City Mouse, Country Mouse

Van Gogh's
Woman Churning Butter

Hethyr:  If you had asked me in high school or even in college what I thought I’d be doing at 33 years of age, I would not have answered “I’ll be a chef who cooks for others and teaches people to cook.”  Ask anyone who knew me back then.  I would also never have responded with “I’ll make most of my meals from scratch, never eat fast food, only consume meat from sustainably-raised animals, have a community supported agriculture share, have a share in a herd of local cows so I can drink raw, unpasteurized milk, frequent the farmers’ market every week, and make my own bread, butter, yogurt and ice cream.”  I wouldn’t have said “I’d like to have my own large vegetable garden, raise chickens in my backyard and learn to make my own non-toxic beauty and cleaning products.”  What a long way I’ve come!  I looked at Jon the other day while I was making butter, laughed and said “Never in a million years did I think I’d one day be a farm-girl!”

During college, I worked at a few chain restaurants and would eat at least one meal at work during my scheduled shift because it was free and – I thought at the time – good.  I loved fast food and I exercised very little.  I was the typical American college kid.  These eating habits continued through my mid-twenties until one day, on a 30-minute lunch break, I bought a McDonald's Big Mac to take back to work and finish at my desk (I then worked for a large financial corporation).  A few minutes before I was supposed to pack up and head for home, one of my co-workers popped his head up over the shared wall and said “Wow, you don’t look so good.”  Five minutes earlier, I had gotten extremely nauseous and my ears were burning up – I felt like crap.  Long story short, I had food poisoning from that evil pseudo-burger.  It only lasted about five or six hours, but it felt like an eternity and I thought I was dying.

Now, I am so thankful for that short bout with food poisoning!  Why, you ask?  It changed EVERYTHING about the way I eat and think about food.  It’s why I’m such a “farm-girl” today and why I make almost everything from scratch.  I have not eaten one bite of fast food since that fateful day and unless someone literally forces it down my throat, I never will again.  The more I learn about food, the more I want to make from scratch.  Hence my recent attempt at making my own butter.

Butter is amazingly easy to make!  As I mentioned, I have a share in a dairy herd so I receive two half gallon jars of raw milk weekly.  For some reason, I ended up with five jars in the refrigerator at once recently.  That’s an oddity since I usually have no problem finishing off both jars each week.  In any case, I decided that since I had so much, I’d use the cream to make butter for one of the community swaps.  I skimmed the cream off the top of each jar, which resulted in one-half gallon of cream.

Jon is jealous of how much time
I spend with my new love

I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned it or not (damn age!), but I recently traded in an unused commercial ice cream maker for a sweet brand new 7-quart Cuisinart Stand Mixer.  According to my friend Allen at Sparrowhawk Gourmet Cookware, this mixer has a lot more power than some of the others of similar size.  He raved about this thing, so I happily made my purchase and haven’t regretted it for one second – it’s freakin’ awesome.  I decided to make my butter using my stand mixer but you can make this butter by hand also…  just in case you’re not as cool as me and don’t own a wicked-cool stand mixer.  I didn’t give quantities for the ingredients in the recipe since everything will depend on how much cream you start with.  Because I was making a lot, I started with one-half gallon of cream and I ended up with just over a pound of butter.  You can make a lot less if you want!

Chipotle-Lime Butter

• Cream (I used raw, but you can also use store-bought)
• Ice water
• Salt (optional)
• Chipotle chiles in adobo sauce, minced
• Green onions, sliced
• Lime juice

Stand mixer instructions:  Pour cream into stand mixer and fit with whisk attachment.  Turn mixer on and blend. 

The cream will go through several stages, first starting out sloshy/frothy, then changing to whipped cream.  After changing to whipped cream, the cream will all of a sudden collapse and you’ll see tiny globs of butter separate from the buttermilk (you can save this, too!).  A little more time and the small globs will come together and form a ball of butter.  At this point, turn off the mixer and drain the buttermilk, reserving it for other uses. 

Frothy stage

Whipped Cream

Butter and Buttermilk

With the butter still in the mixer, add 1/4 to 1/2 cup cold water and blend again.  Drain the water and repeat this process until the water is clear, maybe 3 to 4 times. 

Place the drained butter in a large bowl and mash with a potato masher to  squeeze out any excess water; drain.  Repeat until most of the water is removed from the butter (remaining liquid in the butter will cause it to spoil more rapidly).  If the butter is very firm, let it soften at room temperature.

Fold chipotles, green onions, salt and lime juice (just enough for taste – you don’t want to reintroduce a bunch of liquid back into the butter) into softened butter until well mixed.  Form into a log with waxed paper or store in small mason jars. 

If you’re not going to use the butter relatively quickly, freeze for later use.

Instructions for making by hand:  Although this may take longer than making it in a stand mixer, it works just as well and will give your kids something to do for a while.  ;)  Pour cream into a mason jar, about one-third of the way full and screw the cap on.  Shake. 

This butter is also excellent with sautéed veggies,
on corn, in frittatas, etc.

You’ll see the same changes in the cream as described above.  Once the butter has separated from the buttermilk, drain the buttermilk, reserving it for other uses (pancakes, smoothies, baking, etc.). 

Add 1/4 to 1/2 cup of ice water to the jar and shake again.  Drain and repeat until the water is clear, maybe 3 or 4 times.

Place the drained butter in a large bowl and mash with a potato masher to squeeze out any excess water; drain.  Repeat until most of the water is removed from the butter (remaining liquid in the butter will cause it to spoil more rapidly).  If the butter is very firm, let it soften at room temperature.

Fold chipotles, green onions, salt and lime juice (just enough for taste – you don’t want to reintroduce a bunch of liquid back into the butter) into butter until well mixed.  Form into a log with waxed paper or store in small mason jars. 

If you’re not going to use the butter relatively quickly, freeze for later use.

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Jon:  I can attest to the miraculous change that Hethyr has made over the years in terms of “naturalizing” herself.  Even as I write this, she is rummaging through the closet getting rid of all of our bathroom products that have toxic ingredients in them… which happens to be just about all of them.  She’s recently been washing her face with honey instead of face soap, which seems like a dangerous option considering all the bees we have in our backyard.  She hasn’t returned from outside with a beard of bees yet, so I guess I’ll just keep my mouth shut about it.

I have many memories of consuming vast amounts of butter on my trips down to visit my Louisiana family.  Whether we were eating at their house or at a restaurant, it often seemed as though butter was the main course and everything else was just side dishes.  As much as I love grits, I’m convinced that their only real purpose is to transport butter from your bowl to your stomach—a convenient alternative to simply taking a bite straight off a butter stick.  I remember thinking how health-conscious we non-Southerners were to use margarine instead of butter on our food.  Now I realize that our Country Crock was a disturbing blend of vegetable oils (undoubtedly originating from genetically-modified crops), mono and diglycerides, various artificial flavors and emulsifiers, and a nice heaping dose of trans fat.  Basically, the notion that Country Crock margarine is healthier than butter is a crock of shit.

Obviously moderation is important with butter.  But how can you argue with a product that comes straight out of a dairy animal and is then simply whipped into a pillow of soft, yellow deliciousness?  A friend of mine who is a kindergarten teacher makes butter with her students each year, and I plan on borrowing that idea to do with my first graders this year.  Maybe we’ll even make some grits.  I wonder if I could line up a field trip for a cow or goat milking?  That’d be hilarious.  Either way, there certainly won’t be any disgusting, unnatural ingredients consumed in my classroom during our butter party.  Country Crock will be left off the guest list.