gina. I’m planning a post later this week to tell you more about this event and share more pictures.
Since I finally saw how the rendering was done, my crockpot has been going non-stop working its way through the freezer-shelf full of fat from our last grass-fed beef purchase! If you want to do this yourself, Ann Marie @ Cheeseslave has great instructions for rendering lard and tallow.
I ordered some braunschweiger from US Wellness Meats. We ate it with sourdough toast for a lunch and a dinner. It was pretty good – I’d say everyone liked it. To be honest, it does have a different texture. But it was easy enough to eat. It just doesn’t have the same mouth appeal to people (us) who are used to sausage texture. FYI: “Braunschweiger is a 60/40 mix of grass-fed trim and grass-fed beef liver retailed in a fully cooked 1 pound package ready to slice and serve.”
So, that’s it for me – what’s twisting in your kitchen? To participate in the Tuesday Twister Blog Carnival, visit this post.
I’m definitely going to try it. Soon.
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My husband grew up eating braunschweiger and he loves it! Every now and then he buys himself a roll of the Oscar Meyer stuff at the grocery. He likes to spread it on bread or toast for a sandwich, rather than slice it. Is the USW spreadable? He’d probably love it if I ordered him some really good braunschweiger. Knowing my crazy sardine-loving kids would love it too
Lindsey in AL´s last blog post… A funny
your sourdough looks amazing! is that your spelt sd from your recipe section? yum!
i’ve been wanting to try the liverwurst from us wellness meats. sounds delicious!
i’m actually going to be making pate a try today. first attempt. we’ll see how it goes!
did you by chance find out any info. on turkey fat at your rendering event?
thanks wardeh. hope you are having a great day!
Erin – That is basically my spelt sd, although this one was whole wheat. Sourdough is really clicking for me lately – and Marianne just taught me my final trick when I met her on the weekend.
We had a nice sourdough talk!
Oh, please let me know how your pate turns out. I didn’t find anything out about turkey fat – someone mentioned it is not as beneficial as fat from beef, lamb or pork. But I haven’t confirmed that.
Lindsey – This braunschweiger was hard to cut in easy slices, but I’m not sure it is that spreadable. It could be spread though. I smashed some up in my last corner of bread – and that worked.
I’m excited to hear about the braunschweiger. I’ve been looking for a good source of grass-fed beef liver. My local grass-fed beef supplier sells his livers to a dog food manufacturer instead of my local grocer!
gillie – I bought straight liver from them, too. I’m trying to come up with more ways to fix it. Right now I just chop it up very fine and toss it in with ground-beef. How do you fix liver?
I’ve cooked our liver pan-fried with a sauce (forget which one) and as a pate. My husband actually preferred the pan-fried to the pate. I was the opposite. I do like the idea of having someone else (US Wellness Meats!) mix it and cook it for me.
I’m thinking of buying the braunschweiger and the head cheese. Do you think the braunschweiger would be a possible substitute for pan-fried chicken sausage?
I love the idea of chopping up the liver very fine and adding it to my ground beef. But the liver I’m able to get locally is chicken liver. And for some reason, I don’t like the idea of mixing chicken liver with ground beef. Is that odd?
gilliebean´s last blog post… For the record…
That looks interesting. I don’t think I have ever heard of rendering fat. I am looking forward to your post about the event.