Christianity Oasis Forum

[Shan]

This was so easy to make! I haven't ordered my raw milk from the farmer yet so I decided to use heavy whipping cream for $3.78 at wally world. A quart of heavy cream made one pound of butter and one pound of buttermilk which I'm going to use to make buttermilk icecream (never done it) without an icecream maker! I love making things homemade, then I know what's in it and it's usually cheaper, I'm so glad God is teaching me to preserve things He's blessed my family with. If anyone's interested in making this I will post the directions just let me know, it would be fun to do with your kids.

In Christ,
Shan

Tomorrow I will show you my homemade Strawberry Mango Jam that I made today with strawberries and a mango that my kids didn't hardly touch, so instead of throwing away I preserved them by making Jam!

[kimberly]

omade butter is the best (especially on homade bread!) I used to live on a farm when my kids were growing, and we skimmed the cream off the raw milk, put it in a mason jar and shook it til it made butter. It's not as easy as it sounds, be cause it takes elbow grease to shake for that long! Of couse, te kids wouldn't eat it, but had fun passing the jar around. (Guess who got it last when they got tired?) :D
How did you do yours, Shan?
Ice cream without an ice cream maker???
You are a good mom caring about what goes into those developing little bodies.
The jam sounds delicious.

[Shan]

Kimberly,

I heard about doing it the way you said, shaking it in a jar and I didn't think that sounded like any fun at all and I know who would have been doing all the work! I used my hand mixer and it worked great, then I "washed" the butter and viola!, tasty creamy butter. What method did you use to skim off the cream? I will be getting raw milk soon and I'm very new to this process of using raw milk but am super excited, I've heard of so many health benefits although I personally don't drink milk I might have to give it a try in small doses.

The jam is great but it took a lot of sugar (3c.) and it upsets my stomach (chronic gastritis). Using honey would've been better for my stomach but that's alot of honey and honey's not cheap.

[kimberly]

The 'old-fashioned' way of skimming milk is just to take a soup ladle and carefully dip it off the top of the milk until you have it all scooped off. If you have a good 3-4 inches of cream it takes several scoops. The dairy is going to leave the cream on? wow, I thought most took it off nowadays.
There must be an easier way by now, . Maybe if you google skimming raw milk it will tell you. I have never liked milk either, I just can't drink it.

Have you thought about using sweetner for your jam? There are a couple of natural choices, and though it's kinda high too, I would think it takes a lot less amount of sweetner than sugar. I use the generic equivelent of Truvia to sweeten, I can't use sugar. Another natural sweetner is Sucanat...but it's brown, so that may look funny.

Have you tried looking for recipes that are "all-fruit"? Like the stuff you buy in a jar that is just all thickened fruit with a little sweet added (of some kind- (sugar or sweetner)- just enough to keep the fruit from being too tart? Sugar is so damaging to the health of the body, and people have gotten to used to eating way too much of it.....it's hidden in a lot of the foods we buy. I have to eat as close to natural as possible, so I hardly ever eat sugar or processed foods.

I make a "jam" as I want it by cooking the fruit I want with a little water and cornstarch, when it thickens I take it off the heat and stir in a packet or two of the sweetner and eat it fresh on my biscuits, pancakes or whatever. I use it in oatmeal too. It keeps a few days in the fridge. This is sort of a simple form of jam, and I know for a family you can't do it or can it, I just think there must be a way to do something like this that isn't full of sugar. It's a shame to work so hard on something and not be able to eat it!

A mixer! Genius! (Why we never thought of it --I don't know!)