We’ve had an email from Ali, asking about goose fat:

We jumped onto the goose fat bandwagon at Christmas because everyone was saying it was the best way to make roast potatoes but they were awful!! Not sure if it was my fault or the fat but either way they’re off the menu here now!! We’ve got a nearly full jar full what can we do with it? Compost?

I wouldn’t compost it – our compost bins aren’t sealed and I’d worry about it attracting vermin/animals to the area — too many downsides for not that much compost “profit”.

If I was you, I’d probably see if a friend wanted it. There are lots of other things to cook with goose fat aside from roast potatoes apparently – but I guess they’re not much good if the potatoes were “awful” because of the fat’s flavour. Someone else might be able to use it up though.

Aside from that, the consensus seems to be that it’s ok to use to make fat balls for birds. It’s not supposed to be as good as more solid lard but will make a calorific – and expensive – dinner for the local wildlife.

Any other suggestions – recipes or other uses?

Since we do what we’re told by our water company, we don’t pour meat fat from cooking down the sink – we scrape/pour it into an old plastic container instead. The gross pot full in the picture is a combination of lots of fat from lots of different meals for the last couple of months, ick.

When we started our collection, we thought we’d use it to make bird feeders this winter – the fat is solid at room temperature, let alone at the minus-something temperatures we’ve got at the moment, so we were going to fill it with nuts and seeds to make fat balls for the local wildlife. But then I read that you shouldn’t use reused meat fat to make fat balls – because it’s prone to smearing and can cause them problems when cleaning their feathers. Does anyone know if this is true?

If it is, shucks, there goes our reuse idea. Is there anything else we can do with it instead? Are any particular fats (eg, bacon fat) more reusable?

(Incidentally, the bird feeding stuff fits into something I wrote about on The Really Good Life yesterday – asking about alternatives to shop-bought bird feed for wild birds — do pop over and read it if you feed birds!)

This week’s quick link round-up:

• Amber of Berlin’s Whimsy has a tutorial for making washable covers for Swiffer-style floor sweepers out of old towels
• If our soggy garden is anything to go by, it’s possibly a little late for this now but if you’ve still got pretty dry leaves, you can make them into a bouquet of “roses”
• Crafting a Green World has some useful documentation on calculating the fabric yardage from old bedding
• Make candles from old cooking oil/fat – two methods: one using salt, the other using a wire coil to support the wick
• Finally something that both is and isn’t recycling – how to save seeds from this year’s soft veg to plant next year.

We’ve had an email from Barb, asking:

Hi, I have about two pounds of vegetable shortening I bought last year and didn’t use up that is out of date now and a tad rancid. Does anyone know how this can be reused or recycled? It has been sitting on the kitchen counter for days while I tried to devise a way to reuse it.

Because it’s just a fat, I think you can use it as a general lubricant – and there seems to be a number of household uses for it if it’s not utterly rancid.

Apparently, it can be used to remove tar or lipstick from clothes, ink from hands or surfaces, protect and revitalise wooden balls & chopping boards, help nappy rash, stop snow sticking to a shovel and – something we all need to do constantly – make clown make-up.

You can also apparently use it as an, ahem, personal lubricant but be aware that like Vaseline and all oil-based lubricants, it shouldn’t be used with condoms as it can cause the latex to degrade.

Any other suggestions?