How to Make Butter! (and Buttermilk)

Howdy from the homestead! We made butter this evening. With just a bit of heavy cream and a few common household items, we shook...and shook...and shook...until all of a sudden we had butter! It is sweet and creamy — by far the best butter I have ever tasted. And as an extra bonus the dairy gods gave us a bit of buttermilk too!

It is super-simple — and with a bit of arm strength and 20 minutes, you can do it too! Here's what you need:

• Heavy Cream
• Clean Empty Jar (with a tight fitting lid)
• 1-2 Clean Glass Marbles
• Plastic Wrap
• 2 Small Mixing Bowls
• Spatula (needs to be able fit into the jar)
• 2 containers: 1 for Butter, 1 for Buttermilk
• Pinch of salt (optional)

Here's how you do it:

1. Fill the jar a little more than half way with heavy cream.
2. Place a marble or 2 into the jar.
3. Cover the jar opening with some plastic wrap and then screw on lid tightly. This prevents lingering scents in the lid from making the butter smell/taste strange.
4. Shake the heck out of the jar for about 15-25 minutes. It will be easy at first, then it will be harder to move the marbles around. Sometime after the 10 minute mark you will see a definite separation of butter and milk and the cream will no longer coat the inside of the jar. Shake for 2 more minutes.
5. Use the spatula to help strain the buttermilk out of the jar into one of the containers.
6. Fill the two mixing bowls half way with cold ice water.
7. When you have all of the buttermilk separated, place the butter into the first mixing bowl to rinse. You can use the spatula to knead the butter a little and get the buttermilk out of any pockets in the butter.
8. Transfer the butter into the second bowl for a second rinse.
9. Place the butter into the second container, strain any water remaining, and mix in salt to taste if desired.

The salsa jar I show in the first photo gave me 1/2 cup of butter (shown in the photo above) and about 1/4 cup of buttermilk.

The photo above shows the two butter containers (on the right) I have filled so far, and the container of buttermilk (left). I have used about 1/4 gallon of heavy cream so far and it gave me 2 1/4 cups of butter and about  1 1/2 cups of buttermilk. I am really happy that this process creates two products I can actually use. There is no waste (unless you are on a diet). Tomorrow I will make some buttermilk biscuits with the fresh buttermilk. Wahoo! I can smother them in homemade butter!

Look Kids! Corn, Beans and Squash!

My husband and I took the kids on a trip to the east coast earlier this summer for a family reunion in Virginia Beach. The highlight for me? Not the sand & surf...but a quick visit to Historical Jamestown where I saw a real life example of a Native American planting method I have read about called the Three Sisters. My husband and kids were "oooh-ing" and "ahhh-ing" the old ships at the dock, and all I could do was scramble to take photos of corn, beans and squash!

Ha! I'm really turning into a garden nerd.

Here is how I understand the Three Sisters Method works...

• Work soil into flat-topped mounds about 12 inches high by 24 inches wide and 3 feet apart.
• Plant 4-6 corn kernels about 4-6 inches apart in a circle on top of the mound.
• When Corn plants are 5-10 inches tall, plant 5-8 pole beans in a circle about 5 inches away from the circle of corn plants.
• 1-2 weeks after planting the pole beans, plant 5-8 squash, gourd, or melon seeds around the outside edge of the mound about 12 inches from the bean plants.
• After all the seeds have sprouted, it is probably a good idea to thin half the seedlings of each kind of plant to avoid crowding.

Its a brilliant system. The corn provides a stalk for the pole beans to climb, and the squash shades the ground which minimizes water evaporation and heat gain, as well as, helping prevent weed growth. The photo above seems to use a smaller mound, so I guess there is room for experimentation. I will be attempting this next summer in the raised garden.

Renee's Garden - Native American Three Sisters Garden

Brewing Our Own Beer.....Yummmmmm!

I am already excited about the idea of cracking open an ice cold beer at the end of a hot summer day, if that beer was something I brewed at home, I would be so much more satisfied. For months now, my husband and I have talked about trying to brew our own beer and make our own wine. We have several friends and family members who have talked about forming a homemade beer co-op where everyone makes a different variety and then we trade brews at a BBQ or something.

So, this week my husband and I have spent a little time looking at brewing equipment online. We have found that a newbie can get a little caught up in the details. Some of the equipment looks like it came straight out of my 11th grade science lab. Since I am already knee deep in garden work and learning to preserve my harvest, I think we will start small.

My husband found a kit made by Mr. Beer which seems to fit the bill perfectly. It is a complete kit that includes a fermenting keg, several bottles, 2 kinds of beer and a brewing guide. The description says the kit will brew 4 gallons of beer. I'm sold.

And as a bonus, when I went to the Mr. Beer website, I found out that they are located in Tucson, Arizona! I love the idea of purchasing my equipment from a locally owned, Southern Arizona business.

Now, where can I clear a space in the back yard to grow my own hops when we become expert brewers???

How to Make Your Own Smoker

I can't tell you how mind numbing I find food-related television. Thank god for Alton Brown! The man has a knack for making the science of cooking interesting and entertaining. And since my husband is a foodie and watches all the food TV he can, I at least have one program I can enjoy.

Above is my husband's clay pot smoker. He built it after watching an episode of Alton Brown's Good Eats. We take no credit for the idea...but it is brilliant. The ribs that come out of this thing are apparently awesome and the cost of building it was much cheaper than buying a commercial clay smoker. I think we spent about $60 total. The hardest thing to find was the unglazed, untreated terra cota pots. Everything else was readily available at our local home improvement store.

If you want to take a look at the Good Eats episode, I found it HERE.

The supplies you need are:

• 2 large clay pots that fit together nicely
• 1 hotplate
• 3 clay pot feet
• 1 round pie pan
• 1 grill grate like those found in a round charcoal grill
• 1 oven thermometer
• Smoking wood

We had to disassemble the hot plate because the variety we bought had a plastic base and it would not fit in the bottom of the pot. Other than that it assembles easily just like you think it would. The clay feet support the heating element. The pie pan holds the wet (soaked for an hour) wood. The grill sits in the top of the clay pot. And the thermometer we found fits nicely into the hole on the cover pot. It is as easy as can be.

I don't eat pork or beef, but my husband has smoked several racks of ribs since we built the smoker and he says they are perfect. In a couple of weeks we are going to try smoking a turkey breast. I can't wait!

How To: Build A Solar Oven - Part 1 (Supplies)

Solar Oven.

"YES. This is a great idea!", I thought. When I told my brother about it, he called me a "hippie". And, after seeing it in the backseat of my car, the guy at the grocery store asked if it was a "school project". I admit that it is not conventional or pretty — as you can see — BUT I live in the desert where temperatures pass 100 on a daily basis in the summer. This will be energy free, outdoor cooking that will not heat the house!

This is the one we made at a workshop in early April. Its is simple and cheap to make. The workshop leader told us that the temperature for this oven tops out at about 250 degrees. He made some killer navy beans for the class in his own solar oven. He said they were cooked 10 hours. So, this oven is more of a slow cooker, I suppose.

Here are the supplies you will need to create your own.

SUPPLY LIST:

• Two cardboard boxes-one large, one small. Dimensions don't really matter as long as the small one nests inside the large and there is some space around the small box to stuff paper for insulation. Make sure you can place a baking dish inside the small box easily.
• A roll of heavy duty aluminum foil
• Lots of newspaper
• A roll of 3" aluminum tape-the kind used to seal heating and cooling ducts
• Elmers white glue
• One 2 1/2 foot long wooden dowel-1/4 inch diameter
• Two long hinges-the best ones in our workshop were about 4" from the center of the hinge
• Bolts, washers and nuts for the hinges-bolts should be about 3/4"-1" long and fit through your hinges.
• A roll of 1" wide felt stripping
• One piece of non-tempered glass large enough to cover the small box with a 1"-2" overlap on all sides. This is the lid that traps the sun's heat.
• Four extra pieces of cardboard that are larger than the bigger box.
• Electric drill 

Now, go collect your stuff and check back in a couple days.
Instructions will follow shortly...

Book Review: Garden Wisdom & Know-How

My dear hubby gave me an enormous soft cover book for my birthday this year. It is called Garden Wisdom & Know-How by The Editors of Rodale Gardening Books. It is like an encyclopedia for gardening! There are step-by-step instructions for everything from seed starting to building a removable window box. It boasts "7,354 Charts, Lists, Tips, Instructions, Diagrams and Illustrations." I have spent hours reading this book since I received it last week.

While, there isn't a ton of information on gardening in the desert. There is an extensive section on watering techniques, water conservation, and rain water harvesting. And I am SO inspired by the garden plans that are detailed — my favorite is the Dye Garden full of plants that are used for different color dyes.

Every time I pick this book up, I find something new I want to try or build. I love it! My only complaint would be the lack of information on gardening in arid climates and the black & white illustrations. I don't mind black & white for the most part, but it would be nice to see the color of plants, flowers, and insects.

How to Kill Aphids

When I started this perfect little garden of mine, I never though that my plants would have pests. My stomach sank when I saw the greedy little green aphids on my lettuce. I panic every time I see a microscopic orange mite crawling in the dirt. I hunt those tiny fly-like bugs that cling to my tomato leaves and squash them out of fear.

I have never seen so many bugs! I knew that aphids were bad news and I found an easy organic solution, thankfully. But there are so many others and I have read online that some pests are beneficial. Its confusing and I need to know how to handle my garden correctly.

To kill the aphids, I tried this little recipe on my lettuce:

• 3-5 drops of a mild, fragrance free, liquid dish soap
• 1/2 teaspoon of cooking oil
• Fill the rest of a water spray bottle with water. I used a cheap small 12 oz bottle.

Shake it up and spray a stream of the liquid on your plants. It worked like a charm for me. They fell off the leaves and I haven't seen them since. Please understand that I have only used this method for a couple weeks...my methods may not be full proof, but it is working so far.

And the best part is my lettuce still tastes great after a quick rinse.

How to Plant Potatoes

In early February I decided to experiment with planting potatoes. I had attended a local gardening workshop where the class planted pieces of organic grocery potatoes in a sunken garden. It was cheap and easy enough to do. Why not give it a shot?

How I planted my potatoes:

1. Purchase one organic red potato (any potato will do) with lots of eye dimples. I should note that some gardeners say you should only plant seed potatoes, but I'll try these store bought red potatoes this year.
   
2. Cut the potato into a few pieces, making sure there are at least 2-3 eyes on each piece.
   
3. Lay the pieces in a sunny dry spot to scab over — I let them stay out in the sun for 2 days.
   
4. Prepare a bed for the potatoes. In the workshop they had dug twice the depth of the shovel head and added compost to the soil. For my purposes, I planted them in large pots using potting soil for veggies because I had already run out of room in my raised garden bed. I placed some small rocks at the bottom of the pots to aid in moisture drainage.
   
5. Plant the potato pieces. It doesn't matter if the eyes point up, down, left, or right — just toss them in! I placed one piece in each pot at a depth of about 8 inches. At the workshop garden, we planted them about 12-18 inches apart at a depth of 8-10 inches.
6. Water thoroughly, place pots in a sunny spot, and wait patiently. The leader at the workshop said I should be able to harvest in June.

I wasn't sure if this would work in my pots but, as you can see below, they finally sprouted after about 4 weeks.

And this is what they look like today....

The only thing I will do differently next time is plant in a bigger pot. These pots were only 16 inch diameter which will probably cramp the development of the potatoes. Next time I will find a much larger pot. I think a plastic storage bin with holes drilled in the bottom would work nicely. I will post more when I harvest.