making butter and buttermilk. scones pt. 1.

I know that I have blogged about making butter before. It is one of those fun projects that the boys just love, but also one that we do often. Since we get farm fresh milk, we love using it fully. So making our own buttermilk and butter in just 15-20 minutes is great-especially when it will be used in a fresh scone recipe! YUM.

So a re-cap about how to make butter and buttermilk. It is easy, really!


For my scone recipe, I need 10 Tbsp cold butter and 3/4 cup buttermilk. So, we started with 1 3/4 cups of heavy cream in a quart mason jar. Add 3 marbles. Screw on the lid tight, and start to shake. We like to put on some fun music, and let the boys dance around shaking the marbles in there as the music blasts.


We all take turns shaking - lots of fun.


After 15-20 or so minutes of shaking it will start to get thick - keep shaking. Suddenly it will separate - you will know when it has happened.


Drain the buttermilk to use in your recipe. Then take that fresh butter, rinse it with cold water, and smush it around on a cutting board with a wooden spatula to get out the excess buttermilk. How much butter vs. buttermilk you get depends on the cream, so will vary. This made us almost 10 Tbsp of butter and plenty of buttermilk to fill our 3/4 cup recipe requirement!


So now that you have fresh butter and buttermilk, you have to try our awesome scone recipe!

CSA Box This Week

This week in our box: beets, kale, onions, cucumbers, kohlrabi, yellow & green beans, and a few currants and gooseberries.

(Here is what we had last year in the same week...).

A small box again this week - hopefully things will start catching up after the crazy spring and we will have a more bountiful late summer and fall with our CSA! It is a good thing that we have expanded our home garden this summer. We have been getting a full share for many years now and it has always been a good amount to last two adults about the whole week. Last fall was a bit smaller with all of the flooding and then this spring was just over the top and seems to really have affected many farms. With the reduced produce, a full share is not enough for two adults for a week (not to mention 2 kids), so we have really needed the extra produce from our garden to supplement our share. It is motivating me to plan an even larger garden next summer, and perhaps get some sort of season extender (cold frames, lean-to greenhouse) to supplement!

strawberry tea.

Ok, Ok. More strawberries. I have been cooking and photographing all kinds of food, but somehow keep returning to strawberries for the posts! They epitomize summer, and their tangy sweetness is so wonderful while it lasts.

I have been making strawberry tea and my husband is drinking it by the gallon, it seems. I think it is a popular drink! It is easy to make and really captures the strawberry flavor without being overbearing-and is very refreshing in this heat!


ingredients::
2 cups strawberries
6 tea bags (I use a good quality organic green tea)
6 cups of water
agave or honey
fresh herbs - mint, pineapple sage or lemon verbena would all be great


I make a strawberry liquid by taking 2 cups of frozen strawberries and letting them thaw in a freezer bag. Mash the bag a bit and then pour through a strainer. You get a good amount of strawberry liquid this way. If you only have fresh strawberries, you can also heat them gently in a pot for 15 minutes or so on low/med heat - then smash and strain that to get the liquid. Use the pulpy part over your yogurt, and pour the liquid into a cup.

Pour almost boiling water over the tea bags and let steep. While the tea is steeping, pound your fresh herbs (I used 7 pineapple sage leaves) a little to get the oils going. Put those into the pitcher with your tea bags. Let it all steep together for about 10 minutes. Add agave or honey to taste. Strain out the herbs and teabags, add the strawberry liquid. Let it come to room temperature before serving over ice!



ingredient tip::

Buy fair trade organic tea. Tea production is land- and labor-intensive--crops are frequently treated with many chemicals in order to produce cheap, high yields. Organic tea is free of these chemicals; fair trade tea provides a living wage for those involved in its production, and improves quality of life for the workers while maintaining a healthier ecosystem.

pickled cucumber slices

While I love the tangy crunch of the traditional vinegar pickles, I also love the mellow flavor of lacto-fermented cucumbers. They have far less acid than those pickled in vinegar, and go well with all types of dishes and cool salads.


pickled cucumber slices

ingredients::
1 large hot house cucumber, or more if cucumbers are small
1/2 Tbsp mustard seeds
2-3 Tbsp chopped fresh dill
3 garlic scapes, chopped - optional
1 Tbsp sea salt
4 Tbsp whey (if you don't have whey, use 1 additional Tbsp sea salt)
1-2 cups filtered water
Clean quart sized wide mouth mason jar with lid


Wash your cucumber and slice into 1/4 inch slices. Put the slices into a mason jar - arrange so they are pretty tight. Add a bit of the dill and garlic scapes as you put in each layer of the cucumbers.

Combine the remaining ingredients and pour over the cucumbers - add more water if you need, to cover. The top of the liquid should be at least 1 inch below the top of the jar. Press down your cucumbers if they have a lot of space or are popping out of the top of the liquid.

Screw on the lid tightly, and keep at room temperature for 2 days (not in direct sun, not extremely hot). Transfer to the refrigerator and chill before eating. Should keep in the fridge for a month.


more on lacto-fermentation::

"A traditional method of food preservation is lacto-fermentation. The best part about lacto-fermentation is two-fold. First, it is the easiest and most low-tech way to preserve food. No canning equipment or freezers are needed. Secondly, lacto-fermented foods are believed to be extremely healthy for a number of reasons. The proliferation of beneficial bacteria from the fermentation aids digestion and contributes to thriving intestinal flora.

Fresh healthy vegetables naturally bear lactic-acid-producing bacteria (lactobacilli) on their surfaces. When the produce is washed and mixed with non-iodized salt, the salt draws out the juices, inhibits spoilage organisms, and regulated the fermentation process. Sealed and sitting at room temperature (65-80) gets this process going.

Over the next several days, the lactobacilli begin breaking down sugars in the vegetables and producing lactic acid, along with small amounts of carbon dioxide, benzoic acid, and other substances. Lactic acid is an excellent preservative, and it gives traditionally pickled vegetables their characteristic aroma and taste.

When the pickles are done fermenting, they are placed in cold storage to stop the fermentation. In cold storage, raw, lacto-fermented pickles will last for many months."

The French traditionally make lacto-termented cucumbers - called cornichons.

CSA Box This Week

It seems like each week we pick up our CSA box this year, there is a big storm. I know in WI this summer we are having (too) many big storms, but Thursday seems to be popular...so we go as early as we can to beat what we see coming in on the radar.

This week in our box: strawberries, garlic scapes, cauliflower, kale, beets, snow peas, snap peas, onions, & cucumber.

I'm excited to get peas and beets - yay!

(Here is what we had last year in the same week...).

CSA Box This Week

This week: Cauliflower, broccoli, cucumbers, lettuce, basil, peas, strawberries.

strawberry dessert topping.

Fresh strawberries are so delicious on their own - but when we have a large quantity of strawberries, I always make a special batch of strawberry compote, which is a great dessert topping. It is so good drizzled over ice cream, yogurt, pancakes or pound cake.

strawberry dessert topping

1 quart ripe strawberries, rinsed, top greens cut off
3-4 Tbsp sugar, or 2 Tbsp agave or honey (to taste - if you like it sweet, add a bit more)

Put the strawberries in a pot and pour sugar over the top. Mash a bit with a fork or potato masher (don't pulverize, just mash a bit to get liquid flowing). Cook the mixture on medium heat for about 7-10 minutes (stir often!!!). Put a lid on it, turn off the burner, and let it sit for 20-30 minutes.

You can store it in the fridge for a few weeks or freeze it.


Oh - and yes, this is our homemade vanilla frozen custard. It is yellow because our super farm fresh eggs are so golden. Recipe coming soon, I promise!