‘Th’state says I can’t sell that to you’
What do you do with it?
Well, I do got seven kids…
How about I pay you for a reeealy expensive chicken, and you give me the milk as a present?
I c’n do that…
In southern Virginia there has been an unlikely meeting of the minds on the subject of organic farming. The hippies do it to live a natural lifestyle and to take power away from the man. The far right does it for the same reason they homeschool: ‘ I jus’ wouldn’t put that stuff they sell into my kids.’
Raw, organic, unpasteurized, non-homogenized milk may not be for kids or pregnant folks, and of course, technically it’s illegal. As a rule of thumb, drink without guilt if you’re comfortable eating chocolate mousse; the infection risk is about the same as that posed by raw egg whites (tho the diseases can be worse). This is what we did with the raw milk of Louisa the Jersey cow:
We drank it. Raw milk tastes like a thin, sweet, milkshake.
Because the cream had risen out into a sluggish, yellow strata on top, a straw helped get down to the layer below.
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Some folks didn’t bother with such advanced technology |
Then we skimmed off the top layer of cream…
…and yeah, we whipped it up and stuck it on pie and in some coffee and stuff, but mostly, we made butter. Here’s how it’s done.
All-natural, organic, silky, wonderful butter
If you aren’t lucky enough to have an entrepreneurial farmer nearby, I suggest starting with heavy organic cream. Get the most natural, hormone-free stuff you can find. I know Whole Foods has it, not raw but as close as you can buy ‘round here.
Pour about 2 pints…or as much as you want really, into a blender. I found out the hard way that using regular beaters doesn’t cut it. Blend on high for about 7 minutes. First it will whip up, then it’ll deflate back down and start getting all grainy-looking.
Use a Pulse setting to keep churning until the grains are blobby and fully separated out into yellow butter and white buttermilk.
Now wash it! Take a bowl of ice water and stick your hands in it till they’re totally cold. Scrape the butter in, and pat the little blobs into…a big blob. Don’t worry, it won’t dissolve in the water. I mean, it’s butter.
Wet down a cheesecloth or some similar, stick the butter in and twiiiiist. Gently. That’ll get rid of the extra buttermilk and water.
That’s it! stick it in a dish. cool it down. put it in your mouth.
I can’t beleve it’s butter!
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MHF demonstrates the correct eating technique
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Oh, and we also made some Flan. Lots of Flan. Recipe in Part 2.Thanks Louisa!
6 Responses
Wow, that is really impressive. It looks really tasty, I’d like to try it, but I have a feeling though if I tried to run my blender on high, it would burst into flames!
Well, let me rephrase. I probably coulda done it with regular beaters, but it would have been at least 20 minutes of mixing. And I’m lazy.
Most storebought butter is made from cultured cream. If you want something really good, glob a couple of tablespoons of live cultured yogurt into your cream and let it sit overnight on your countertop before churning it into butter. Mm. I might have to make some today, actually.
Actually it was made in a food processor not a blender. It didn’t take too long as the motor was pretty powerful and only has two settings, on and pulse. No high per se.
Alternate method if you have kids with waaay too much energy = put the cream in a Mason jar with a marble and tell them to shake it until you get lumps. Our scout leaders did that to us back in Brownies – I remember being exhausted but the butter was good.
and of course……