I'm All Butter!

I'm sitting here right now with a beautiful slice of Madison Sourdough bread that's spread with butter. That I made. Yes, that's right, I made my own butter today. And you might be surprised to know that I don't even have a churn.

Here's the method: Put a pint container of organic whipping cream or heavy cream and put it in your stand mixer (I used my Kitchenaid). Turn on the blender. Let 'er whip for 7-10 minutes. That's pretty much it.  First, it will turn into whipped cream, just like usual. Then it looks almost like cottage cheese. Then the buttermilk separates pretty significantly from the butter. It's done when the liquid is in the bottom of the mixer and the butter is all caught up in the blade. Strain the milk into a jar and save it for pancakes or another recipe. Get the butter back into the bowl and into a clump (this should be pretty easy). Make a glass of ice water. Pour about 1/4 to 1/2 cup over the butter and using a big wooden spoon, smash the butter into the water, kind of reforming your mound. The water will be cloudy. Pour it off and do the same three more times. When the water is clear, you are done (you do this step so your butter will keep). I got about 1/2 pound of butter and 1 cup of buttermilk. Yay! I split about 1/4 of my butter away and mixed it with a little honey for some honey butter. I did not salt it at all. Isn't that fun?

Why butter, you might ask? Well, according to my new eating plan of sticking to whole foods that are made by real people's hands, I don't eat fake butters or oils that can't be ground with a stone. That leaves butter, olive oil, coconut oil and one other that I can't really remember right now. 

Today I ate pretty well. I had 2 oranges, a slice of Parisian boule bread with honey and black coffee for breakfast. For lunch, I had a slice of bread with peanut butter and an apple. But then I ran up against my old nemesis: the supermarket. I ran over to Target to get some of that Bare Chicken (or whatever it's called), and some dried beans to make my famous baked beans for a party tomorrow and there's the deli. Of course, I had to run over and grab some baked french fries and munch on them as I shopped. It's really something I'd like to give up, but once I'm in the store, I always seem to be hungry, and carrots don't seem at all appealing when I get that supermarket starve going. The problem with the above plan is that there's not a ton of variety, which I am trying to instill and I'm a little low on the vegetable side.

Well, at least those fries were baked. Tonight Tim and I might go get sushi at Edo Garden, which I love and he's been craving. But, we'll see. We're trying to eat out less, so perhaps I'll make something. But sushi is just too much work. Wait. That's an excuse. I want to find a class on making sushi, then I might do it at home. Any ideas?