How to Make Butter

Until I had done it myself, I would have never imagined how easy it is to make your own butter.  All you need is some heavy cream, a little salt, and a mixer and in a matter of minutes, you have fresh homemade butter.  From there, you can obviously add things like honey/cinnamon, garlic/herbs, etc. to make flavored butter spreads.  For today, we stuck to the basic, lightly salted butter.  It was a great learning opportunity for Annalyn - we talked about what goes in the bowl (cream, salt), where cream comes from, what we do to the cream to make it into butter, and what we call the liquid that comes off when the butter forms (buttermilk - pancakes, anyone?).  Emma liked to be picked up to see each step, too, but her favorite part was definitely sampling the end product on saltine crackers (and later our homemade crackers.)  Here's how Mama makes fresh, creamy, 2-ingredient butter:

Homemade Butter

 

Ingredients:

- 2 c. heavy whipping cream

- 1/4 t. salt (optional)

yields:  1 c. butter plus 1 c. buttermilk

Peanut Post: How Mama Makes Grocery Shopping Fun (& Educational!)

When Daddy & Peanut come to visit me at work, I almost always have a list of groceries for them to buy.  Yes, I do work in a grocery store, but by the time I get off work, shopping is about the last thing on my mind.  Lucky for me, I have an awesome hubby who doesn't mind grocery shopping once in awhile (or quite often during the summer when they're bored, I'm jealous, and we're all missing eachother). 

One of Annalyn's favorite parts of shopping is trying to grab/eat/destroy the aforementioned list.  So, I learned a long time ago to write one list for Michael and one for Annalyn.  Of course her list usually consisted of a picture of a baby or a puppy, or an "I love you,"  but recently, it dawned on me - this could be a great learning opportunity!  She's hit that "I want to point and label everything" stage, which definitely lends itself to list making.  So, I went to work, sketching cute little pictures of items she could help Daddy find in the store (then labeled everything to help Michael decipher my less than stellar drawing skills).  Amazingly enough, as soon as I handed her that list, she pointed at the apple and said "apple!", then "nana", then she pointed at the milk and signed "milk", and so on for most of the items, either saying or signing each one.  Gosh, was I proud! 

Peanut's latest list

(does anyone else think my wipes

look more like a shark in a box?)

To prevent it from getting eaten, I even taped over the front and back of the list - think easy, resourceful laminating!  No, it didn't entertain her for the whole shopping trip, but it sure helped. She even found some items off her list and made the connection between the two - awesome, right?!  I think my little Peanut is well on her way to being quite helpful.  (wishful thinking)

Daddy & Peanut inspecting their lists

Happy Grocery Shopping!

Love,

Mama