Bacon Grease

It stinks getting old, especially when your life centers around food, and the doc (God love him - he is a dear true friend) tells you that you have to change your eating habits.  Actually, it is probably more like you have to give up ALL your eating habits.  What makes it even worse is when you have the opposite problem that your spouse has.  I am not suppose to eat fat - he is not suppose to eat sugar or carbs.  The only thing left that we can share are green vegetables.  Not good.  But you know, it isn't near as bad as even a few years ago.  New products are coming out all the time to make your life better when you have to eat healthier. 

I grew up where you never threw out the bacon grease (yes, we really ate bacon and still do when the babe and the farmer come to town).  Bacon grease was a necessity if you were cooking in the South.  It was used for cooking almost all vegetables, making gravy, scrambling eggs, greasing the pan for biscuits - you name it.  We stored it in a jar and never ran without.  And if a little flavored the pot, a whole lot made it wonderful.  This was like Paula Deen and her butter.  A real Southern cook had to have her bacon grease.  I am here to share with you that you can get the same flavor without the grease.  I have found three wonderful new seasonings that bring back the flavor in cooking.

This little box is a life saver!  It comes with 6 or 8 little packets.  Just dump one packet into the vegetable you are cooking along with the broth or water that you are using and you will never know you didn't have the bacon grease.  It is wonderful in peas, green beans, and last night I made cabbage in a skillet with this and my next product and water.  NO grease, olive oil, butter, PAM whatsoever.  And it was just as good as the real thing.  And it has all zeros in the nuitrition label except for sodium.  You may not even need to add much salt when using this product. 

I added this to the cabbage also.  It is J&D's Bacon Salt - Original.  This is Gary's favorite new thing to cook with.  He adds it to everything!  Sure glad he doesn't make desserts!  (Oh, we aren't suppose to have those anymore.  oops! Dr. Gabbie - sorry)  It is a low sodium product or so it says on the label.  It is another way to add the flavor of bacon without the fat.  I found both of these products at Super One Foods in the seasoning section.  If you can't find them in your favorite grocery store, you can always order them online.

This last product was actually the first one I found out of the three.  Boy does it make hamburgers taste better, even if you are grilling them.  It is also great in a lot of vegetables.  It just gives them a hint of out doors cooking.  And have you noticed how Wal-Mart is getting new things all the time.  I found mini cucumbers there that looked about the size of a wiener.  They are wonderful and crisp.  No large seeds in them.  They also had mini colorful sweet peppers to add to the salads.  They look like miniature bell peppers.  Use one or two of these when cutting up your salad and you don't waste the other half of a large one.  We love those in our salads.  You know salads and broccoli are about all Gary and I can share these days besides the treadmill. 

Have fun cooking healthy and have a Blessed Day!