Buttery Goodness *

     * For those not in the know, buttery goodness is a bit of a family joke. My Good Man was trying to cajole my then three year old into eating just one more bite of a meal, and exclaimed "It's full of buttery goodness!", upon which said son took the bite of food, and proceeded to ask "Is it full of buttery goodness?" with each subsequent meal, for at least a week or two! And it just stuck!

Making butter is just about the simplest thing you can do in the kitchen, but really impressive and so much fun for the little ones to do.

You'll need some heavy cream, a jar with a tight fitting lid and a couple of marbles. (The marbles are optional, but definitely add to the fun factor!)

Put your cream into the jar, making sure not to fill it all the way (I find about half too two thirds is plenty full).

Add your marbles and put the lid on, making sure it's tightly crewed on.

Then shake it!

Yep - that's it! Sometimes it's done in just a couple of minutes, and other times it can take a while. But just keep shaking.

If you added marbles to your jar, you'll be able to hear them clanking around as you shake. And then, suddenly you won't be able to hear them anymore, as the cream gets thicker. And then all of sudden, usually just when you think that this may not be working, you can hear the marbles again, and you realize that you have a jar with a large lump of butter in it, swimming in buttermilk.

Drain off the buttermilk (and save it for pancakes or biscuits - yum!) and there you have it - a lump of freshly made butter!

I like to add some flavorings to mine, depending on how I might use it. Sometimes it will just be a little salt, but you can also add a little vanilla, allspice or honey, if you want a sweet butter - double yum!

Nothing quite like fresh bread from the oven, served with homemade butter.


What is your favorite oh-so-simple recipe? Feel free to share in the comments below; I'd love to hear from you!

Smashing Potatoes

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about our potato and apple harvest here; well, fast forward a couple of weeks, and we are still overflowing with potatoes. Most of the apples at this stage, have been transformed into apple sauce, and are tucked away for the coming year, but the potatoes? It is fair to say that we have been eating them daily, in some form or another, and we just don't seem to be making a dent in our potato stash.

A little online research, and I learned that potatoes can be tricky to freeze. They are have to be prepped just so, or they won't go through the freezing process well.

Which was very disheartening.

Until, eureka! Mashed potatoes! Turns out that mashed potatoes (or smashed, if you like to leave the skins on) are super-duper easy to freeze. Just cook, and prepare as usual, then freeze.

I chose to freeze them in meal serving sizes, rather than individual portions, but these really were a snap to prepare.


What is your favorite way to eat potatoes? Feel free to share in the comments!

On the Cutting Table

Early morning, and there are certainly other things I should be doing. But, no! - I'm sipping my tea, setting up my sewing machine, and getting ready to cut into some fabric, making two little bags, one for Baby Girl and one for My Little Boy.

And all this by candlelight!

Earlier this year, making a night bag for The Little Guy was one of the first sewing machine projects I tackled, a little bag to keep his PJs and night time book in. I find it takes a lot of the dithering and uncertainty out of the bedtime routine if night attire and books are already chosen. And it's fun to zoom around the house with your night time bag at your side! (The fabric for the bag below was printed by Spoonflower; they do custom printing, so I took an picture that The Little Guy had drawn, and made it up into a yard of fabric! Cute, huh?!)

Now the weather is turning chillier, and the two Little Ones are actually wearing PJs, it's time for them to have their night bags too. And me? I get to spend my morning sipping tea, and cutting and pinning! Simple pleasures!

A Nature Shelf! {week 1, October 2012}

Ah! - the clean slate of starting a new month!

For this month, I'm planning on embracing Fall, and pumpkins and leaves with our Nature Shelf this month.

So up goes the orange playsilk and the Crystals (the first week of the Nature Shelf represents the mineral world).

And, let's see what 'the gnomes' have in store for next week ;-)


What are you doing to bring Fall into your home? Feel free to share in the comments!