Mom's Homemade Butter & Buttermilk

Mom taught me how to make butter this week. I am surprised by how easy it is to make. I can't imagine buying butter in the market anymore. I think it took about 10 minutes to make and it tastes divine. Mom used Farmland brand Heavy Cream from Costco. It is free of hormones and antibiotics. My sister used Hatcher Family Dairy's Whole Cream. They both worked well.

What you will need on hand:

Mixer

Dish Towel

Pint Container (to store the remaining buttermilk)

Seran Wrap

Bowl or mold (to mold the butter)

Ingredients:

1 Quart Heavy Cream

1 tsp Salt

First, pour the entire quart of cream into the mixing bowl.

Cover the mixer with a dish towel because there will be lots of splatters!

Mix on high for several minutes.

You will notice the cream begin to thicken into whipped cream.

In a minute or 2 more, it will begin to get chunky.

This is when you will add the salt.

Once you've added the salt, cover the mixer again.

Continue mixing on high speed.

After another minute, you will begin to hear liquid sloshing around.

The cream is separating from the liquid.

Soon, the butter will be clumping up on the mixer's whisk.

Turn the mixer off. Lift the whisk.

Allow the liquid to drip off of the butter for a few minutes.

Catch any remaining clumps of butter in the liquid.

Smoosh them into the big ball of butter on the whisk.

Prepare your mold by placing a layer of seran wrap into the mold.

Scrape the butter off of the whisk and form into a big ball.

Next, smoosh the ball of butter into the mold. Press out any air bubbles.

Remove from mold, wrap up completely with seran wrap.

Place into refrigerator until ready to use.

Of course, I always leave a big blob of butter out at room temperature for toast.

Lastly, you will pour the remaining liquid in to a pint jar. You can leave this out for 24-36 hours at room temperature. Then, refrigerate. Somehow, this turns into buttermilk!

So, for less than $3 you can make almost a pound of butter and a pint of buttermilk. Lovely.

I have a feeling that my next recipe post may include Darryl making Irish Soda Bread with our buttermilk.

Let me know how it works out for you.

Enjoy!

My Darling Liam

Liam Padraic McCreary. What a special boy. Today he is 8 years old.

Liam is lucky. Good things happen for him. He can look in a pile of weeds and spot the 4 leaf clover. He wins contests. He finds meteorites that have fallen from the sky (at least, he says it's a meteorite).

If you are ever fortunate enough to meet him, it will be impossible for you to not fall in love with him. I know I am his mom and all, but really, he is an extraordinary boy.

He wants to do everything his dad does so he eats 2 sunny side up eggs in the morning and dips his toast in the yellow runny part, just like his dad.

I think his favorite person on the planet (other than his dad) is his Uncle Wes. He lets him do wild things that I won't let him do. Like go shark hunting, watch scary movies and say naughty words. I put my foot down when he asked to get a mohawk and a pierced ear.

Liam loves all things dangerous. Slinging rusted machetes, playing with chain saws, breaking bottles with BB guns, and driving the zero-turn lawn mower.

His Aunt Jenn bought him some black leather cowboy boots a few weeks ago. He wants to wear them everywhere, even with shorts. They give him blisters, but he doesn't care. He loves them.

I love that he loves them.

He is his own unique, quirky little person. I couldn't be more proud to be his Momma.

Forever My Baby?

Today, July 23, 2010, is my youngest son's birthday.

Finnian Cade McCreary is 5 years old today.

He and my dad shared the same birthday. Lucky boy, I guess.

Finn is a happy boy.

He has amazing blue eyes.

He likes to style his own mohawks.

He still lets me cuddle him.

He loves Dinosaur Oatmeal & Corn Dogs.

He dresses himself.

He sleeps with me every night. I still love it.

He loves guns and granola bars.

He doesn't like Thomas the Tank Engine anymore. "It's for babies."

When he is 14, he wants to work at Sonic.

I get it now. I used to judge "those moms" that babied their babies. I am eating humble pie on a daily basis.

He is so little. I can't believe he is 5. I'm not sure I will ever let go of him.

Thumb Sucker

I sucked my thumb with a blankie until I was 9 years old. My mom says that I weaned myself from her breast at 9 months because I wanted my thumb more. Everyone said I was shy. I think I liked having my thumb in my mouth better than having to talk to people. At least I was a "self-soother".

I took my blankie everywhere. I slept with it, took it to school, it went into the forts in the palmettos with me, to sleepovers, even on stage at my first ballet recital I was sucking my thumb with my blankie in hand.

My mom and dad were understanding about my habit. They were downright protective of me and my blankie. They were not the type of parents that dipped my thumb in hot sauce or polished my thumb with bitter tasting things just to make me stop sucking it. You can imagine how many "ideas" they would hear from outsiders. In fact, I remember my mom actually putting honey on my thumb a few times, just to sweeten it for me. If anyone made fun or questioned why I was sucking my thumb with a blanket, my dad would bark at them and say, "That's MY blanket!" Because who would be crazy enough to question why a 6ft, 250lb. man with an overgrown beard is carrying around a blankie?

Honestly, I think my parents may have been a little worried about me having buck teeth. But early one Saturday morning while my parents were asleep and my sisters and brother were watching cartoons, I took off for an early morning bike ride. My sister's pink Huffy with a padded banana seat was so cool. I loved riding it. I rode a few blocks with one hand on the handle bars. The warm Florida wind was blowing through my feathered bangs. Sometimes, if I was feeling brave, I would quickly take my other hand off of the handlebars and yell, "Look, no hands!" Then, just as quickly, put my hand right back to steady the bars. I was cool like that. I started to turn left around a corner when I spotted my neighbors jogging with their 2 dogs. Dogs that I happened to be so afraid of, a German Shepherd and a Doberman Pinscher. I got spooked. I wasn't looking at the road, only the big dogs coming my way. My front wheel hit the curb, where the asphalt met the sand. My bike came to a halt, but I didn't. I went hurling through the air. I flipped over the handlebars. I smashed my face into the asphalt. I knocked out my front teeth and cracked my jaw.

Buck teeth wouldn't be a problem anymore. The fact that I ruined my favorite ice cream shirt...was a problem.

I remember a few times when I lost my blanket. Actually, I remember the moments I found my blanket more than I remember the pain I felt while it was lost.

Once, I left it in a grocery store. My parents must have known the owner personally because we ended up meeting him in the middle of the night at the store and walking through each aisle until I finally found my blankie in the freezer section.

Another time, I remember my dad putting me in his pick up truck and driving until we found my blanket in the middle of an old Florida red dirt road. I was happy to have found it and also sad because I knew it had to be washed.

I remember the day I stopped sucking my thumb. It was during one of my terrible ear infections and while we were out of town. Sucking my thumb was one of the only things that made me feel better during an ear infection. That and when my mom would pour warm oil into my ear. My parents were ministers and we traveled often. We were staying in a Pastor's home in Alabama. I actually remember the decor of their trailer home. Hunter green carpet with plaid wallpaper and Mallard duck border. Apparently, the pastor's wife took issue with my thumb sucking and she asked me in her Southern Alabama drawl,

"Who do you love more? Jesus or your blanket?"

Of course, I loved my blanket more, but I was a good girl and I knew where she was going with this. I had to choose. If I chose my blankie, I would be rejecting Jesus. If I chose Jesus, I had to reject my blankie. I had been raised in the church and was taught to love Jesus and serve Him and His ways above all others. So, I slurred my reply with my thumb still in my mouth, "Jeshush". I actually felt like I had betrayed my blanket. She then said,

"I will give you $20 if you quit sucking your thumb."

I quit sucking my thumb that day, but I never got my $20.

Honeysuckle Perfume

I spent a lot of time outdoors this Spring on our family's property. I loved walking through the woods and smelling the sweet scent of honeysuckle. If I caught a whiff of it I would follow it with my nose in the air like a dog on the trail of its prey.

My boys love honeysuckle too. My oldest son, Aidan, only eats 3 things because he is such a picky eater, but he loves to find honeysuckle blooms and suck the honey out of them. I find this perplexing.

I love the smell of honeysuckle so much that I decided I had to make some honeysuckle perfume. I thought, it can't be that hard, right? I am crafty and resourceful. I've got this. I even recruited my sister to join me. It wasn't hard to get her in on it. When we get together to do projects we like to pretend we are being filmed for our own DIY television show. But ours would have to be aired on HBO or something because sometimes we are missing our "filters".

So, I found a recipe online and my sister came over with a beautiful basket filled with honeysuckle blooms, cheesecloth and glycerin, all of the ingredients that we needed for our project. She handpicked the blooms herself. Her entire front field is covered in wild honeysuckle vines. It is such an invasive vine. I think I might hate it if it didn't smell so sweet. This is a picture of her yard and you can see the vines growing on her fence.




As we prepared to start our project, our anticipation was building. We felt so pioneer-ish. Like we were from Little House on the Prairie, living off of the land. We couldn't wait to pour our precious honeysuckle perfume into our vintage bottles that we have hoarded for years because we knew that someday we would need them. We were absolutely giddy. I think we even dreamed up how we could start a little business of making flower perfumes each season and sell it locally at the Farmer's Market. (This is a common occurrence for us, we daydream all of the time.)

We followed all of the directions, soaked the blooms for 8 hours and then simmered the blooms in their homemade cheesecloth teabags for a another 2 hours. All the while, the entire house smelled like a giant honeysuckle. I could not wait til it was ready and I could daintily rub a little dot on my wrists.

Finally, it was ready. Here we go! I dipped my finger into the concentrated goodness. Rubbed it onto my wrist, lifted my wrist to my nose, closed my eyes and sniffed...

I gagged.

It was horrible.

So horrible, that I can't even say. It would be inappropriate.

We giggled, said a few cuss words and moved on.

On to our our next adventure. This week, we want to be farmers and bake pies.

Recurring Dreams

I think I've always had an active recurring dream during each season of my life, for as far back as I can remember. I kind of like having them, seems I'm trying to send myself a message in my sleep that I'm too busy or won't sit still long enough to tell myself while awake. Even if the dreams aren't happy or exciting, I still like them. You know, there are dreams that leave you feeling disturbed all day the ones that make you feel invincible and inspired, like the ones when you can fly. I've never actually had the flying one, but I wish I could.

As a child, I remember dreaming that there was an intruder in our house and I was alone. I kept trying to think of the best hiding place in the house. Each time I had this dream I would always choose the trunk at the foot of my parents' bed.

When I was a teenager, I had two recurring dreams. In the first dream I was driving my parents' car and I couldn't quite reach the pedal to push the brake all the way down to the floor. I would scoot my butt to the edge of the seat and stretch my tippy toe as far as I could to make the pedal hit the floor. The car would slowly keep inching toward a cliff and I couldn't make it stop. I always woke up before I would actually go over the cliff. The funny thing is the car eventually changed from my parents' car to my own first car.

My second recurring dream as a teenager was the one where I was making out with my boyfriend and then we would do it. You know, "it". I am giggling as I type this. It's true. To most people, this dream would probably leave them feeling blissful, but for me it didn't. This was the dream that I would wake from and cry. I would slowly open my eyes, think to myself, "Oh, no! Did I really just do it? I hope I was just dreaming. Am I still a virgin?" Isn't that the most pitiful thing you have ever heard? It would make me so upset. Looking back, I now realize the dreams I had were called wet dreams ;) Very natural and normal for a hormonal teenage girl. What did I know? I was a "good girl". Oh, the things I missed out on, being the daughter of ministers. I guess I'll save those for another post...

...and we're moving on.

In my least favorite recurring dream, there are tornadoes all around. I can see them in every direction. Some are small like little Bugles (yes, I mean the snack) in the sky, while others are massive F4 tornadoes heading toward my house, my business or wherever I happen to be in my dream. I am always frustrated and fearful while trying to gather my 3 boys close to me and get them to follow me down to the basement. We huddle together, wait for the tornadoes to pass and I try my best to be brave so the boys won't be scared. Then, I poke my head back upstairs to see if it is clear and I see 5 more tornadoes. It sucks. The tornadoes keep coming and we never get out of the basement until I wake up. The end.

In my most favorite recurring dream, which I wish I could have every night,
I can play the piano.
I sit down to a beautiful, vintage upright and I play the most haunting, soothing melodies. I wish I could record them in my dream and play them back when I awake.
That would be stellar.

I think I find a little bit of comfort in recurring dreams. Good or bad. I expect them and I know they will always visit me. They may eventually change, but for a season they stay the same.

My Firsts

A couple of firsts. My first blog post. My first car.