How to: make your own cultured buttermilk
By mom4life | Category: Recipes & Kitchen Tips | Posted Wednesday, February 16, 2011
At the beginning of the year, I stumbled upon a blog post about making cultured buttermilk. (Side note: isn’t it fabulous how many fun and inspiring things we can learn from other blogs?) Having only previously purchased buttermilk from the store or discovered the “old fashioned buttermilk” that is produced when I make butter, I was totally intrigued by the idea of making it. First, I hadn’t fully known what the difference between “old fashioned buttermilk” and “cultured buttermilk” was. After emailing Kristen Michaelis (the writer behind the blog, The Food Renegade) what the difference was between the two, I learned that:
Old-fashioned buttermilk is what you get when you make butter. Cultured buttermilk is what most modern recipes MEAN when they call for “buttermilk.” That’s what my tutorial teaches you how to make. You can culture old-fashioned buttermilk to make cultured buttermilk, too. The process works the same as it does for regular milk.
Second, aside from the simple intrigue of trying to make something new, I was totally unaware of all the ingredients found in most store bought buttermilk (there is a photo from a buttermilk label and more details on this over at the buttermilk tutorial).
What I am going to explain below is how to make buttermilk using raw milk since that is the only way I have done it. But if you don’t use raw milk but still want to try it, click on over to this buttermilk tutorial for details! By the way, the process of making buttermilk from raw milk (as opposed to pasteurized milk) is a longer process, but it is not a all hard.
Ready to try it yourself? Brace yourself for this long list of ingredients 
:
-1 Cup Raw Milk (if you are not using raw milk, click here for instructions)
-And. . . thats it!
-Set your cup of milk out on the counter at room temperature until you start to see it thickening up and getting clumpy (this is called “clabbering”). This will most likely take a few days (mine took about three). What is clabbered milk? I wondered the same thing. This is what Wikipedia tells me:
Clabber is a food produced by allowing unpasteurized milk to turn sour at a specific humidity and temperature. Over time the milk thickens or curdles into a yoghurt-like substance with a strong, sour flavor. In rural areas of the Southern United States, it was commonly eaten for breakfast with brown sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, or molassesadded. Some people also eat it with fruit or black pepper and cream. . . With the rise of pasteurization the making of clabber virtually stopped, except on farms that had easy access to unprocessed cow’s milk. A somewhat similar food can be made from pasteurized milk by adding a couple of tablespoons of commercial buttermilk or sour milk to a glass of milk.
-Once your milk has clabbered (see the photo below and how it looks clumpy), remove 3/4 of the cup of clabbered milk and discard leaving 1/4 cup of milk in your jar.
-Add 1 cup of new milk to the 1/4 cup of clabbered milk. (At this point your newly added milk can be raw or pasteurized.) Cover and shake it up to mix it well and again, allow it to stand at room temperature until it once again, is fully clabbered. It will likely take slightly less time to clabber this second time around.
-After it has clabbered, again, remove all but 1/4 cup of the clabbered milk from your jar and again add to it a new cup of refrigerated milk, cover, shake and leave on the counter.
-Continue this process until the time needed for the clabbering process is 24 hours. Once you reach this stage, smell and taste a small amount to be sure that it has a nice tangy flavor and has thickened nicely with no off flavors. Then transfer 6 oz of your clabbered milk to a quart jar and fill with fresh milk.
-Now begins the last stage of the process: cover, shake and let your quart jar sit on the counter until it clabbers.
-Once it clabbers, put it in the fridge and use it for all your wonderful buttermilk recipes such as buttermilk pancakes, breads, biscuits, ranch dressing. . .
Isn’t that amazing that you can start with one cup of milk and with nothing else but time and room temperature get buttermilk?! Isn’t it amazing that the milk doesn’t “go bad” after leaving it out at room temperature?! I was totally shocked that the milk was simply a tart/tangy buttermilk, not at all sour smelling or tasting!
Aside from being a fascinating project to try and a much healthier way to enjoy buttermilk, the most wonderful thing I discovered was that once the innital process (explained above) is complete, I have a wonderful buttermilk “starter”. So whenever my jar of buttermilk runs low I simply refill with fresh milk, cover, shake and set it out on the counter until it clabbers (usually only one day) and I have a brand new jar of buttermilk!
Good to note: Kristen, from The Food Renegade mentioned that in making buttermilk, quantities don’t matter as much as proportion so if you stick to the ratios it won’t matter how much you are making, it will turn out great.
A question I had: I found myself wondering if there was something I could use the 3/4 cup of clabbered milk for that I was pouring off rather than just throwing it away. After reading through the comments here I found that others had this question as well. It seems that since this milk is not fully buttermilk and no longer just milk it is sort of an an awaked stage that makes it not really that useful for most purposes. What you are trying to do is build up the active bacteria cultures to a concentration that will allow the milk to clabber within 24 hours, thus the need to repeat the process.
I began the process of making buttermilk at the end of last month and have refilled my quart jar 3 times now and still have and endless supply of lovely buttermilk at my fingertips! If you decide to try this out, I would love to hear how it goes for you!
Homemade Taco Seasoning
By mom4life | Category: Recipes & Kitchen Tips | Posted Wednesday, February 9, 2011
I knew that taco seasoning had to be something we could make at home. I have grown tired of looking for Taco Seasoning at the supermarket that doesn’t contain MSG. It couldn’t be that tricky to mix up, right? Turns out it is very easy:
-1 T minced dried onions
-2 t chili powder
-1 1/2 t salt
-1 t garlic powder
-1 t corn starch
-1 t ground cumin
-1/2-1 t cayenne pepper or hot paprika
Mix all the ingredients together. It makes the same amount of 1 1/4 oz package of taco seasoning mix.
A “love”ly breakfast: egg in the heart
By mom4life | Category: Recipes & Kitchen Tips | Posted Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Breakfast has not traditionally been a meal that I paid much attention to. Cereal and I got along just fine and I saw no reason to change the relationship. However, just lately I have been having fun trying some new things in the early morning. Below was one that Hunter requested and I thought I would share it with Valentines Day coming up just around the corner!
Egg in the Heart
-1 egg
-1 slice of bread
-butter
1) Cut out a heart shape in the middle of your slice of bread.
2) Butter the side that will be down on the pan.
3) Place your bread in the pan (medium heat).
4) Crack the egg into the heart shape hole and spread the white out on the top side of the bread.
5) Flip the bread once the underside is toasty brown looking.
6) Your bread is done when the egg yolk is cooked to the degree that you desire.
Enjoy!
Coming soon: I learned how to make my own cultured buttermilk! I can’t wait to show you how. . .
How to make Hummus (easy peasy and yummy)
By mom4life | Category: Recipes & Kitchen Tips | Posted Monday, February 7, 2011
Get ready, this stuff is uber good!
- 1 cup dried chickpeas
- 3 cloves raw garlic
- 1/3 cup sesame tahini
- Juice from 1 large lemon (about 3 Tablespoons)
- 1 tsp cumin
- 2 Tbsp olive oil
- 1 tsp salt
- 3/4 tsp black pepper
- 1 bulb roasted garlic (optional but oh so good). Simply cut of the very top layer of the bulb of garlic, drizzle olive oil and Thyme on top and wrap it in tin foil. Cook for 180 degrees for about 30 min or until soft. Then simply squeeze the bulbs out! I use my toaster oven for this and it works great.
- 1 roasted red pepper (optional but also, very good). You can find how to roast red peppers here.
- Sun dried tomatoes, chopped up and added to taste (yum, yum–remember when I showed you how to make these at home)?
1) Soak the dried chickpeas in cold water for 6 hours. Drain and rinse. Put in medium saucepan with 1 quart of water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and cover, cook until tender, about 1 1/2 hours.
2) Drain chickpeas, saving out some of the cooking water. Place chickpeas and all other ingredients into a food processor. Blend until smooth. Add as much of the chickpea cooking water as you need to create the desired consistency. You may notice that my chick peas look much darker than yours, they are just a different variety than the whiter kind. I have tried making Hummus with both kinds and they both turn out very good.
3) Add any of the optional ingredients to create a variety of flavors.
4) Place in covered container and chill in the refrigerator. Serve with additional olive oil drizzled over the top (optional).
Enjoy!
Can you see where Quinten gets his stellar blue eyes?!
And in case you are not really familiar with what Tahini is (and don’t worry because many grocery store employees are not either), I have included a photo for you below. I believe it is basically blended up sesame seeds. Also shown below are the kind of chips we love to use with our Hummus. I get them from Costco.
Oh and you might consider making a double batch, this stuff goes fast at our house! 
Do you use ZipList? Here is this Hummus recipe in my ZipList recipe folder for you to use.
Want to find some more great (and healthy) recipes? Click here!
Slow Cooker Refried Beans
By mom4life | Category: Healthy Living, Recipes & Kitchen Tips | Posted Thursday, January 27, 2011
A friend split a huge order with me for dried beans from Azure Standard last year (if you remember, eating more beans was one of my resolutions last year). One of the kind of beans we bought was pinto beans. Since I had never used pinto beans for anything before, she shared this recipe for Slow Cooker Refried Beans. It sat in my recipe book for many months. Then, when Trent took off to Mexico this month, I had Mexican food on my mind and decided to give it a try. I was thrilled by how easy it was (so typical of slow cooker recipes) and even more so when he returned home and said the end result tasted truly authentic!
6 cups of water or chicken broth (or enough liquid to cover your beans plus about 2 inches)
1 tsp salt
2 tsp pepper (or to taste)
1/2 cup chopped onion (optional)
1-2 clove(s) of garlic (optional)
1-2 T lime juice (optional)
1 tsp chili powder (optional)
1 tsp cumin (optional)
1) Rinse your pinto beans throughly with cold water.
2) Put them in your cock pot and add your liquid (I prefer the taste of using the chicken broth personally instead of just water).
3) Mix in your salt, pepper, onions, garlic and any other “optional” ingredients that you choose (the ones I use are listed above, there are others listed below that I have not yet tried). Don’t worry about adding the salt at this stage. I have been told that beans stop getting soft after you add salt but I have made this recipe two times now and both times they softened up just fine.
4) Cook on high for 6-8 hours or until the beans are soft and most of the liquid has been soaked up.
5) Use a masher to mash the beans to a refined consistancy.
6) Serve warm (I like to add sour cream).
Servings: 8
Additional optional ad-ins:
-red pepper flakes
-additional garlic
-cilantro
We choose to eat ours on our tortillas but they are also great as a side or served with rice.
Now if you have any other great recipes for pinto beans, will you please share them with me? I am afraid my bulk bag of pinto beans is going to last a LONG time if I only use them to make refried beans !
