Managing my stress load and stuff

As many of you know I am a busy mama, in light of the recent health issues I decided to try to lighten my load. I had just started a class 2 days before I was in the ER so it seemed like the logical thing to drop since it is a 6 week class and they can be really intense. Well I will have to find something else to drop, the school has no policy for giving incomplete, nor do they have any kind of medical leave that would allow me to drop the class without being charges for the entire week. The financial aid counsellor told me that it would be best to try to work something out with my professor. My academic counsellor (very nice lady), will be scheduling time between my classes so that I am not having to take 24 weeks of stress. I know you must be thinking that it's only 24 weeks but to be honest, I really just cannot do it right now.

Anyway, since I do have a little more energy I plan to work on making some butter. EE's bus driver is interested in buying some and I'm interested in building a clientele. :) My darling mother (thanks to the persuasive powers of my sister) has gifted me her mixer and I am positively thrilled, that thing has every attachment and it was bought in 1974, lol. It is amazing how little the technology has changed during that time for that industry. Anyway, I am really excited to start using the meat grinder, I remember vividly watching her try new things to get us to eat healthy. Her favorite was ground liver, YUCK!!

Winter is such a lazy time of year for me, I would much rather hibernate than work, but I'm sure there are things I should be doing in preparation for Spring. I'm working on making a list, feel free to offer suggestions :) Well I'd better get back to my paper, pray I get through this class with a B or better :)

Butter Pictorial

DISCLAIMER: PICTURES ARE NOT TAKEN BY A PROFESSIONAL! :)


Noticed the half filled jar :)

Put mixer on high

watch the cream grow

it is beginning to make some ribbons

the rich smooth whipped cream is forming


the whipped cream is starting to change

the yellow you are about to observe is not added :)













the butter milk is poured off and the butter washed. Once it washes clear then you can add any flavors you'd like.

Here is the buttermilk with butter flakes - it is light and nothing like what is found in the store.

this is to give an idea of how much buttermilk I get.

Butter

Ok so I was going to do this long tutorial of how I made butter last night but then I got tired and fell asleep. :) Sorry. Then I was going to do it over again today, but then I was tired and didn't get around to it. So it's on my list for tomorrow. In the mean time, I figured I'd just tell you about my butter story :)

Having looked at a bunch of butter churns I came to 1 conclusion, they are so expensive!! So I looked and thought and looked some more and since I have jars similar to the churn I began to really think about how to accomplish the same results.

Finally I decided to try using the electric hand mixer. The Cream was thick as I scooped* it off the top of the 2 day old milk. I returned it to the fridge so that the jar would also be cold. (Actually I went to milk the cow). When I returned the kids and I were eager to try this experiment. *NOTE: Jar should only be half filled with cream.

I put the mixer on high and watched as the cream thickened, I was excited. At the point it became solid I stopped the mixer, dh announced "you made whipped cream". I was bummed :( Since they were so excited by the whipped cream I had him get the vanilla and sugar and continued to mix them in, at that point I noticed that the whipped cream had denatured and instantly I recognised the fatty blogs, I got butter. YAY!!! Of course I was now bummed to realise that it was sweet vanilla butter but dh and the kids decided they liked it and so I felt better. We still had another jar of cream anyway and now I knew that butter is the point past whipped cream.

The cream we got off those 2 gallons of milk produced a pound of butter 1/2 sweet and 1/2 salted and let me just say that there is nothing better than home-made butter on toast. :) Tomorrow when I do the pictorial I may consider exploring the wonderful world of honey butter or maybe and herb butter :) I'm up for suggestions.

The Milking Chronicles: Day 3

We made butter, YAY!!! I'll come back to that. This mornings milking was a mcuh smoother process, she is getting used to where she is supposed to be and that makes it much easier to lead her. When she is done she runs back into the corral pen, lol. Lover boy Lot has settled down and waits patiently for the milking to be over and his gate to open. Then he makes his way to stand and adore her, lol. It's like a cattle version of Romeo and Juilet, lol :)

After a much needed nap, I got up skimmed the cream once more and gave the jar to AR to start shaking, the timing was wonderful as he was being pciked up for flag footbal in 25 minutes. He shook for about 7 minutes and we started passing it on to the next set of young arms. When they needed a small break I began rolling the jar across the table to HG. It was a lot of fun and after 20 minutes the butter was visible. We kept shaking to get as much as we could out. Then I strained off the butter milk into a jar and began washing the butter with clean water. The final butter was lightly salted and put in a sandwich bag in the fridge. It was really wonderful on toast. YUM!!