dairy-riffic

I picked up a copy of The Complete Guide to Making Cheese, Butter, and Yogurt at Home at the library a couple of weeks ago, and I finally got around to trying out a few basic recipes!

First, homemade butter:

Even though this required considerable time invested in shaking up the heavy cream, I can't believe how easy it was to make homemade butter!  (Should I be surprised, though?  Probably not.  I vaguely remember making butter in kindergarten as a class project.)  It was kind of remarkable, watching the transformation the cream went through -- liquid, to whipped cream, to a thick paste, and then the final separation of the butterfat from the buttermilk, which was just WEIRD.  But fun!

We enjoyed the butter on some homemade "Broa" from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day, alongside a bowl of "Red Lentil Soup with Greens" from Moosewood Restaurant Simple Suppers.  Fantastic!

Please take notice of the chard in the soup . . . John grew that!  :)

Anyone who knows me well at all knows a meal isn't complete at my house without dessert:

Smooth & Creamy Vanilla Ice Cream topped with Hot Fudge Sauce and salted mixed nuts!  Wow.  Neither recipe took all that much time, and both turned out fabulously!  I love the subtle tanginess of the ice cream, (the base contains a considerable amount of Greek yogurt,) and the hot fudge sauce?  Words can't describe.  Tastes NOTHING like store-bought sauce, in every best possible way.  Heck yeah.

I also have some homemade yogurt in my fridge, but haven't found a photo-worthy way to serve it quite yet.  Stay tuned . . . .