Yes, I only use butter - lard is harder to come by here. But the price of butter is ridiculous at the moment - we get it in 500gram blocks which is about a pound. At the moment it's around $6 NZD which is around $4 USD. I remember when you could get it on special for 0.99c (about 0.70c for you guys) and that was not so long ago! They claim it's because there's more of a demand for the milk/cream they use to make it, yet cream is the same price. It'll be cheaper to keep a cow soon! Not that I'd be complaining... not that we'd be allowed to keep one where we are currently.
We are lucky enough to have access to raw milk so I should try making my own butter. The government changed the rules a little while ago to say you had to pick up the raw milk directly from the farm, whereas ours gets delivered to a local health food shop who kindly let everyone in our area pick it up from there. So until the farm worked out how to get around that (and they did) I had no milk. I tried the unhomogenized stuff from the supermarket (still pasteurized though) but my stomach did not like it!!! My gut obviously likes all the good, live bacteria in real milk. So we had to travel across Auckland (no mean feat these days) to get some from a small farm. Thankfully my supply was restored. It's so delicious!
I had to look up Crisco. Vegetable shortening! I know that stuff (readily available at the supermarket). Unlike lard, though they do have duck fat at a ridiculous price (though compared to butter it's not actually that bad)! Crazy!
Fire their butts hubby!
