Butter is better when you're not bitter

Every so often I get the urge to do some Urban Homesteading.  In the summer this is easy.  I garden, I can, I pickle, I jam, I hang my laundry on the clothesline.

In the winter I have to be a bit more creative.  (And yes, it's still winter here in Minnesota.  All over the place people are celebrating the return of spring and here we've still got a three foot layer of ice and snow on the ground.  Gah!)

During the winter when I want to do something homesteadingish I sometimes choose to make butter.  "That will be fun!" I think and then two thirds of the way into it I start to question what horrible thing happened to me in my childhood that would make me think butter making would be fun.  It always goes the same way.

I drive to the store to get heavy cream.  I am shocked by the price and when I consider the cost of butter versus the cost of cream I am forced to admit that this particular project will not be saving me any money.

I drive home with the cream.  I put it into a canning jar and screw on the top.  I start to shake the jar.  I shake it and shake it and shake it and shake it.

I shake and shake and shake.  I start to get bored and eye my phone. I try to figure out a way to shake and play Angry Birds at the same time.  I fail.

Shake, shake, shake, shake, shake.  I start to wonder if perhaps I got the wrong kind of cream.  I inspect the package to see if I accidentally bought non-buttering cream.  I didn't.

I try to get Joseph to take a turn at shaking.  "It will be fun!" I reassure him.  He's been suckered into butter making one too many times to be fooled.  He rolls his eyes at me and goes back to reading The Ultimate Lego Guide Book.

Elle wants to take a turn.  She's made butter before but she's young and her brain isn't fully formed so she can't remember that she doesn't like it.  I hand her the jar.

"Be careful so that you don't bump your-" There is a loud clunk as Elle slams the jar into her chin as with all the might her spindly little arms can muster.

After a quick break to dry the tears Elle wants to give it another go.  "Look at me!  I'm shaking!  I'm making butter!"  She triumphantly waves the jar in the air.  Three seconds later she gets bored, sets the jar down and wanders away.

I shake some more.  Shake, shake, shake, shake.  I lose the feeling in my arms. 

Shake .... shake ... shake... I curse Urban Homesteading under my breath.

Suddenly!  A muted "thunk" comes from the jar.  Butter!  I have achieved butter!

I pour off the buttermilk and give it to Elle to drink.  She promptly spills it and then yells at me because it's somehow my fault.

I drain, squeeze and wrap the butter.  I put it in my fridge where it will sit forever, untouched and unused.  I put too much work into the butter to actually use it. It's special butter, for when company comes over.  It occurs to me that we never have company because I'm too busy doing things like making butter to go out and make friends.

And that's how I make butter.

He likes his meat the way he likes his women - not chopped up and put into chili

On Monday we had pork chops for dinner and we had a few left over. Since Jesse doesn't often take lunch to work with him and I have this thing about microwaved meat (it's evil and I hate it) I thought I should come up with a way to use the left-overs. I thought of chili. It's easy to make and it's relatively healthy. At least the way I make it is, with lots of beans and just a little meat. I shared my idea with Jesse.

"Jesse, I think I'm going to use the left-over pork chops to make chili." I announced.

What do you suppose Jesse's reaction was? Was it:

a) "Oh Jen!" he cried. "What a wonderful idea! You've thought of a way to provide a healthy and filling meal for your family while saving us money by utilising the ingredients we already have in the house! I have never been more in love with you than I am at this moment!" Then he swept me into his arms as the music swelled.

b) "What do you have to do that for? Those pork chops are fine just the way they are!" Then he left for work without saying goodbye.

I won't tell you what the answer is but I will say this: Do NOT come between Jesse and his meat.

Too tired to type

Oh man, I forgot how much the third trimester kicks your butt. I am beat! You know how sometimes at the end of a really long day you're sitting on the couch and you want to get up and go to bed but you just can't because it takes too much energy? Yeah, I feel like that all the time.

Elle's been spending a lot of her time running around the living room and shreiking like a banshee doing animal impressions. She finds it very amusing and it is kind of cute but it does get old after 4 or 5 or 12 hours. I would quiet her down by turning on the TV but most of the time I'm too tired to get up and find the remote.

I don't mean to complain though. Most of the time I feel really good. Most of the time.

Yesterday I had a massive backache so I took one of the pain killers that I had leftover from when I had that migraine. It had a strange effect on me. It didn't make me loopy or tired. It made me ..... domestic. I actually made Christmas cookies with the kids. For a couple of hours. On purpose. No one who knows me is going to believe that. Even Jesse was shocked. He came home and saw what we had done and said "You did all this? With the kids? Really?" Yeah, I was suprised too.

Now I have to go and eat some leftover pizza. The baby needs pineapple and ham.

A household tip

Here's a great tip for you! If your dishwasher drain filter gets clogged with food do not use the vaccum cleaner to clean out the soggy food and undrained water. If you do, your vaccum cleaner will stop working and your wife will get very irritated at you and wonder why in the heck you wouldn't just scoop the stuff out with a paper towel or something. I mean seriously. Why would you do that?

So keep your fingers crossed that our expensive vaccum cleaner will start to work again once all the pieces have dried out. Urgh.

In happier news, I got an awesome food processor and a KitchAid mixer for Christmas. I would like to cook with them but I can't right now because there are vaccum cleaner pieces drying all over my countertop.

Is that weird?

I just wrote an email to my IFs. I debated it for two days, thinking what it should say and if I should even write it. I wanted to suggest that we get together for dinner and perhaps bring our kids along. Now that I sent it I'm worried that maybe I shouldn't have.

This is all like the aftermath of some kind of crazy first date. I'm sitting here worrying that maybe I tried to contact them too soon. What if they think I'm clingy? What if they think I'm too pushy? Augh. Why don't I know anyone I can ask about this? What is the proper amount of time one should wait to send an email after one has agreed to carry one's baby? What would Miss Manners say.

In other news I can't think of what to bring to Christmas dinner. This makes me crabby. I always get cooking anxiety and I'm certain that no one will like whatever I bring.

I have issues.

No news anyway

Bloggers been acting up lately and not letting me post. That's ok though since nothing is new right now anway. I feel like I've been so busy this week but in reality I've accomplished nothing.

I made a really good white chicken chili last night. That was the highlight of my week I guess.

Tickers

I took down the kid's age tickers. I figured anyone who cares already knows how old they are anyway. I thought if anyone who doesn't know me saw my blog it made me look like I'm one of those moms who does cheesy things like put my kids handprints on a t shirt that says something like "Mommy's Little Angels" or something like that and I am NOT one of those moms. So the tickers are gone, never to return but the quote of the day thing might not stay around either.

I've been sick for a few days now. I looked at my self in the mirror yesterday and I looked like death warmed over. Today I look like death again only this time death took the time to put in its contacts and slap on a little lip gloss. Death still hasn't worked up the energy to comb it's hair.

I'm going to go eat some brownie soup now. Read all about it in What I Made over there on the right.

Annoying

Son of a bitch. I was just finishing up writing a long, detailed listing on ebay and I pushed the wrong button and deleted the entire stinking thing. Aurgh. I should really know better by now since I've probably done that at least a half dozen times before.

Anyway. Life goes on. One of my New Years resolutions was to start cooking and baking more. For my own benefit I am going to journal the stuff I make. If you ever find yoursefl thinking "Gee, I wonder what Jenny had for dinner? If only there was some way to read about it!" then click on the "What I Made" link over there on the right. It's full of lots of hit, action packed recaps of what I made. Or it will be once I have more that one day's worth of stuff there. And my feelings won't be hurt at all if you don't check it out. I'm aware that not everyone is into hearing long, graphic descriptions of what someone made for dinner. I just really like to talk about it.

Kick ass soup

I made some kick ass soup last night. It was so good that Jesse and each had 2 BIG bowls and finished off the whole pot. Who knew I could cook?

I have the Food Network to thank for it really. I used to be kind of intimidated by cooking and I would rely on a lot of pre-packaged stuff to make dinner. Once I got pregnant I became (for some reason) addicted to cooking shows. I saw how simple it was to make really good food and it actually made me want to try cooking new things. Now that I'm trying new things out I'm seeing how fun it can be to try making new things. The best part is that pretty much everything I've tried has turned out well so far.

One Food Network question though: Why doesn't Paula Dean just change the name of her show from "Cooking with Paula Dean" to "Cooking with mountains and mountains of butter"?

Post Christmas stuff

I hope everyone had a good Christmas. We did here. Joseph was (very neary) a perfect angel at the big family get together. No repeat of the Thanksgiving melt-down, thank goodness.

People seemed to like the stuff I made for the Christmas potluck. And by "people" I don't mean Jesse because he refused to try the torta I made because he doesn't like tomatoes and it had sun-dried tomato pesto in it. He's so persnikity sometimes.

Yesterday I went after-Christmas shopping and spent too much buying stuff I didn't really need. Oh well, it's only once a year and I got some really nice stuff. Jesse watched the kids for me all day so it was also a really nice break and a chance to get out of the house. I could tell Elle missed me though because she wanted to nurse non-stop after I got home. It was weird being away from her for so long. I missed her. I used to not seeing Joseph all the time since he's not in school or will spend the day with my parents but I'm not used to being away from Elle.

Ben came over for a while and had a nice time talking about his book and other random crap. It's good to have a brother that you can talk about random crap with.

Jesse's bringing home chinese food tonigh. Life is good.

Sleeping

Woohoo! For the past 2 night Elle has slept for a stetch of 6+ hours without a feeding. Let's hope she keeps this up. If she does it for a few more night then I'll move her into her crib to sleep at night.

That makse me sad. My baby is getting so big. My kids are growing up and they don't need me anymore. Waaaahhhhhh!

Oh well. I made pork chops last night and I breaded and fried them instead of baking them. They were the best pork chops I've ever made. Juicy and flavorful and good. No real reason for sharing this, they were just damned good pork chops.

Oh yeah, take the quiz in the post below this and let me know what Food Network chef you are. And no fair cheating so that you're not Sandra Lee. Be honest!