Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Making One's Own Butter

You know the devil and angel thing?  Well, on one shoulder I've got Apocalypse Nikki and on the other I've got Sensible Nikki and on my third shoulder (well, we're imagining, I might as well be a freaky three-shouldered weirdo) I've got Overboard Nikki. 

Usually they cancel each other out and I don't end up doing anything weird.  When Apocalypse Nikki fantasizes about how wonderful it would be to live without electricity, Sensible Nikki points out how much Overboard Nikki loves television.  When Overboard Nikki wants to try making a five course meal, Apocalypse Nikki says cooking for days for one meal is insane you should be learning how to farm not deep frying parsley and Sensible Nikki says a restaurant would almost be cheaper.  And so forth.

But sometimes two of the Nikkis get crazy ideas (you can guess which ones) and Sensible Nikki is left in the dust. 

Case in point:

 A friend gave us some fresh, unpasteurized milk.  I say us, but I really mean me, because my mom looked queasy and totally wouldn't touch it and I GUARANTEE that it is sitting there in her refrigerator, spoiled.  But not me!  Sensible Nikki might have been a bit leery, but Overboard Nikki and Apocalypse Nikki said "Wheeeeeeee!  Let's make butter!!!!!"

Sensible Nikki did have some influence, for we used the stand mixer instead of shaking an earthen jug.
 Squeezing out the buttermilk through a paper towel (not a cheesecloth that I wove myself, sadly).
 Adding salt that I did not harvest from the beach myself.
And voila!  Butter! 

It was delicious.  Nobody except me and Dave and Willow ate any, but it was great and tasted just like butter you can buy at a store. 

3 comments:

mrsrobinson said...

Oh my! It looks like real butter. Not sure why I should be surprised... Hope it was eaten with suitable ceremony!

Renee Anne said...

Butter is one of those interesting things. When I was working in daycare, I had this crazy idea to make butter with the kids...but I did it the cheap way. I picked up buttermilk at the store, added a little salt, put it in a (plastic) jar, and let the kids shake the holy moly out of it. In the end: butter. And we gave it to the building cook and she used it and it was wonderful.

www.seattlesearchengineoptimization.net said...

Amazing!!! Ive done this before but this time I added cinnamon and sugar with a few grains of salt. Mmmm. Will be having oatmeal to go with it tomorrow!!