Good morning, everyone. Disappointingly, we had no lightning, no thunder and, worst of all, no rain! So the dryness continues and I gather it will get hotter again this coming week. So much for my prediction of rain when the schools break up.
I went to the leavers' assembly yesterday. Because I teach - I mean taught - down in infants, classes I had are still working their way through the school so I knew a lot of the children taking part and most of the parents coming to watch. It was a great presentation, funny and sad at the same time and a lot of the kids were in tears as they sang their last song, setting some of the audience off too.
Bitter-sweet is just the right word for it.
I had a few things I just HAD to do. First of all, the other day a friend brought round some redcurrants she had picked so yesterday I got going with a fork to remove the berries from their stems. It's a fiddly process but not too bad and as I am making jelly (or seedless jam) with them, the occasional stem won't matter.
They are now in the freezer until I can see to them. I wonder if they would go well with blackberries. Blackberry and redcurrant jelly. Sounds good, doesn't it? In a few weeks |I'll have loads of blackberries because Dad's canes are ripening fast now and he's asked me to take some fruit once it builds up. What he does is pick and freeze as required.
The other essential was butter. I saw some large pots of cream on yellow sticker at 10p a pot so I got two pots. You can't refuse at that price. Yesterday I made butter. Given the price of butter nowadays, I got myself a bargain!
It's easy to do - just whip or zizz the cream until it splits into solids and buttermilk, using something electric as by hand would take all day. I used Thermione but an ordinary processor would do. It took about two minutes to get to that point. Then you wash the butter in very cold water to get rid of any residual liquid.
What you get is unsalted butter so add salt if you want to.
I spooned the butter into some little pots with lids before bagging and freezing. Now I can just take one out whenever I feel like 'a little bit of butter on my bread' as the king said to the queen.
Even better if the bread is homemade and the jam is redcurrant and blackberry!
Joy, I have never liked butter until we began to have the occasional meal at Le Bistrot Pierre in Torquay, the bistrot chain (and yes, they spell bistrot with a T on the end.) They serve pale Normandy butter with their baguettes (sliced) and we love it and now we buy this pale Normandy butter from Waitrose. But I'd never have thought of making my own butter as you have, and what a good idea … and putting into small pots which you can use as and when you feel like it!
ReplyDeleteMargaret P
www.margaretpowling.com
Making butter isn't rocket science but somehow it is very satisfying. As you say at those prices you would be a fool not to.
ReplyDeleteHi Joy,
ReplyDeleteYour butter suggestion is superb. This might make you smile. My sister occupies her littlies occasionally by having them make butter in a jar. One tip we learnt - through messy experience - is that, if you are going to have small kids vigorously shaking jars containing cream, you need a *really* tight-fitting lid on those jars 😀
Margaret, given the rate at which I use butter now, those pots should do me until next Christmas and maybe beyond. It is very pale, a creamy white, lovely with really good bread.
ReplyDeleteDiane, satisfying is exactly the right work! :-)
Heloise, definitely a super tight fitting lid and maybe sellotape/masking tape too. Belt and braces!
xx
Homemade is always so much better. I have never made butter but from your description it seems easy to do and an advantage if you can freeze it.
ReplyDeleteIt's very straightforward, really. Great if you can get the cream cheap! This links to a blog that describes the process without using a Thermomix. https://www.foodrenegade.com/how-to-make-butter/
ReplyDeletexxx