Butter, At Last!

Every now and then I skim the cream off my raw milk to make butter.  But something always seems to go wrong, and I give up for a month or so.  The first time I made it was the best – I put all the cream into my Bosch mixer, ran it on speed 2 (out of 4), and after an hour (of mixer noise!) finally got butter.  The lesson I should’ve taken away from that was next time, run it on a higher speed.

 

I tend toward airheadedness, though, so I decided that next time I would use a blender or food processor since it might work better in a smaller space.  Well, I tried both of those with no success – just a splitting headache and an irritable husband afterward.

 

Last week I decided to save the cream from two weeks’ worth of milk and try again in the mixer at a higher speed.  I used to get a gallon per week, now I just get half a gallon, so there’s really not enough cream in a half gallon to make it work.  And all of those things together were magic – after half an hour I had butter!

 

 

(Ignore the indentation from my fingers – I was too excited about this to smooth it out before I took a picture.)

 

I’m not going to give a tutorial here about how to do this, since I’m definitely not an expert.  But if you Google “how to make raw milk butter,” you’ll find plenty of resources.  I let mine sit at room temperature on the counter for 12 hours (which is supposed to improve the flavor), but other than that, I followed the general instructions.  Now I need to figure out what to do with the leftover buttermilk, since I can’t cook with it (on account of D’s allergy).  Anyone want some buttermilk?

Not For The Queasy

 Raw dairy products seem to be a frequent topic of conversation in our house, so I shouldn’t have been surprised when Husband sent me this link in an email with the subject line, “Something for the blog?”  Just don’t read it if you have a weak stomach.

 

Yes, I love raw milk cheese, but NO, I don’t think I’ll be trying this particular variety anytime soon.

PB&J is Okay

It’s been an exhausting day – my son has an ear infection, and my daughter has been in a terrible mood.  Husband has school on Wednesday nights, so he wasn’t going to be home until time for the kids to go to bed.  Typically, this is the set-up for me choosing to go out to eat.  Why should I cook with a sick child on one hip while fighting the other’s temper tantrums? 

 

Somehow, I fought the urge.  I opted to eat at home, but I didn’t make the Asian Chicken Salad.  We ate sandwiches with peanut butter and pumpkin butter, steamed cauliflower, and tangerines – lunch food!  It was pretty nourishing, though – the bread is homemade from freshly-milled wheat, the peanut butter is natural, and the head of cauliflower was fresh, in contrast to those frozen bags of veggies with synthetic cheese topping.  The tangerines are from only one state away, which I think is pretty good for winter in the Southeast.

 

I’m going to bed early tonight, since I have a scratchy throat and a strange feeling in my ears.  Here are two food-related thoughts for the day:

 

1)   This one is not-so-important: did you know that the fibers in coconut husks are being used in some creative ways?  Check out Sustainablog’s report on how they’re being used to craft car parts in developing countries.  Oops — I forgot to link that up last night. Sorry.

 

2)   This one is VERY important: raw milk still needs your help!  Please go to http://www.change.org/ideas/view/legalize_milk and cast your vote to legalize raw milk all over the United States.  This is the second (and final) round, so if you voted in the first round, your vote is still needed in the second round to keep it in the top ten.  The last day to do this is Thursday, so please do it right now!  And if you’re in Connecticut, there’s a blog dedicated to this issue for your state here.

 

Cheers…

Help Legalize Raw Milk!

I realize that not all of you are on the raw milk bandwagon.  But don’t you think people should be able to decide for themselves whether they want their milk pasteurized?  We can legally eat our steaks rare despite risks of e. coli, but in many states (including the one I live in — Georgia), a farmer can be jailed for selling raw milk.  There are some ways we get around all that here, but why should we have to look for loopholes? 

 

Thankfully, the Obama administration is looking for input on what is important to Americans.  If you would like to keep the government’s nose out of your food decision making, go here to vote for this issue.  The last time I checked, it was still in first place under health care issues, so that is a good sign.

 

I voted for some other things, too, but I won’t discuss them here.