Sour Cream

It tastes so good and it sounds so yuck. Strangely it is exactly what it sounds like. Soured cream.

I cannot tell you how many times I have thought 'I wish I had a little bit of sour cream to go with this dish'... Had I known the ingredients to make sour cream were sitting in my refrigerator, my wishing could have become a reality.

When we were out of ranch dressing or ketchup, bread, cereal, peanut butter, or yogurt I would add them to the grocery list.  All along the ingredients to make these things were already in my kitchen. I just had no idea I could make them myself.

Lesson learned.


Here is what I use:
1 Cup heavy cream
1/4 Cup buttermilk
Mason jar with lid

Here is what I do:
Mix together cream and buttermilk in a mason jar and sit it in the middle part of the stove as you make dinner. You can watch the temperature on it if you'd like (heat to about 80-85 degrees).... but a warmed cream works just fine for me.  Put a lid on the jar and set it on top of the refrigerator overnight, or about 12 hours. The next morning you should have a thickened cream. Put it in the refrigerator and use within a week or two.

Enjoy!

How to Make Yogurt

We have a few things we make on a regular basis. When we are lucky we can knock it all out on a calm Sunday morning. Most of it will last our family of 5 about a week.

Yogurt, granola, 'mother' batch for bread, mozzarella, butter, buttermilk, and sour cream.


Our 7 year old swears that 'mama yogurt' is the best she has ever eaten and scrunches her nose up at commercial yogurts. (WIN)

Here is the math:
$6.18 for a gallon of organic milk
$1.00 for 5.3 oz of greek yogurt
= 0.45 cents for 16, 8 oz jars of homemade yogurt


Here is what I use:
4 Cups milk
3 T of greek yogurt
double boiler
thermometer
4 - 8oz jelly jars with lids & bands
crockpot

Here is what I do:
1. Pour a bit of water in the bottom pan of your double boiler and 4 cups of milk in the top pan, set to a medium heat.

2. Preheat crockpot.
3. Place a thermometer in the milk and heat to 180degrees.

4. Remove milk pan from heat and let it cool to 110degrees.

5. Spoon 3 T of greek yogurt in a medium mixing bowl and whisk in your milk.

 

6. Pour milk mixture evenly into jelly jars. Place lid and screw bands on.

7. Place jelly jars in preheated crockpot.

8. Turn crockpot off and let the yogurt sit overnight or for about 8 hours.
9. Label and refrigerate.

The yogurt stays good for about 2 weeks, but it never lasts that long at our house.

Enjoy!