Playing in the Kitchen

I’ve been having fun in the kitchen. Not everything I’m making is gifts but a few things will be.

A couple of days ago I made three batches of hot cocoa mix. For Vince’s batch, I used Allulose instead of the powdered sugar and instead of regular white chocolate chips, I used Libby’s that were sweetened with stevia.

I’ve already shared some of this so there’s only a few jars left.

I rendered the pork fat that was in the freezer. I called the local butcher shop where I usually get my fat because I needed beef fat (suet). I forgot about deer season – all the deer hunters get all the pork and beef fat that’s available for making sausage. They told me to call back in February!! I called a couple of other shops and may be able to get beef fat next week. I’ll be fine on the lard. We have a pig that’s being butchered in January. I will get all the fat from that. If Chad doesn’t want the fat from his (he probably will), I can have that but I’m almost totally out of tallow so I do hope I can get some.

Today I made Beeswax/Honey lotion bars. The bee mold makes six discs so I poured the rest into the citrus mold, which is about twice as big as the smaller disc. I have metal tins for the smaller ones but had to order larger tins for the bigger mold. I may make the Tangerine lotion bars tomorrow. They will all go in the citrus molds (I think). I need to get out all my molds and see what I have.

Today I also got all the cabbage rolls and all the “deconstructed” cabbage rolls out of the Souper Cubes and got those all vacuum sealed and back into the freezer.

Now I should be able to get in a couple of hours of cross stitching!