Making Butter

Last week, the local Target went and became a Super Target by selling groceries inside.  They sent the whole town (I think) a coupon for a free dozen eggs (and to get you in the store).   I don't need eggs (for sure), but I had to bring something for Wednesday night dinner, so I decided to make a quiche and use the free eggs.  The way I make quiche is with heavy cream.  Target also had Organic heavy whipping cream, so I bought those two items and was on my way.  (I am getting good at shopping for only things I need!)

So, after the quiche was made I now had about two cups of heavy whipping cream left over and I remembered reading about a few people who made butter in a mason jar using heavy cream....sooooooo.

I poured the heavy cream into a Large Wide Mouth Mason Jar and put the cover on tight and proceeded to shake.

I have begun shaking it here:

 And I shook and I shook and I shook!  It took about 10 minutes to get to a semi-solid consistency:

 Once it is solid and yellow, you pour off the butter milk through a colendar.

This is how much buttermilk I got out of it.  I'm not sure how many of you have ever drunk a glass of home made buttermilk but talk about delicious!  Sweet and thick and I would have it again!!!!

Unfortunately, my camera is not too good, but the finished product was a beautiful yellow color....

 It was a full stick of butter (1/2 cup).  So I took another picture of the butter today (after I had used some for garlic bread).

It was really good.  I salted it a little.  It was fun - sort of a novelty.  If I can buy organic butter at the grocery store, I will.   But I'm glad I know how to make my own!

The Wine Cellar

I only got three pictures of the wine cellar (grotta) as my dad always called it (before my camera died).  My brother's grotta is pretty large, with shelves for wine everywhere.  He has last years' wine in his demijohns, plus he keeps his uncle's wine down there too.  He has a lot of wine bottled already on shelves.

This is his wine press.  It is hand cranked.  He cranks it every day and the juice of the grapes inside filters down to the pan at the bottom where it is then transferred to the barrel.

These are my brother's demijohns.  Most are filled.  There are bottles everywhere also and he knows which type of wine is in every container.

My husband's wine (to-be) is in the containers on this side - one is Merlot, one is San Giovese (white) and one is Chianti.  The other container on the floor is another friends wine and the demijohn on top is my brothers wine.  The barrel on the side is full of wine and unfortunately, you only get a partial few of the shelving units where all the previous years wine is.  My brother started making wine around 1997/1998 and still has bottles from his first year.

Once my hubby's wine is transferred to the demijohns (I'm not sure when this process happens, but I know they are doing something tomorrow), I will get more pictures and some good pictures of the wine shelves.  Did you ever hear that song "Dust on the Bottle"?  That is my brother's wine cellar.  It is an awesome place to be at this time of year.

CSA Week #20

Here is what we are getting this week:

Full Share:


2 lbs sweet potatoes
2 lbs potatoes
4 sweet peppers
1/2 lb hot peppers
1 bunch of turnips
1 head of lettuce
1 head of escarole
1 lb beets
2 kohlrabi
3 large tomatoes
1 bunch kale

I made green smoothies last week with the kale.  They didn't turn out too green, definitely more pink (because of the raspberries).  (By the way - I still five quarts of raspberries left!).  :)

I will use the kale for smoothies again this week because each day I made them, my son wanted one to go!

I have no idea what I am keeping this week.  I will have to see what my sister needs.....

Inventory and Meal Planning

As many of you know, I read the Dave Ramsey forums as often as I can.  I try to follow his way of paying off bills and saving for college, paying off the house and being debt free (Baby Steps 1-7). 

Anyway, in the forums, they say in order to save some money on grocery shopping, you should do a pantry/freezer inventory.  See what you have and what you can use and meal plan so as not to spend as much at the grocery store.  I took up the challenge for one month (at least).  I did this because our grocery bills are sort of out of control.  With five people in the house (three of them being men) and myself eating only organic foods and a very fussy daughter, I have been watching the grocery bill climb higher and higher each week/month.  (Please realize that hubby does most of the shopping and he tends to bulk shop and accumulate things and then he forgets what he bought - however I do appreciate the fact that he does the shopping!). 

I made the inventory last night!  It took quite a while. (five notebook pages) You honestly don't know what you have until you write it all down.  I have an upstairs freezer, a downstairs freezer, a cold room, a closet in the cold room for health and beauty aides and then cupboards in the kitchen full of food.  And I didn't even inventory the refrigerator. 

How many of you have 20 lbs. of all different types of pasta?  I do!  How many of you have seven boxes of unopened cold cereal, three boxes of opened cold cereal, two boxes of hot oatmeal cereal and three canisters of regular oatmeal?  I do!  Needless to say, we don't need pasta and cereal for quite some time!! :)  (I would be embarassed if I told you how much of other things I have....Think coffee) OMG!

So, the next part of this procedure is to meal plan using what I have in stock (by the way, 7 quarts of chicken stock and 1 beef stock frozen).  I have the meal plan for this whole week all set. 

I think we can get away with buying just milk, fruit, some veggies for salad, dish detergent and some cheese this week.  We do NOT need meat! 

I'm hoping to use everything I have in the house by the end of the year.  And then we can restock fresh beef (another 1/6th of a cow) and more chickens in January.  Then we will also re-stock the cold room and pantry shelves.

Wish me luck!

Wine Making

My hubby has started a new venture....Wine Making.

He is learning from my brother and will start his first year making it the easy way - Making wine from the juice of the grapes.  My brothers use the grapes.  Anyway, last week, they bought the juice and the yeast and whatever else you need to make wine (enzymes).  Unfortunately, I had to work all day, so I didn't get to participate and go to the Wine/Beer making store - I was really bummed about it too!.  Hubby is using my dad's demijohns (they are quite large) for his wine.  He is making three kinds - Merlot, Chianti and San Giovese.  I will post pictures and updates as this process progresses.

Salute!

Photo credit

These are demijohns below:

Photo credit

Blue Fish

My hubby's friend called at 8:15 pm last night to tell him that he had four freshly caught blue fish for him!

So we immediately got out the knives, papers, garbage bags and began the cleaning process.  I don't clean and neither does my hubby - Thank GOD for my two boys and and two great  you tube videos!   Unfortunately, we didn't have the correct fish cleaning knives, but they did their best.

We lit candles all over the kitchen and I brought the bag of garbage to my moms house because she has pick up this morning! The smell was  a little much...

I froze enough fish for about three meals for four of us (My daughter wouldn't touch fish with a ten foot pole)!

Thank you Sal!

And Cyrus slept through it all - he had a playdate yesterday!