Making your own food

I know a lot of people on here grow veggies and do some home brewing, and recently I've been really into gardening. Today I'm going to attempt to make my own butter, anyone done something like this or have any home-produced food stories to share?

What kind of cow did you get?

I make peanut butter and cure my own bacon, both using Chesapeake seasonings opposed to traditional salt. Peanut Butter takes less time and space, but is more involved. Bacon is super easy, but requires it's own fridge and takes about 6 days before it's ready for smoking.

My wife makes butter out of the raw milk we get. It's pretty easy and tastes better. She also made Strawberry Jam out of strawberries she picked yesterday.

We used to make butter all the time when I was a kid. Just used a shaker and whipping cream. I think Mom had us do it just to tire us out.

Old school: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuWVPl-XkS0

In today's power appliance world: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyLK6WdeOXE

Other than whipping cream and a beater, you are set to go. First you will make whipped cream and if you keep going with the beater you end up with Butter. Don't put in the sugar and vanilla extract if going for butter.

If I try it now I never make it past the whipped cream stage since I like it better than butter!

Now, if you are starting from first principles and involving one of the critters with the bagpipes underneath, you are on your own.

I made butter on the worst school trip ever. In the 7th grade we went to Willetts House. It was an 1800s house where we were supposed to learn how much better we had it than kids back then. We were all given chores to make a beef stew lunch. There were exciting tasks like fetching fire wood and brewing tea. Myself and some of my fellow losers ended up on the butter team. Pretty much hours of churning cream in an old butter churn. Mindlessly pumping a handle up and down repeatedly only to be rewarded with a lunch that was just as mediocre as you'd expect. It did prepare me for high school where I spent many a sad Saturday night with Dr Quinn Medicne Chick and a frozen pizza.

The wife recently convinced me that raising chickens for fresh eggs would be fun. So now we have six little mouths to feed, growing in our back hall until they get a little bigger and move to the coop (that I haven't built yet)

I'm not totally convinced it will be "fun", but it should be interesting!

We usually do a pretty good sized garden as well, this year we're behind on it but it started without us (bunch of volunteer tomato and potato plants popped up!)

I have about 5 acres worth of sweet corn planted this year. The rest of the family has green beans, onions, radishes, lettuce, etc.

Its much better than store bought crap and its not like we don't have the space.

Fresh sweet corn is a revelation if you've never had it straight from the field.

Tomatoes too

cmcgregor wrote: Fresh sweet corn is a revelation if you've never had it straight from the field. Tomatoes too

And carrots, watermelon, squash, onions, and just about everything else that grows on a plant.

I can remember sitting in the middle of a strawberry patch and eating until I couldn't move.

Toyman01 wrote:

cmcgregor wrote: I can remember sitting in the middle of a strawberry patch and eating until I couldn't move.

That cause you were E36 M3ting yourself!

no butter making, i'm not amish.

i do make other stuff though. breads, dehydrated stuffs, pickles.

Jams is about all I make. I just laid up about 20 jars of strawberry jam. I'm looking forward to doing some blackberry again. I'd also like to try apple butter.

Katie made some delicious butter we had with dinner, thanks everyone! As a bonus, she's making shortbread biscuits with the buttermilk for strawberry shortcakes.

Margie

"So Katie... what did you do over Summer break?"

"I made butter."

SWMBO grows and makes some of her food that she grew up with. Getting to be a lost art, even in her home country. She's from Korea. I get to have Korean food a couple times a week.

I make pickles. Not the lazy-butt vinegar kind - I actually ferment them in open barrels. Sometimes I make kimchee and sauerkraut, too.

In reply to EvanR:

My ex's family makes sauerkraut every couple of years. They'll buy cabbage in bulk (like a pallets worth) wholesale at a local farm auction and then they'll set up a small production line cleaning and chopping it up and then layering it with salt in a huge ceramic crock. Then they let it ferment in a basement for a couple of months or three. I never liked sauerkraut much until I had some of that.

They have a small farm in the Poconos and grow a number of various vegetables along with a couple of small fruit trees and occasionally plant a few rows of corn and/or potatoes. They don't live there full-time, so no animals although the barn was originally set up to house a few cows.

My dad had a massive heart scare about a year ago and we all totally changed our diets. Fresh foods, no salt/sodium, very little red meat, etc. To get on that diet using just the grocery store gets stupid expensive, so even though I live in suburbia we have a small vegetable garden. I can't grow grass so the fact that I have plants with tomatoes, zucchini, and squash growing on them is awesome.

As far as other things, I've had to make sodium free seasonings (not that hard) and trying to make sodium free sauces and marinades. That gets a little more tricky, I mean look at the sodium in soy sauce someday!!!

I do make my own spring and egg rolls, which are mighty tasty.

In reply to octavious:

grass is one of the most difficult things to grow, I think it's part of it's genetic code through evolution as outside of being a uniform lush green carpet when painstakingly maintained and cut, it brings NOTHING to the table. No substance or nutritional value of other life.

Wow! You guys are awesome! There is a lot of work going on in food growth and preparation.

As for me, I just don't have a green thumb. Stopped the tiny garden and plant 6 blueberry bushes. They're easy to net. Crows eat all the cherries off the trees.

Fortunately one of my employee benefits is fresh produce. Company has a 350 acre organic farm to grow herbs for our products. They set aside several acres for food crops for employees and the local soup kitchen. Twice a week I get an email that says 'the produce stand is open'. There is no cash register, just take what you want. Been chowing on fresh lettuce and radishes for the last couple of weeks. Still haven't developed a taste for swiss chard.

captdownshift said: grass is one of the most difficult things to grow, I think it's part of it's genetic code through evolution as outside of being a uniform lush green carpet when painstakingly maintained and cut, it brings NOTHING to the table. No substance or nutritional value of other life.

I know right. I won't go off on my grass tangent cause that's not what the OP was looking for, but freaking crab grass and heat in the south destroys yards. That and lazy neighbors...

I do cured meats; bacon and brisket Montréal style which are then smoked. I do Texas style brisket and ribs as well. My wife and I make sausages. I make bread and wine. It's all good fun.

I made myself a full English breakfast today, does that count?

Once a year my family gets together and makes sausage. We call it sausagefest.