I am assuming this is about chicken skin, which reminded me of my childhood. My mom made homemade chicken soup (with noodles or rice) and always used the whole chicken in the soup and the noodles simply cooked around the chicken. Anyway, we alwyas ate "skin sandwiches" with the soup (dad's trick). This was a slice of bread smeared with butter and the chicken skin on the bread, folded in half. We dipped the sandwich in the broth, which was red (not yellow) because mom put tomato sauce in the soup for flavor. Sounds a bit gross, but it was (and is) sooo good!

I would have to say pork rinds in pimento cheese seems to get the most reaction.

I just had to chime in on this one! I slice the cucumber then put a dab of cream cheese on top of each one and then, on top of that, a nice, fat, juicy smoked oyster! I can eat this twice a day (but try to limit it to twice a week). My husband makes me eat this where he can't smell it. I never ate that before LC. But, I keep loosing weight so I'm not changing anything! Pass the oysters!

My family gives me looks when I mix up cream cheese and sour cream with a little splenda... Yumm Hits the spot when I want something sweet!!

Dee

when I was on LC before:

Pepperoni in the microwave for 1 minute. Makes pepperoni chips, dipped in sour cream.... mmmmm mmmmm mmmm

All that talk of cracklings made me hungry. Yesterday we went the butcher and got some pork trim. I got beef trim too, because I wanted some tallow and I was curious what beef cracklings would be like.

When we got home, I inspected my loot. The pork trim was in big long strips, with some small layers of meat in between the fat. I cut it into sections and tossed it into the crock pot. Last time I did it on the lowest setting but I wasn't so happy with the result, so this time I started it on 'high' and only turned it down when I went to bed.

In the morning I checked it out. It looked great! The lard didn't look brown and burned like last time; it was nice and clear. The cracklings looked pretty well done too. I took them out and drained them on paper towels. The beef cracklings needed a lot more time; Wifey made me take them off tonight because the smell was driving her crazy, but I think I'll need to fry them a second time to get them properly crispy. They tasted surprisingly good, but not as good as the pork cracklings.

The pork cracklings actually tasted about the same as last time; it's funny, both times when I tried them fresh, I was disappointed. They were mushy in places, and also had some really hard spots too. But last time I got really hooked on them later - I think they improved a lot over a two week period. I salted them pretty liberally with unrefined sea salt, and maybe that drew out any remaining moisture.

This time, the thick veins of meat between the fat were really noticeable. They were maybe a bit too hard and dried out, but they had an interesting flavor - like solid bouillon.

So the cracklings were a little disappointing, but I'm still really excited to have them and looking forward to their development over the next couple days. And I can't tell you how glad I am to have LARD again!

When you put the pork trim in the crock pot, was there anything else in there, or just the trim? How do you know when they're done? How long do you let them sit out and drain before flavoring? Was the smell bad as they are rendering? Are these like pork rinds? Do you use them at meals, or just for a snack? I do like pork rinds, but am new to the whole cracklings concept. How do you store the rendered pork fat?

Also, how and what with do you use the tallow?

Imagine I used to berate my DH for eating the fat from his meat. Now I do it too. Also eat lick the sour cream spoon, take a slice of cream cheese or butter. In restaurants, I get pretty weird looks for eating burgers without buns. Probably would be nicer to ask for a knife and fork, but when you order a double cheeseburger with no salad, asking for a knife and fork gets raised eyebrows on its own.

Place down in central Phoenix served a large burger in a bowl, covered with salad. It was down by the Diamondbacks' park. I thought I'd gone to heaven.

I had that tonight minus the sour cream. Always bump up my weight a few days and then I have an enormous whoosh.

1. just the trim. You can put some water in to keep it from burning, but it's not really necessary in the slow cooker.

2. They get brown and crispy and they float to the top.

3. Just till they're cool enough to touch... or until you're ready to deal with them.

4. Some might think so, but I love the smell of lard rendering. Tallow is another story - it smells horrible.

5. Yes, they're like pork rinds. Mine are much softer than pork rinds, though; I think there's a bit of an art to it.

6. Pretty much just as a snack.

7. In glass jars. If you can get it into plastic (I don't like to put hot things in plastic, but you can't wait till it gets hard) then you can freeze it. We have a small fridge so I leave it out often but it will keep longer in the fridge.

8. You can use tallow for deep frying, that's the most common use, I think. It's also an ingredient in pemmican (other ingredients: pulverized beef jerky, optional dried berries). I was thinking of trying to use it as a butter substitute, but I don't know how good that will be yet. Wifey is against the whole idea of tallow because she hates the smell, but as I understand it, McDonald's used to make their fries in tallow and I think they tasted and smelled great.

Hi Mikee - I am leaving my tallow out (next to the cooker becasue I cook almost everything in tallow) same as I was doing with the butter before giving it up, it stays solid all the time. Is this OK? or do I need to keep the tallow in the fridge?

Yes, tallow has a much higher saturated fat content than lard, which makes it solid at room temperature. It also makes it last a long time. It should keep for several months that way, and of course makes it easier to spread. It gets rock hard in the fridge.

I have skimmed tallow off of beef stock, and in this case you need to be careful. If there is any water content in the fat, it can spoil.

Tonight I fried chicken wings in the lard. After I finished, I re-fried the pork cracklings. They were so good, we finished them in about 5 minutes.

I haven't done this in a while, but this thread just reminded me of all the weird looks I used to get when I ate chicken salad and used spicy pork rinds as a spoon OMG it's so good! And hey, no dishes... the spoon is edible

I gotta say...ya'al are way more hard core than me. Even in the depths of LCing, I could never eat solid animal fat. Just cant do it. A few months ago I needed to fry something, chicken pieces or whatnot, and had NO oil in the house. So I remembered I had some bacon ends in the freezer (for beans) and cooked some of that up. It made everything nasty. Well, it gave a nice bacony and salty flavor to the chicken (the guys LOVED IT), but I felt like I had to scrape my mouth to clean the grease out of it. I think thats just my limit.

I think people are more grossed out by what I'm NOT eating-meaning bread and pasta. They look at my little baggies of salami and good sliced turkey, or my egg and tuna salad eaten with celery and shake their heads. Thats ok-this is a new workplace, they have never seen me LC, Ive been pregnant or recovering from it about the whole time I have been here. Theyre about to be educated.