There are a few things I know I'll need to buy at the store before winter. So far it looks like a couple different types of oil, a gluten-free flour mix, sugar, and cornmeal. Butter needed to be on my list, but to keep things in the spirit of preserving as much as I can, I've opted to make my own butter and include elements from my herb garden. Tonight was my first batch for winter.
If you've never made butter, it's actually pretty fun and of course really tasty. The first time I made butter was when my son was a few years old. We went on a camping trip to the Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado. During a nighttime event that the rangers put on about the life of pioneer women, the audience was asked to pass around a jar of heavy whipping cream, each person shaking for a couple minutes. Within no time there was fresh butter for everyone to enjoy on homemade bread. We've made butter like this periodically for years now. It's especially fun for kids.
It's this easy:
If you've never made butter, it's actually pretty fun and of course really tasty. The first time I made butter was when my son was a few years old. We went on a camping trip to the Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado. During a nighttime event that the rangers put on about the life of pioneer women, the audience was asked to pass around a jar of heavy whipping cream, each person shaking for a couple minutes. Within no time there was fresh butter for everyone to enjoy on homemade bread. We've made butter like this periodically for years now. It's especially fun for kids.
It's this easy:
- Pour 1 quart of heavy whipping cream into three pint jars, leaving a couple inches of air at the top of each jar
- Shake the jars (maybe 15 minutes or so)
- After much shaking, the magic happens all of a sudden...you have a blob of butter in the jar
- Drain any remaining liquid off the butter
- Add salt and any herbs (I added fresh chives and thyme)
- Roll into "sticks" of butter within plastic wrap, then wrap with foil, and seal inside a freezer bag for the freezer or place in the fridge to use after chilling
Another blackberry barter! This was the deal...fresh blackberries traded for a later bottle of blackberry/elderberry wine. Tonight I prepared the blackberries to make juice. I poured water over the blackberries in a large saucepan, not quite enough to cover them. Then I brought them up quickly to a boil and let boil for a couple minutes. After this I mashed the mixture, let cool, and strained it through cotton to leave a dark, unsweetened juice. The juice went into the freezer. After the elderberries are ready to pick, I'll add the elderberry juice to the blackberry juice and we'll be on the way to wine.
Image credit: Cale Ruiz
Image credit: Cale Ruiz