Catching Up…

Long time, no blog. This has been a really busy week. I can hardly believe it’s Thursday already. As far as exercising goes, I’ve been able to work out everyday this week so far. I have not yet worked out today though. This morning ended up being pretty busy (my license is set to expire tomorrow so I had to get that taken care of ASAP) so I’m planning on working out as soon as my dinner digests. 🙂 David took the kids out for a mysterious outing. He’s got something up his sleeve. I just don’t know what it is. I’m sure it has to do with my birthday because tomorrow, I hit the big 29. But unlike everyone else who says they’re 29, I’m really going to be 29. 🙂 But, I’m thinking about stopping at 28 because 29 just seems too suspicious, like you’re hiding your real age or something. How about (in David’s terms) the second anniversary of my 28th birthday. There! Doesn’t that sound nice? We’ll just call it that now, shall we?

Anyway, I had something I else I was going to write but it left me (AUGHHH!!!! It’s because I’m getting older!!).  Onto the fun part. We’ll just call this section of this post, “On Why I Need to Purchase a Cow.” Are you intrigued yet? There are so many cool things you can do with heavy cream and milk!!! First off, you can make butter from heavy cream. Here’s what you do.

Pour some (however much you want – I didn’t measure mine) heavy cream into a bowl and get out your mixer. Beat your cream at medium to high speed for quite awhile. It will turn into whipping cream first. Then, you’ll see that it will turn color to more of a yellow color, and the consistency will change too. Once it starts to harden, strain it out in a strainer over a bowl. The butter will stay in your strainer while the buttermilk will drain into your bowl. Rinse your butter very well because any remaining buttermilk can make your butter spoil pretty quickly. You can also make butter by shaking the cream in a jar or other container. I tried this and lost patience with it pretty quickly so I got out my mixer.

BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!

Yogurt! You can make your own yogurt. Now how cool is that? Instead of posting the directions on here, the Crockpot Lady has a really great and very easy recipe that you can do in the crockpot. I had tried making yogurt a couple times before but it never set. I think it had something to do with the temperature being too low and/or the fat content in my milk being too low. But this one worked really well. You can add crushed fruit to it or whatever you like. I have never had success using anything but whole milk, but Stephanie said you can dissolve a package of unflavored gelatin in to help it along.

Don’t go yet because you can make your own…

CREAM CHEESE! Yep, it’s true. Here’s what you do. Take some yogurt, put it in a dish towel on a strainer that is sitting over a bowl and let it drain for 5+ hours. After you have drained it over a mixing bowl, my friend, Cara, tied the dish towel with the stuff in it to a spoon and let it drain into a jar overnight (I think it was overnight anyway). Does that all make sense? What drains from the yogurt is this stuff called whey which is actually a natural preservative. You can add it to different things to make them last longer, like salad dressing for instance.

NEXT PLEASE!

You can make your own buttermilk. You can do it by using the stuff you strained from your butter or use:

• 3 1/2 c. milk
• 1/2 c. buttermilk, room temperature

Simply mix the above ingredients together and let sit for 24 hours. Voila! You can also use dry milk for this.

NEXT RUNNER UP…

Sour cream! Yay! You can make your own at home! And you know what? It is just about as easy as the other things I mentioned. Here’s what you need:

• 1 cup heavy cream (um, this isn’t the light version in case you haven’t noticed)
• 1/4 cup buttermilk

Combine the above ingredients in a container with a lid or screw top jar and let sit for 24 hours. It tastes really good. Like sour cream. But I guess you’d expect that, huh?

So now I guess you can see why I need to get a cow? 🙂

And one more thing for your reading enjoyment. This homemade food item doesn’t come from a cow but it’s still pretty cool. You can make your own baking powder. Here’s what you need:

• 2 tablespoons cream of tartar
• 1 tablespoon baking soda
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch

Mix it all together and there you go. Homemade baking powder. I have not looked into whether this is cheaper than buying it at the store, but you can have the peace of mind to know that there isn’t any aluminum in the homemade stuff, if you are concerned about that type of thing.

Okay, I think that’s it. If you are interested in making any of these things and my directions weren’t very clear, leave a comment and I’ll try to explain it better. With me getting up in years, it’s kind of hard to think straight. 😉