An Adventure in Butter and Cream

So folks, I did it! I made butter today!!!!! It was really fun. It took a bit longer than I thought so I got a bit nervous but everything turned out right. I started with a nice cold mixing bowl, wisk and heavy cream. I started mixing it and watched at the cream got thicker. Once the stiff peaks formed, this is where it got dicy. Since it was taking a decent amount of time, I turned off the mixer and scraped down the sides. I also looked up my friend EK's blog to see what she did when she made butter. About this time, the mixture started changing and I knew I was on the right track. As I watched the butter granules started forming and buttermilk began splashing out of the mixer. Thats right. With a mixer on high, any liquid is going to get wizzed right out of the bowl. At this point I decided the mixer had done its work. I turned it off and felt the butter. It felt like, smelled like and looked like little pieces of butter in a cloudy liquid. I dumped everything into a strainer lined with cheese cloth and squeezed. Once the butter was in a nice lump I began to wash it. I got butter all over my hands and ring, but its all good. The water came clear and I put the new butter into the French Butter Bell that I had bought from the farmers market a few months ago. My mom had bought one just like mine with a different pattern. When she tried to use hers with store bought butter, she said it didn't work. The butter slid right out of the bell into the water. When I filled mine, I checked to make sure the butter was staying upside-down. So far so good. In fact I just checked again... it's still upside-down. Since I've also been trying to find a place that sells fresh dairy products so that I can buy some buttermilk and fresh cream to make sour cream, I used some of the new-made butter milk and the left over heavy cream to attempt to make some sour cream now. Its sitting in a platic container on the counter. "Souring" I hope. We'll find out tomorrow. Now for using up the rest of the buttermilk. I have no idea what to do with it. The only thing I can think of is buttermilk biscuits or buttermilk ranch dressing! I'm sure both of those are fine things to try out. Maybe next week? Anyway.. I have plenty of ideas for using up the butter. I am hoping to make an herb butter with it. I have tons of rosemary that I never use and I am trying to come up with ideas for using it up. So far it's doing the best out of all my plants and herbs that I planted in the spring. I have one cucumber growing but I think it is dying because it is turning yellow. Oh well. On a side note I have some black cherry tomatoes! Gonna talk to my mom to find out exactly how dark they should be before I pick them. I can't wait. Maybe I can make some bruchetta with the basil pesto and cherry tomatoes. Looking forward to all the possibilities!

Its hot outside!!!!

Russell took a picture today. It was of the tempurature gage in the paramedic unit. It registered a 120 degrees outside!!!! Yikes! On a good note: I made a basil-parsely pesto trying to use up all the basil from my herb box. Its getting too hot outside for any kind of plant so I had to save them. The pesto doesn't quite taste like basil, but that's because I put a huge amount of parsley in it. And maybe not enough garlic. I toasted up some pine nuts for the first time. I tasted them too. They are soft. Almost like peanut butter in a hard shell form or something. It was new and different. I also have some good news. I finally bought heavy cream with the intent to whip the heck out of it and turn it into butter!!!! Yay! Stand by for an update either tomorrow or Saturday. Because I am going to make butter. =)

Garden update

So we had a bad windstorm a few days ago and an extra fence picket got knocked into my tomato plants that Russell moved onto the back deck. The mean ol' fence picket broke a branch of the HUGE tomato plant. Lucky me it didn't break it all the way and I was able to stake the branch and tie it to the stake and back on it self. There are bunches of tomatoes growing and I want to enjoy every single one, so I hope the branch will graft itself back onto the main stem. On a happy note, I have dahlia blooms!

Pictures

A picture post of babies!

My garden

I promised an update of my garden when I got my new computer. PS: I did get my computer finally =) So anyway.... here are the garden pictures. I've actually got a rather large cucumber too that I just saw today.

My tomato plants are mutating! They are so huge! It probably is because I misread the directions on the tomato plant food and fed them with it everyday I watered them instead of using it every 7-10 days.

I've got some flowers growing too. These below are Ranunculus.

And these are the Dalihas that I transplanted from a pot. They were just too big.

I also have two big trays of herbs. Parsely and Rosemary in one and Basil in the other. I've used them all but I have tons and am racking my brain for more ideas of where to use them. Any tips let me know =)