Butter in a Blender

Posted on April 28, 2011 by Momzoo

We drink raw milk that comes from happy cows who eat fresh green grass all day long. Because our milk is raw, meaning it isn’t pasturised or homoginized, we get a nice thick layer of cream that rises to the top of the milk. This time of year especially the cream is thick and there is a lot, being that the cows have all calved and they are eating fast growing green grass, the milk is full of vitamins A and D and the taste is wonderful. I like to make butter with the cream, being that raw butter is actually nutritious with the combination of natural occuring fat soluable vitamins and the fat that is butter. The quickest way, I have found to make butter is with my blender, it only take a few minutes and very little work. I do have an old fashioned butter churn which I have used, but it takes a while to get butter from all the churning.

First I let my jars of cream sit out for a few hours, to bring them to room temprature. It makes the cream whip up faster, and while this step isn’t neccisary, it cut the churning time in about half. Then I add it to my hand dandy Blendtec blender (one of my favorite kitchen purchases).

I set the spead to “1” and just let it blend, it will go for about a minute then shut off, then I check it, and start it over if I need to. There have been times that I have only had do this twice, but other times (when the cream is cold) it takes several cycles.

After a couple cycles, it turns into whipped cream

One more cycle and I have butter, it is floating in buttermilk.

I then strain it, getting most of the buttermilk to save later for recipes

The buttermilk is stored in a jar in the refridgerator for a couple of days, so it can clabber and it takes on the tangy taste that we all know as buttermilk. Since my butter is sweet cream butter, the buttermilk that comes off of it tastes like skim milk. For more information on cultured buttermilk and sweet cream buttermilk, go “here“.

I then rinse the butter very, very well in cold water. This takes a little while, you need to get all the buttermilk out of the butter, the old buttmilk will make the butter go bad, but butter that is cleaned well lasts a long time. I usually rinse, then let it sit, stir and rinse again and let sit again, this takes maybe an hour, but it isn’t that time consuming, as I stir then let sit while I do other things.

There you have it, grass fed raw butter, beautiful and yellow. That yellow color comes from vitamin A, that the cows get from fresh greeen grass. Comercial butter that comes from corn and soy fed cows is white, and yellow coloring is added. This beautiful color comes from healthy cows eating what cows were ment to eat. The butter is then packed away in jars and stored in either the fridge of freezer to be enjoyed on potates, veggies or hot bread.

Making Buttermilk

Posted on September 14, 2010 by Momzoo

This post, about making buttermilk, is actually a precursor to a wonderful recipe I am going to share latter this week for buttermilk syrup.

Making your own buttermilk at home is simple and inexpensive, and a great beginner step into the wonderful world of cultured milk products. Buttermilk bought from the store is a cultured product. It really isn’t the milk leftover from making butter. Butter now days is usually sweet cream butter, meaning that the cream used to make the butter is fresh, not soured. In the good old days, women would save their cream for a week or more until they had enough to churn, in the process of saving the cream (in a world where there was no refrigeration) the cream would sour, or culture. Once the butter was made, the milk that would come off the butter tasted, well, sour and tangy. Women would use this buttermilk in baking, nothing was every wasted.

Now that we use sweet cream to make butter, buttermilk has to be made from milk that has had cultured added to it, in order to get the soured taste that makes buttermilk.

To make buttermilk from home, all you need is:

Cultured buttermilk

Milk

and

a glass jar

Making the buttermilk is as simple as, adding the store bought buttermilk and milk together in a jar

covering with plastic (so it can breath a little, or you might break the jar as the milk cultures)

and letting it sit on your counter for a day or so, until it thickens.

Yes, out on the counter, not refrigerated, the milk will not go bad.

This will create a nice thick buttermilk, sometimes it is thick enough to spoon out of the jar. (If this happens, a quick stir will liquefy it again). At this point store in the refrigerator, it will be good for a couple of weeks. Make sure you remember to save a little bit to use as a starter for the next batch. Like yogurt or kiefer, it is the gift that will just keep giving.

There you have it, a quart of buttermilk for the price of a half pint and some milk.

Pineapple vinegar….so what is the story?

Posted on July 24, 2010 by Momzoo

I wrote a post in June about making Pineapple Vinegar…then I went silent….

Yeah, there was a reason that I never followed up on that.

While the vinegar was in the process of fermenting, and such, we went on a little three day vacation. While I was gone the water level went down, and since I wasn’t there to make sure the pineapple was under liquid all the time, the pineapple rotted. While it is normal and OK for there to be little bits of mold on the top of the water (just scoop it out with a spoon) I wasn’t comfortable with the entire top, and parts if the pineapple being moldy. I threw the whole thing out.

I consider this losing the battle, while I win the war.

I have successfully made pineapple vinegar twice now, and I consider a failure like this to be par for the course. When learning to be self sufficient it is a whole lot of trial and error. Some things turn out, some don’t, and things that may have worked in the past don’t always work every time in the future. It is all about the journey, and finding joy in it.

I did have a couple people want to know what I use this vinegar for. Mainly I use it in salad dressing, really anything that you would normally use vinegar for. I like it drizzled on chard or other cooked greens. It has a little bit different flavor than distilled or apple cider vinegar.

Mainly though, I love knowing how to do it.

Making Vinegar

Posted on June 22, 2010 by Momzoo

I learned how to make pineapple vinegar last winter, but never blogged about it, and since I had another pineapple to cut up and eat I decided to make another batch of vinegar and share the process.

Vinegar making is very simple. All that is needed is some type of organic matter (usually fruit) sugar, water, air and yeast.

The great thing about making your own vinegar is that you can use then entire plant, instead of throwing away portions of it.

For pineapple vinegar, just slice a pineapple as you normally would, eating the fruit, but saving the peel and core. Give the peel a good rinse in water.

Then in a jar (I used a quart size and half gallon jar) add about 1/3 cup sugar.

Then some water, and stir it until the sugar dissolves.

Once the peel is rinsed, cut it up into good sized chunks.

Put it in you jars and add enough water to fill the jar and cover the fruit.

Then cover the jars with a cloth. Air needs to be able to get to the fruit, the natural yeasts in the air will start working on the sugar water and fermentation will start.

The pictures below are after three days. You can see that the liquid gets cloudy, that is good, it is part of the process. You can also see the bubbles that are forming around the top and inside the jar, that is also good, alcohol is being formed. To make vinegar we need to get past the alcohol to where it turns to vinegar.

Making vinegar can take several weeks depending on the temperature (it needs to be between 60 and 80 degrees) and how much yeast you have in the air.

There are also a few other considerations. Sometimes bits of mold will form at the top of the jar, at the water line, just spoon it out, it won’t hurt anything. Also water will need to be added as the days go along to compensate for evaporation.

I will keep you updated as things progress, and we will talk about the “mother” and why having vinegar with the “mother” still intact is a good thing.

On a cold winter day

Posted on December 11, 2009 by Momzoo

For cold noses and toeses.

On cold days I like to make a special herbal tea to warm up my frozen little munchkins.

My kids call it Sweet Milk.

First I make a really weak chamomile tea, I boil water in a teapot and add two tea bags. While doing that I get my cups ready add a little less than a teaspoon of either honey or raw cane sugar.

One the tea is ready I fill the cups up about half way.