Butter Making

 As most of you who have been long time readers know I live a lifestyle of preparing and maintaining a large working pantry. This means that I always have large amounts of food on hand. It did not matter if I lived for years in a large city or on the farm I have always lived this way because it was how I was taught. I live a life of preparing for hardships that come along and dealing with them and that includes food. Some call it prepping and you can put whatever label makes you comfortable on it whether you are on a homestead or in a bug out bunker but it always boils back down to being prepared to feed your and your family whenever. 

For some that is by farming and/or gardening. For others it is the local CSA or farmer's market. While still others depend on coupons or the local supermarket sales. For me it is all of the above. And holiday excess many times leads to after holiday (or during) sales. A couple days ago while hitting up a couple of holiday supermarket sales I ran across a buy I just could not pass up. I found whipping cream for $0.89 a half gallon. I bought 12 half gallon cartons of whipping cream for $10.68. What was the catch? It expired that day. Someone definitely over ordered whipping cream. Their mistake was my windfall. So away I went with 6 gallons of full fat whipping cream.

I went home and immediately dug out my two stand mixers and starting mixing. Now I do own a large Dazey butter churn of my mother's but love the convenience of the ability to be able to put the mixer on and multi task just checking and stirring occasionally. Sure miss those kids turning that churn handle!

First stage whipped cream. Frothy and rich but we are going to keep going. And to the hum of 2 mixers I went about my day. 

And Voila rich and creamy butter draining in the colander and a bowl underneath to catch that fresh buttermilk. 

Once the butter is washed and salted if desired I put it in my mama's butter mold in one pound bricks. The pans of bricks go into the fridge to set or harden. 

Once hardened I sliced some into quarters for baking and eating fresh. Others I left in bricks that can be sliced later but more than likely will be made into ghee.  Ghee being more shelf stable and not requiring refrigeration within limits. Especially in the winter. 

And the final count on the butter. Out of 6 gallons of cream I got 17 pounds of butter in the freezer. That averages to about $0.63 a pound. 

And let us not forget 3 gallons of buttermilk a byproduct of making butter. 

SO...... part of that buttermilk will be used to make the cornbread for my cornbread dressing for my 14 pound turkey that I will be serving for my visiting family on Thanksgiving. 

And I started making buttermilk blueberry pancakes to put in the freezer for the grandkids breakfast on their visit. Fresh homegrown blueberries from my own bushes.

And now I will try my hand at adding some whole milk back to some of the buttermilk and making ricotta for some stuffed shells and/or maybe a lasagna to go in the freezer possibly to serve the family if needed or just for use later. 

So for $10.68 I got 17 pound of butter and 3gallons of butter milk. I got butter, ghee, Buttermilk pancakes, buttermilk cornbread and ricotta for stuffed shells or lasagna. 

Had I not bought that cream that morning it would have probably been disposed of when the cooler was cleaned out that day. With a lot of work I was able to turn a supposedly no longer useful product into multiple meals for my family for probably months to come.  

My takeaway is that I am thankful to be in the right place at the right time. 

But probably most of all I am thankful for the knowledge to know how to use that product for multiple purposes to benefit my family. Knowledge passed down from the last two generations of women in my family. 

I  got skills.......who knew??

I am also sad when I think of all the products like this that are disposed of yearly in our country and wasted.  SO sad...

Keep an eye out for those sales ladies because you never know what you will run across.

Blessings from The Holler

The Canned Quilter

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I can also be found at 

https://thebackfence.freeforums.net/