Happiness What you are looking at there are the first peas from the garden, a butter paddle, and butter that I made with the butter paddle.
What? Doesn't EVERYONE make butter for the first garden peas of the season?
Well, if they don't, they should. I mean, there's a lot of effort involved in growing and, God knows, shelling those peas. Why sully them with inferior butter? Especially when it's so easy to make butter.
We're lucky enough to have a local dairy that sells pasteurized heavy cream. NOT ultrapasteurized, and NOT whipping cream. I use this method that I first read about in The New York Times. The hardest part of it is keeping the plastic wrap from getting wrapped all around the beaters while you're beating the cream. I use a really big bowl, so it contains the cream pretty well as it's getting whipped. Then I just stop after a minute or so of beating, when the cream is pretty well beaten, and add the plastic wrap then, because the flying buttermilk isn't an issue until the very end.
It's pretty awesome to dump a bunch of cream in a bowl, beat the crap out of it with a mixer, and then . . . hey! Look! There's BUTTER in there!
And then I pour it all into a strainer, to strain out the buttermilk. And THEN, I get to squish the remaining liquid out of the butter with a butter paddle that's older'n dirt.
Okay, not that old. But at least 125 years old. The MiL told me it was used by A.'s great-grandmother, Nana, but might have pre-dated her even.
That's just cool.
ANYWAY.
Then I added salt, and there it was. Butter. For the peas. And there was happiness in the land.
The end.
Okay that is super cool. Fresh peas are a delight and well worthy of homemade butter. I love the butter paddle!
ReplyDeleteI am speechless! Now, how about a new picture of Cubby? helping pick peas?
ReplyDeleteAh, good times.
ReplyDeleteWord verification: grapsts -- the wooden poles holding up the grape arbor
HOMEMADE BUTTER. YES PLEASE.
ReplyDeleteYou can also make butter by putting your cream in a quart jar and shaking it and it will turn to butter. Saw that on Phil Donahue when Carla Emery was on there. Yes, I am totally OLD. Beth
ReplyDeleteword verification ' halesing'
a hearty musical hidey ho neighbor
Mmmm. I love the first peas and beans from the garden. They are totally worth fresh butter. Will you be making your own baby food from fresh garden veggies? Cubby is so lucky!
ReplyDeletePretty dang cool.
ReplyDeleteVerification word: fookehyp. Seriously. I couldn't make that up.
That is fantastic. My mom has a rolling pin that will be mine one day. It was used by her great grandma, who told mom it belong to HER grandma. So it has been in the family for many, many, many years. I hope to pass it on to my kids and grandkids one day. And we use the heck out of it. I think it's magic. I have never seen a crust or an egg noddle or a cookie that was rolled with it that turned out badly.
ReplyDeleteOh yes, I make butter each and every week from our raw milk cream. I skim each jar when I pull it out of the fridge and let it sour on the counter. Then I simply shake in the jar for 5-10 minutes and I have butter and delicious buttermilk. We just enjoyed fresh peas with homemade cutlured butter earlier this week - heaven! I always plant enough peas to hopefully freeze some and I never seem to have enough to actually freeze, we always eat them all up.
ReplyDeleteAnd now I must make butter. But not for peas - for radishes.
ReplyDeleteRadishes with butter and gray salt? Doesn't get too much better than that.
Though, I've not done it with peas, so you know.
Nice work.