Homemade Butter

When I was young,my Dad was diagnosed with high cholesterol,so into the house came margarine and Egg Beaters. That's what I grew up with. When I moved out,I went back to eggs but stuck with margarine,at least,until a few years ago. The more I thought about it,the more I realized that all margarine consisted of,basically,was congealed oil. How that could be better than  butter, I couldn't fathom. Cream is natural from milk,and shaken cream makes butter. Margarine is a whole process which doesn't sound very appetizing to me ( Google it!).

At any rate,I have been wanting to try make my own butter for a while. Do I need whole cream straight from the cow? Can I use whipping cream from the store? I checked various websites and blogs,and it seemed there were many opinions on this subject. I finally said "I'm going for it,"and tried it out----only half an hour ago,to be precise!

Let me say this:making butter is very easy. If you can pour cream into a mixer bowl and turn the mixer on,and if you can squeeze buttermilk out of butter,you can make homemade butter.

Here is what I did:

I took My Precious (my Cuisinart) out from the cabinet. The poor thing hasn't seen too much action of late,so I was glad to get her going again. Brother B did the grocery shopping yesterday,and he picked up 2 pints of  Stonyfield Organic Heavy Whipping Cream,which was ultra pasteurized. 

I poured them right into the mixing bowl-I didn't wait until they were room temperature. I did nothing fancy to the mixing bowl. ( I had read somewhere that the bowl had to be chilled and the cream brought to room temperature). I put the whisk attachment on My Precious,and she was ready for action!

Oh,yes,this is a VERY IMPORTANT part-PUT THE SPLASH GUARD ON!! Trust me on this. I read warnings about splashing. I was expecting splatter. Splatter does not do it justice. You'll see!

I started on a lower speed for a couple of minutes. The cream became a bit frothy and started to thicken a tad.

I then put the speed on high and after a bit I started getting peaks-it was turning into whipped cream. Keep going........

It's thickening up nicely,isn't it? It's not butter yet,though. It's still too white. There's also no buttermilk separation yet.

Keep whipping. See how the color is turning to yellow?

It's looking more like butter,but it still needs a couple more minutes. Once the butter is done,the butter milk will separate from the butter,and it will SPLASH. I'm talking mixer tidal wave-no joke! I should've covered up the pouring hole  in the splash guard. The buttermilk made a mess. I can't imagine not having something over the bowl when the tidal wave occurs-seriously,use something...even if it's just plastic wrap. I had to jump back and quickly shut off the mixer because the buttermilk was flying everywhere.

Another sign it's done-the butter will clump onto your whisk attachment in one big ball. See all the buttermilk at the bottom of the bowl?

Since I don't use buttermilk,I had no need to keep it for anything. I did make a ball out of the butter and squeezed it until most of the buttermilk was gone. I ran the ball under cold water and squeezed the water out a few times until the water was clear. I admit,it's a bit of a pain. If you have butter paddles,or even just used a sturdy spatula and press the butter against the side of the bowl,that would probably be a bit easier. I tried the hand method to see how it would work . I also put some salt in the butter and kneaded it in. How much salt,or whether or not to add it is up to you and your taste.

This is a good time to bring out my antique butter dish that my Aunt Jeannette had. It makes for good storage in the fridge.

How can you not try homemade butter right away? I put some bread in the toaster and waited with buttered breath!!!

It looks like butter,it spreads like butter......

This gal needs butter spread end to end on bread. Rick always teases me about it. If you're going to butter bread,then I say,butter it,damn it!!  :)

Not only does it look like butter and spreads like butter...it tastes like butter! Yummy!! I scoffed down the toast after I took the photo.

You can, of course, make all kinds of homemade butter-apple butter,pumpkin butter,garlic butter,honey butter.....the world is full of homemade buttery goodness-right at your fingertips! 

Have a fabulous day on this Fabulous Planet!!!!

Fall Day in NH

 It's my favorite time of the year-Fall in NH. To me,Fall is the quintessential New England season. The leaves turn color,the air turns chilly, pumpkins and apples are ready for picking,and we keep trying to put off starting the wood stove for as long as possible. Gray days are lantern lighting days,and I have to have Pumpkin Spice candles going to make the house smell fabulous and help make it cozy.

The weather this past week has not been the best-we have had rain and overcast days,with just a few glimpses of sun in between. Saturday we took a chance,since the forecast said the rain was going to hold off until later in the day,and we drove up to Fryeburg,ME for the annual Fryeburg Fair. We love the Fryeburg Fair because it's mostly an agricultural fair.  We looked at the goats,sheep,poultry,oxen,horses,and cows. I fell even more in love with goats and sheep. We are trying to decide if we want to get some dairy goats,and perhaps a sheep or two. The sheep would be for making yarn. It's amazing at how thick their wool is-they felt like one of those tempurpedic mattresses! The Fiber Barn was very interesting-knitted goods,yarn skeins,and bulk wool were for sale,and ladies were demonstrating how to spin your own yarn. I wanted to buy a  homemade skein of yarn-until I saw that all the skeins were 4 oz and cost $26. That's a tad out of my price range. In the Specialty Food barn,Zach's eagle eye found Moxie Jelly. Moxie is a New England soda that has been around for about a hundred years. It's not sweet,and it's called Moxie because you have to have moxie to drink it! Zach loves Moxie,and we have never seen Moxie jelly,so of course we had to buy a couple of jars. I got some potpourri -Maine Christmas and Pumpkin Fall. They smell fabulous!

Sunday the weather was slightly overcast,but no rain hit until last night,so I puttered around the yard for while checking things out. I still haven't closed up my garden because  things are still growing and we haven't had a hard frost yet,though I know we are due for one anytime.  I have been paying attention to the weather forecast daily.

Since we gave our apple tree quite the trimming last Spring,we figured that we probably shocked the tree and we wouldn't get many apples,if any,this year. Last year we had over 60. This year,we did squeak out two:

Poor lonely apples! Our apple tree has dropped the majority of their leaves. The wind has helped the all the trees around us shed their leaves.Up Avon Lane,it looked almost like carpet:

Our grapes have been coming along. I have been tasting them every other day to see when they are ready to pick. I wasn't sure how to tell when they were ready,but everything I have read says it's all in how the taste.They are not quite sweet yet,but they are getting there:

I was surprised to still see white blossoms in my strawberry patch. There are still strawberries in various states of  growth. I will have to cover them up soon:

This is one of my favorite maple trees. Each year,this branch starts turning color in such a brilliant way-light green,to yellow,to orange,to red. It's like a foliage rainbow! I can see it from my bedroom window. I wish the sun was shining so that you could really see how bright and lovely it is:

One of our goals to is try and get our chicken yard to the point where it drains better. Whenever it rains,it becomes a muddy mess,and it REEKS until it dries out. Plus,the poor Girls are walking around in muck. Chicken poo that is wet smells even worse than dry poop. It's horrible. It makes me gag,and we are mindful that we have a responsibility to our neighbors to keep the area as stink free as possible.We are going to try some gravel mix to cover it. Anyone have any other suggestions?

 We still have tomatoes growing,though you can't seem too well in this photo,because they are green. I will probably have to pick them and make fried green tomatoes before the frost hits:

You can see in this photo how we have lost leaves from our trees. The foliage still isn't at it's peak here,but up in the Great North Woods,it's already past:

Our potatoes are still going strong,though some of the plants are seeing a bit of brown on their edges. I wasn't sure when to pick potatoes,because last year,Brother B picked them before they were ready ( our neighbor told him to pick them in Sept-too early!) Usually they are picked in Oct,when the plants are dead. I did decide to check around the hills to see if anything was ready to pick,however:

I came up with these taters!! These are Kennebec potatoes from Maine. I also had some green beans that were ready to pick,too.

Today we are going apple picking and pumpkin picking. Our favorite farm,Butternut,is closed for the season,but another local farm is still open so we will be going there. I am still bummed that my pumpkin seedlings did NOTHING this year. Sigh. I hate to have to buy pumpkins,but I have to get some sugar ones to make my puree,as well bigger ones for decoration. Our neighbor can get hay bales for only $2.00 a bale from a friend of hers,so that will be savings!

Have a fabulous day on this Fabulous Planet!

Trip Back In Time-Finale

It took us a little over two hours to tour all the homes. Rick and I realized it was almost 1:00 PM and we were starving,but we had one more house to check out. Tickets at Strawberry Banke are good for two days,so if you want to split up your tour into two days,you can do so.  Portsmouth also has a Black History Trail and the Harbor Trail tours. The even have a horse and carriage ride tour. There was slavery in Portsmouth,and a few years ago,the town was doing some street repair and discovered a 300 year old slave cemetery buried under the road-only the second discovered in the northeast. They estimated that there was up to 200 slaves buried there. Portsmouth also has the John Paul Jones House ( "I have not yet begun to fight" ),where he stayed when his ship USS,Ranger,was being built at the Shipyard. Portsmouth is chock full of history.

Our last house is the Sherburne House. This house is not refurbished. It was built around 1695,making it one of the oldest homes in NH. Right where I am standing to take the photo below  is where the tidal inlet would come in.

A bit of Sherburne House history.

All the new pieces are painted in red. Everything else is original. 

This section of stairs was original to the house.

There were many posters explaining the architecture of the period. Folks were not allowed to touch the walls because the sensitive nature of the materials.

A peek out of one of the windows.

Fabulous shot of the roof construction. You could still see the marks that axes made when they hewed out the posts.

A view of some of the homes and a picnic area.

More views of homes. I am standing in the tidal inlet area again. It was hard to imagine how much fill it must have taken to create the area. One would never guess the ocean came up to this area naturally.

More views. I'm not sure if the gentleman at the picnic table appreciated being in the photo or not :) 

On the way out,we stopped at the gift shop and picked up some old fashioned candy for Zach. Rick asked if they still carried spruce gum. The gentleman behind the counter said they have tried to get it,but can no longer find it. Rick was a bit bummed. His grandfather McQuilkin used to get spruce gum  and give it to Rick.

We drove over to the the parking garage and walked to the Dolphin Striker,which is a nice restaurant on the waterfront. We jokingly refer to it as the "Porpoise Beater." Rick was a chef here back when he was in high school.Like much of downtown Portsmouth,the building that houses it is quite old. I love the atmosphere of it.

I had a nice view of the Piscataqua River (pronounced  PISS-CAT-AH-QUAH).The river is the home to one of the fastest currents in North America and empties into the Atlantic Ocean. Like the names of many rivers,etc in NH,it's a Native American name. It was home to the first sawmill in the US in 1623,as well as being one of the best harbors in the US .

Rick had a hard time deciding what he wanted to have for lunch!

Our appetizers look quite delish,don't they? Rick had raw oysters,and I had an arugula,pistachio,and goat cheese salad. They threw in some cherries to boot. Rick had broiled haddock,shrimp and scallops with rice and asparagus for the main course,and I had beef wellington with a truffle sauce and English peas. It was divine.

I hope that you enjoyed our visit to Strawberry Banke! If you ever make it to NH,you must check out Portsmouth. It's a wonderful place to explore US and NH history.

Have  fabulous day on this Fabulous Planet!