butter butter everywhere!

I did it! I accomplished a brand new task in the kitchen that I've wanted to try for a while: I MADE BUTTER!

Yes, I realize that some people do this often. Usually, they live on farms or are part of a farm co-op where they get lots of beautiful cream every week.  Us city folk aren't usually too adept at making every single thing for ourselves.  I mean, I'm not.

Matthew and I have been working toward healthier lifestyles.  We can't live in the country (or even in a bigger apartment) just yet, so our lives are changing at a much slower pace.  Our little studio isn't set up like a big beautiful farm kitchen! Or even a medium sized regular kitchen.

This first step to changing the way we eat and live happened mostly by accident.  I picked up a bottle of juice/tea this week at CVS, thinking I was almost out of regular tea I had made and I wanted something besides water with dinner.  Innocent enough. Turns out, the drink was loooooaded with high fructose corn syrup.  It was the second ingredient listed after water.  Now, I won't waste your time here talking about the pros and cons of high fructose corn syrup.  All I'll say is that it's highly processed (something we're trying to stay away from) and it gave me a huge stomach ache.  I mean, I hurt pretty bad.

High fructose corn syrup is officially out of our apartment, never to come back again.

Second?  I started looking more closely at labels (what, exactly, is "natural flavorings?") and blogs and other musings that people had posted and noticing that others are striving toward a more healthy lifestyle with us.  And they have so many good ideas and fun things to try! Where does a girl start?!

With something simple, of course. Butter.  All you need is one ingredient: heavy cream.  And a blender. And some wooden spoons.  That's it.

I found an absolutely wonderful recipe here, complete with super helpful pictures. Who knew making your own butter is so easy?!  I certainly didn't.

it's a little blurry, but i think you can see: it's butter and buttermilk

Mine didn't turn out as pretty as hers, but I got another thing of cream to try out next time.  

one and a half mini jars of butter, and about a cup of buttermilk!

My buttermilk isn't as clear, and my butter isn't quite as solid.  No worries.  The buttermilk will make some buttermilk pancakes a little extra tasty, and the butter will probably disappear pretty quickly!

xoxo Susannah