Churning Butter

Butter is something that I really only use for baking and the occasional box of mac 'n' cheese for my kids, but it is a kitchen staple in most households. About 8 months ago I started making my own butter and will never again buy butter at the store. It is so easy and effortless to make, my 4 year could do it! Also have you every looked at exactly how many ingredients are in the butter that you buy at the store? By making my own butter I know exactly what goes into it, heavy whipping cream... that's it! 

Here's how I make butter:

Equipment:
A food processor or an electric whisk, when I'm only making a little I use the whisk, but when I want to make a larger quantity I use the food processor
a bowl
cheesecloth or other thin fabric, I use womens handkerchiefs that I buy at rummage sales
spatchula
2 container, one for the butter and one for the buttermilk

Ingredients:
2-8oz cartons of cold organic heavy whipping cream, I get raw milk from a farm and sometimes I skim the cream off of the top and use that as well

Pour the whipping cream into the food processor. Put the cover on and turn it on high.

While the food processor is "churning" the butter line a bowl with the cheesecloth.

As you watch the food processor you will notice that the cream goes through a few stages. First it is a liquid, then it will turn into a whipped cream(if you stopped here and added a little sugar you would have home made whipped cream, very yummy). Then finally it turns into butter. This takes 2-4 minutes. It is finished when it looks like this:

Now you have to separate the butter from the buttermilk. Scrape everything from the food processor into the cloth lined bowl.

Then take the edges of the cloth and bring them together and squeeze out the excess liquid. When you open up the cloth you will be left with a large ball of butter and a bowl of butter milk.

I then store my butter in a wide mouth glass masen jar and the buttermilk in a smaller glass jar.

Voila.... you have butter!
Store your butter in the fridge, it will be good until the date on the cream carton.
Oh I should mention that this recipe is for unsalted butter. I prefer it this way and if I'm making something that calls for salted butter I just add a little extra salt.

Enjoy your fresh butter!

Making Seitan

Yesterday I was really craving some mushroom stroganoff and a key ingredient in my stroganoff is seitan. I know many of your carnivorous people have never heard of the stuff, but as a former vegan and current vegetarian it is my favorite meat substitute. The main ingredient is vital wheat gluten. What is vital wheat gluten? Well basically it is wheat flour that has all of the starch and other chemicals removed, leaving just the gluten. Now you may be wondering what gluten is, well it is a protein composite consisting of 3 proteins. Basically it is the part of wheat that gives bread that slightly chewy texture.

Enough about the science of wheat gluten. Here is my recipe for basic seitan.

You will need:
1 cup vital wheat gluten, this can be found in the health food section of your grocery store
3/4 cup vegetable broth + 6 cups vegetable broth
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 teaspoons of the seasoning of your choice, usually i use an Italian seasoning blend

The first step is to mix the spices with the wheat gluten in a small bowl.

In a separate bowl mix the soy sauce and 3/4 cup vegetable broth. Then pour the broth mixture into the gluten and spice mixture. Still well to combine. You will end up with an extremely rubbery dough.

Now put the 6 cups of vegetable broth is a large pot and bring to simmer.

While you are waiting for the broth to simmer knead the ball of dough for about 10-15 minutes. Let it rest for 5 minutes and then knead a few more times. You will end of with a ball of dough that looks something like this.

Then roll the dough into a log and with a knife cut into 1/2" thick slices.

Now take the slices you have cut and stretch them into thin cutlets. This is slightly difficult since the dough is so rubbery..

After you have formed all of your "cutlets" drop them into the simmering broth and cover. Simmer them for an hour or two.
After they have finished cooking turn the heat off and let them cool in the broth.

This is what you should end up with.

Now you can either store your seitan in the refridgerator in a container with some of the cooking broth or you can freeze them.

Problem Solving

Since we finally had our first lasting snowfall a few days ago, my kids and I have gone sledding a few times. I'm not a fan of winter at all, but I do enjoy seeing how much fun my kids have playing in the snow, so I endure the cold.

Normally when we get back in from sledding everyone just throws their wet gloves and mittens in a pile. Then the next time we go to grab a  pair they are still wet, yuck! In previous homes I've lived in we would put the wet gloves in front of the vent, but in the apartment that I live in now there aren't vents. My apartment is heated by a heater built in the wall. I had to come up with a different solution. After brainstorming a little bit I came up with an idea for a drying system to hang on my in wall heater.

It was really easy to put together and I only spent about $5 in supplies that I got in the lighting section at a local hardware store. I bought a 5 foot pull chain(I wanted something metal as my heater gets pretty warm), a pack of beaded chain connectors and a pack of clothes pins. Then I got to work.

First I hung the pull chain from my heater near the top, so that the chain hung down the front of the heater.

Then I cut off about 1 1/2 feet of chain off of the bottom to make it the correct length, also I needed the chain to attach the clothes pins. I then cut 6-1 1/2" pieces from the extra chain.

Now it was time to get out the power tools. I used a dremel tool for this part, but a drill would work just fine too. I took the connectors and drilled a hole in the middle that was just big enough for the chain to slide through.

Now that I had everything ready it was time for assembly. I took one of the small pieces of chain that I cut earlier and put one end into the connector.

Next I slid the chain through the metal part of the clothes pin.

Then I connected the other end of the chain to the connector, so that the chain created a loop through the clothes pin.

Finally I took the chain that I had hanging on my heater and slid it through the hole that I had drilled in the connector.

I did this with 6 clothes pins and spaced them out on the chain and was ready to dry some mittens!

Now we will no longer have to deal with wet gloves, as long as my kids hang them up!

Stitching Away

I've been using the same purse for quite some time now. Every once in a while I would pull a different one out of the closet for a special event or something of the sort, but my everyday purse was getting a little boring. That started my online quest for a cute new purse, well I guess I should say a pattern for a cute new purse. Then stumbled upon this great blog post. It was a very easy to follow tutorial for making a super fun purse. It was just what I was looking for. So I decided to dive in head first.

I printed out the one pattern piece required for the purse and then I was off to Hobby Lobby to find the perfect fabric. I had absolutely no idea what kind of fabric I was going to use, but I knew the perfect one would jump out at me. After wandering around with one bolt of fabric, only to put it back and grab another one for almost a half hour finally, there it was. Screaming at me was a bolt of rusty, maroonish colored faux suede. It was perfect! So after grabbing another fabric for the lining and some thread I was off to the races.

The only issue I really had with the whole thing is that I don't own a serger. It wasn't really that big of a deal, it just meant that I had to fold under 1/4" twice and sew the edges for all of the ruffles. It took a little extra time, but it was definitely worth it.The most difficult part of the process was sewing on the pleats and ruffles and it really wasn't that difficult. After that the rest was just basic purse construction.

All in all I am super satisfied with the end result.

Here is a link to the tutorial so that you too can make this awesome purse!http://www.theboytrifecta.com/2010/10/grandview-bag-formerly-known-as-anthro.html

Patching Patches

Everyone has that favorite pair of jeans that they just can't part with, right? Well I certainly do. When I was 15 my younger sister(who wore the same size as me) gave me a pair of jeans that she no longer wanted. I fell in love with them right from the start. They were comfortable, as they were already worn in, and they fit great. I wore then all of the time. Then one day, after having the jeans for about 3 years, I was riding my bike and the pant leg got caught in my chain. Rrrrrrip, there was a hole in my favorite jeans. Instead of throwing them out I decided to put a colorful little patch over the hole.

Then I continued to wear them, but holes in jeans are like ants, where there's one, there are more to come. So I decided to patch up the little rips and tears as they occurred.

Now 14 years later, they are still my favorite jeans. They definitely look and fit a lot differently than they did when I first got them, but for me they tell a story. Each piece of fabric reminds me of a different part of my life. Now they are getting to the point where some of the patches are needing to be patched. After spending an hour or so patching patches this week they are, again, ready for action. Even though there is very little original denim showing anymore, I still love them and wear them often. I will NEVER get rid of these pants! 

Milking Almonds

Yay! This is my first official post! I am really excited to share all of my recipes, craft projects and gardening endeavors.

So I've recently been trying to eat only fruits, veggies and nuts, which was very difficult at first, but is getting much easier. Anyway I was looking at some recipes for raw biscotti and many of them called for almond pulp(the stuff left over after you make almond milk). This led me to research the process of making almond milk, which turns out to be a super simple process. I decided to give it a try, not only would I have the almond pulp I needed to make the raw biscotti, but I would also have some super yummy raw almond milk to drink!

So really all you need to make almond milk is:
1 cup of raw blanched almonds(I had to blanch my own because I couldn't find any in the store)
about 5 cups water
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
a blender
cheesecloth(I just used a thin women's handkerchief)
and a fine strainer

The first thing to do is soak the almonds in a bowl of water overnight. This softens the almonds and makes it a little easier on your blender.

 

After the almonds have soaked overnight you need to drain and discard the water. Now the blender comes into play. Pour the drained almonds into the blender with 1 cup of fresh water. Turn the blender on the highest setting and let it do its magic for a minute or two. After that add the vanilla and another 1 1/2 cups water and turn the blender to the highest setting again. 

I let my almond, water and vanilla concoction blend for about 3 minutes(my blender is super old). You should end up with a frothy liquid that looks and smells very much like almond milk. You could be done and drink it at this stage, but it would be slightly grainy, so you need to strain out the almond pulp. I put my fine metal strainer over a 4 cup measuring up and then laid my handkerchief(or cheesecloth) inside of that. Take the blender and start pouring the liquid into the handkerchief. I wasn't able to pour it all in at once, I poured about half in, waited a few minutes and then poured the other half in. 

Now just wait, once the liquid coming through the strainer is only dripping take the edges of the handkerchief together and start squeezing the remaining liquid out of the pulp. Then voila... you have almond milk! I put my finished almond milk in a glass Masen jar and put it in the fridge, where it should be good for 4 to 5 days. I also took the pulp that was left in the handkerchief and spread it out on a large plate to dry out.

Like I said I want to make raw biscotti with it, but it can also be used in place of almond flour in recipes. Be creative! I'm sure it can be used in a lot of different ways. I try to throw away as little as possible so I always am looking for ways to use food parts that we normally throw away. 

I hope you enjoy your fresh almond milk!

Have a wonderful day!