Clean Eating – Page 3 – Z Life Homestead

Last week I was whining about being a frugal fraud because I had made quite a few purchases lately. And I do need to rein it in and focus more on making do instead of adding to cart. But one of the purchases I made was a meat slicer, and I’ll now be adding that tool to my list of must haves on the homestead.

I had reservations about buying a meat slicer and bringing another appliance into the house, but I’m so glad I did.

We raise our own pork, which means we also process and smoke our own bacon. However, no matter how hard I tried I could not slice the bacon thin enough and consistent enough to get the texture of bacon. I mean come on, one of the best parts of raising and processing your own pork is the bacon. I was meticulous about processing and curing the bacon, so why would I not be meticulous about the finished product? I don’t know.

What I do know is that now I have a lot of perfectly sliced bacon packaged and in the freezer just waiting for us anytime we want it. Bacon that is homegrown and free of nitrates, steroids and antibiotics… the best bacon I’ve ever eaten.

Having the right tool for the job can make the difference between good and great, and it can make the job a lot easier.

Till Next Time,

Lori

Butter – the everlasting delight of the gourmand, the faithful ally of the culinary arts, the constant symbol of good living.

Through time and across the globe, butter has had a sacred quality. From the ancient Fertile Crescent to the present day, butter has symbolized the powerful, life giving and sacred, the good, the happy, the healthy and pure. It has sustained lives, cultures and civilizations for millennia.

Butter is a culinary treasure as old as King Tut’s tomb. “She brought forth butter in a lordly dish” (Judges 5:25). A jug of wine, a loaf of bread – and butter!

From – Butter Through The Ages.

About a month ago my Mother called and was so excited that she had just made homemade butter and how easy and good it was. I’m sure the ease of it was most of the amazement and surely reminded her of being the very young child witnessing the butter being made. Making butter back then was not an easy process, not unlike so many of the other great things that take time and effort to accomplish. Butter is one of the GREATS!

Fast forward 100 years to imagine me standing in the dairy section at the grocery store needing butter. How things have changed…. But as I was standing there I remembered Mother’s conversation and decided to make my butter. While I wish we did, we in fact do not have a milk cow or goats on our homestead, so my choice for cream (and milk) is Homestead Creamery. I feel it’s the best choice for us and also I believe you get what you pay for.

Being on a tight grocery budget this month, some would wonder why I didn’t just buy the 99¢ fake, yellow, plastic, artificially flavored stuff, and well, that is why… As Michael Pollan says “we are what we eat, and what we eat, eats”

The question I asked myself in the grocery store was, do I spend $6 on butter and $3 on the milk that I wanted, or do I spend $6 on cream to make butter which would also net me some sweet cream milk after making the butter. I chose the cream.

IMG_20160313_153400482

Making butter is as easy as can be, however I will advise not to over fill the food processor as it will leak out all over the counter, making a huge mess. Yes, that happened.

All you do is pour the cream into the food processor and process for about 5 minutes then separate the butter from the buttermilk.

IMG_20160313_154055666

IMG_20160313_155452591

The buttermilk can be refrigerated for later use. Then you want to rinse your butter with ice cold water to help preserve it. Pour ice cold water over the butter and press with a rubber spatula to extract as much of the liquid as possible. I saved the water I used to rinse the butter and added a little dry milk to it and then added it to the buttermilk I extracted from the cream. What I ended up with was a full quart of sweet cream milk that I can use in other recipes or just drink.

IMG_20160313_171058116

I was so excited about the butter that I had to make something to spread it on. I made some butternut banana muffins and some cornbread. Those muffins with fresh homemade butter are out of this world good. One of those Y-U-M moments. And a glass of sweet cream buttermilk and cornbread… the only thing missing is a front porch swing and a breezy summer evening.

This was a fun experiment and I’m glad I did it. While it didn’t take me hours to hand churn my butter, it did give me a little nostalgic feeling of living back in the day when things seemed better. I’ll keep making our butter because the best part of it was the taste, so fresh and clean, which is the ultimate reason for doing it.

As for MMGC, if you’re keeping track, I’m now down to $10 to last me the rest of the month. YIKES! But, we have some great butter and pure maple syrup.