It's like buttah!

One of the neat things about living in Northeastern Ohio is that I am able to have access to be a part of a herdshare where I can get milk and other dairy products directly from the Amish. I love being a part of it because it allows me to be closer to my food source, and I get to help support the local agricultural industry. In addition to that, I actually own part of the herd. I have cows!

I've been a part of the herdshare for about 3 months or so, and have been really pleased with the quality of milk and cream that I am able to get.

Since I'm able to get excellent quality cream from my cows I have started to make my own butter. I must confess, it is not quite as easy as I thought....well, it is and it isn't. The actual process of making butter is exactly as easy as it seems- beat the cream until it goes from whipped cream to condensed and hard, and well, butter.  To my surprise there are some slight nuances to making butter. I have only found this out through trial and error.

Here are my findings so far-

1. If you whip it in a KitchenAid, be sure to cover the bowl with dishcloths.  If you don't, you'll end up with buttermilk all over the place.
2. A food processor isn't really the best way. It can over heat and then the butter will melt, which will not only mess up the consistency, but also make it too difficult to tell if it is in fact finished processing.
3. You need to no only pour off the buttermilk, but wash the butter until all the buttermilk is gone. If you do not do a good job of washing the buttermilk, or simply omit it (as I have been doing from sheer ignorance) the butter will go bad REALLY quickly.
4. There is sweet cream butter and there is cultured butter. Cultured butter is made by first letting the cream sit out at room temperature for 8 hours.
5. I'm pretty sure that Sally Fallon says you can actually use that buttermilk in cooking, but it is upstairs and I am downstairs. I'll check on that later and edit this post. 

I'll be making more butter on Tuesday and I'll be sure to wash it and add some salt. I'll let you know if I have more success.

My New Garden

As you know, I recently moved into a home. I love my home, but I hate that the seller's stopped weeding when they put the house on the market six months ago.  I think I may have some of the world's tallest weeds. I may call the Guiness Book of World Records.  Here are some pictures of the flower beds around the house.

I'm not done. I might be 30% done with weeding. There's just so much! I also need to find a good mulch to put out in the beds.

Before:

Two areas for growing veggies...once I reclaim it from the weeds.

 After (only some sections done):

Close up of Veronica

Elderberry

Hydrangea

Creeping Baby's Breath

Butterfly Bush

Rosemary, Basil, and Spearmint

Cilantro and Parsley

Tiger's Eye

The Breville Smart Oven

This is my new favorite small appliance! 

The Breville Smart Oven is probably the best toaster oven ever. Breville earned both Consumer Report's and Cooks Illustrated's highest marks, excelling in every category.

Our experience has been the same as both the reviewers above. The toaster toasts evenly and perfectly. The interface is so easy to use- something I truly appreciate. The ease of use makes it so easy for my husband to just go and heat something up. The oven is also pretty.

The toaster oven is not just a plain toaster oven, but a convection oven, which makes cooking in general more even and efficient.  The toaster has the following features: toast, bagel, roast, bake, pizza, reheat, broil, cookie, and warm, and they have each rack position labeled! There's also a button for frozen, which allows the toaster to adjust the cooking time if say, you store bread in the freezer. Such a breeze! The oven is also large enough to fit a 9x13 sized pan. You could bake a cake in there if you wanted. I even roasted two Cornish game hens- they came out really well considering I didn't have a thermometer to check the temperature.

The only downside to this appliance is the price tag. It's about $250 depending on where you buy it. Save up and treat yourself. You won't regret it.

Greetings from Ohio!

When last I wrote, which has been quite a while, I was a proud Texan. Today I sit here in my extended stay location in Ohio, where I am now a resident. 

My husband's previous employer decided to cease their operations. The company was not unprofitable, but had some issues and the parent company decided to close the company. With that news reaching us in December, we began searching for jobs. Job hunting is my not-so-favorite thing to do, however, as a helpmeet, it's what I get to do.

Well, it turns out that I was successful in my search and now my husband is an actuary! At long last he has finally gotten into his desired field. The catch? We had to leave our beloved Texas and church.

We were incredibly blessed with an awesome relocation package. We had movers come and pack up our apartment and load up a truck and take our things to storage. It's the only way to move.

At present we are looking for a house to buy. Lord willing we will find something soon.

A Kitchen Must Have

I recently acquired a kitchen tool that I have long desired. The OXO Good Grips V-Blade Mandoline. I first fell in love with the mandoline when I saw Martha Stewart use it in one of her recipes several years ago (back when her show was good). It wasn't the OXO mandoline that I saw, but some $200 Italian made mandoline. The efficiency and perfection with which Martha sliced was awe inspiring. Okay, well, maybe that's a bit much, but for a cooking nerd it was so cool! Fast forward a few years to when I began really reading Cooks Illustrated, and low and behold they did a review of mandolines. Their favorite choice was the OXO Good Grips V-Blade Mandoline.

I greatly value Cooks Illustrated's product reviews. They try a whole spectrum of tools and test them in a multitude of ways. I regularly consult with them before purchasing anything for my kitchen, and I have to say that I have not found them to be wrong.

So, with all that background, I received my mandoline a few days ago and used it for the first time last night. I made Cottage Potatoes (Nourishing Traditions recipe)- a favorite of my husband. I sailed through the preparation of the potatoes- literally less than five minutes of slicing- and they were all an even 1/4" thick! The mandoline is also well marked, comes with a few different blades, and is easy to take a part.

The best part- a modest price of $39.99!

It's been a long time

It's been a while since I last posted, well, anything.

Starting in November things got busy, as my dad and step-mom came to visit and then Thanksgiving was upon us. Thanksgiving required a trip down to Houston (not my fave place) to spend time with the in-laws for most of the weekend.

Then December came, and with it some interesting news regarding my husband's job. Not the good interesting. So, we are job hunting again (I do this for him during the day) and will in all likelihood end up moving. That was the beginning of December. Then we went to California for roughly ten days to be out there during Christmas.  Christmas was okay. It wasn't horrible or anything. I just don't like going places for holidays. It makes it seem like it never happened. I don't get to cook, be around my tree, or anything. It's just different, and it's not the kind of different I like.

While we were out in California I think we caught Chris' grandma's cold. So we were sick for New Year's.

During the holiday season I got commissioned to knit a pair of hats and mittens for my nephews. They came out fine. I just wasn't too jazzed about the project, but as I am told they were a hit. The boys were running around Christmas morning wearing them indoors.

I've also started knitting some legwarmers for myself. They are really cool looking- it's a braid pattern- which I've never done before. I'm excited about them, plus it'll be nice to actually knit something for myself.

Well, now I'm getting tired. I'll try and post something soon. And eventually I'll remember to take pictures of the kombucha and other cool stuff I do in the kitchen.

~Until next time