Frontier Fridays: Homemade Shortening

Do not throw away small pieces of fat from pork, lamb, or steak.  Put them on the stove, in a skillet or agate dish and cook them until there is nothing left but scraps.  Then pare a potato, wash clean, cut into thin slices and cook in the fat for half an hour to clarify it.  Strain through a cloth.  This will be good for frying doughnuts in and for all purposes where shortening is involved, except for pie crust.

Pieces of fat, not fit for shortening can be saved in some old utensil and made into kitchen soup. 

note...My mother used to save bacon grease in a can on the stove...but this was way before her time it seems.