Posts Tagged: butter
Tea Time Class: A Belated, Easily Made Little-Something For Your Delectation
Hmmm, I got busy and forgot to post this for last week's Teatime Class, so here you go!
A while back I wrote a post about making delicious cultured butter. This recipe is very good but maybe a little too much a time investment for some.
I was a crusin' the net and found a very FAST, easy recipe for butter with a cultured tang that I would like to share with you. This would go great with your scones for tea, for sure! It is quicker to make and would be great for a last minute addition to any holiday or special meal.
The hardest thing about this recipe is that you need to find good heavy cream, NOT ULTRA-PASTEURIZED and WITHOUT additives or thickeners. But, I have looked around and will tell you below what I have found to make this recipe in my area. Non-ultra Pasteurized heavy sweet whipping cream can be hard to find in my experience; sour cream without additives is a little easier to find. I had heard that Manufacturing cream would be great for butter, the only stuff I could find (sold by the half-gallon) had additives AND was ultra-pasteurized.
Maybe I will need to go and make a batch this week. I have been baking and it would taste mighty fine on hot, fresh, home-made bread or biscuits (or scones--with my tea in the morning!).
How to Make Homemade Butter--By Alex Guarnaschelli
Alex Guarnaschelli: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alexandra-guarnaschelli/homemade-butter-recipe-2104911
Total time: 15 min. Prep: 15 min. Yield: 3/4 pound butter. (= 12 oz, or three sticks--L. Watts)
2 1/2 cups heavy cream
1 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon coarse sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Prepare a medium-size bowl of ice water. In the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, gradually whip the cream and sour cream together. Increase the speed of the mixer and continue whipping until the cream separates and the mixture thickens.
Use a rubber spatula to gather up the butter and remove it from the bowl. There will be some liquid that is a natural result of this process. That liquid is actually buttermilk. Gather the ball of butter together into a double layer of cheesecloth or a thin kitchen towel and plunge it into the ice bath to wash any buttermilk off the surface. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, to taste. Pack the butter into a bowl or roll it into a ball or log shape using plastic wrap. Use immediately or store in the refrigerator.
Note from Alex Guarneschelli:
When I make breakfast on my day off, I always use the opportunity to get back to the basics. I love making my own butter and jams for toast. I have found its very important to use a natural sour cream that doesn't have any thickeners (like Guar gum) when making this recipe.
My notes: This butter will not keep very long in the refrigerator as it is not really washed of all buttermilk—so keep it refrigerated and use it fast--feed it to family or a party of guests! It will not keep like commercially made butter. You could divide it into smaller portions, package separately and freeze them to keep fresh all that you are not using (defrost in refrigerator)--if you have any left!
As an alternative to freezing, or perhaps in addition to: Scoop the butter out, pressing out as much buttermilk as possible and place in a clean bowl. Then, wash the butter with as much ice-cold water as needed until the water runs clear; more than a few rinses may be needed. Butter washed this way will keep longer in the fridge and may, of course, be frozen for longer storage. In any case, do not expect your butter to keep at room temperature -- keep refrigerated or frozen at all times for good food safety.
After washing, you may salt your butter (or not) to taste as desired; try 1/4 tsp, taste and work up from there if you wish.
Latinos hate pretzels and peanut butter
In its study, entitled “Hispanic Food Shoppers in the U.S.,” Packaged Food found that the majority of Latinos don't buy peanut butter, pretzels or pickles. Hispanic shoppers also shy away from ground beef and hamburgers, preferring to cook up steak instead.
When it comes to the dairy section, 52 percent of Latino shoppers said they buy whole milk instead of skim or other less fatty versions. That's compared to 32 percent of Americans overall.
While the report looks at the Latino population in general – about one-sixth of the total U.S. population – it acknowledges that there is a wide difference between the various Hispanic groups. The report found that the Puerto Ricans and Dominicans residing in the New York metropolitan area, for example, are more likely to eat bagels.
“Puerto Ricans have a long history on the U.S. mainland and are more likely than other Latino groups to reflect the habits of food shoppers as a whole,” a press release from Packaged Food asserted. “Still other variations are more straightforwardly related to national and regional origins, including the obvious fact that packaged 'Mexican' foods and ingredients are most likely to be used by Latinos whose heritage is from Mexico or Central America.”
The report also acknowledged the growing purchasing power of Latinos in the U.S. It forecasts that spending by Hispanic food shoppers will reach $86 billion in 2018 – a cumulative growth of more than 28 percent.
Another interesting insight into the Hispanic shopping mentality – and family life in general – was that almost 60 percent of those surveyed said that their children are regularly involved in cooking, compared with 51 percent for all consumers.
So does the family that cooks together, stay together? Possibly, provided that it doesn't involve peanut butter or pretzels.
Source: Published originally on FoxLatinoNewsas U.S. Latinos Hate Peanut Butter, Pretzels, Study Of Food-Shopping Habits Finds, September 3, 2014.
Calcium Deficiency Disorders Hit Vegetable Crops in Central Coast
In the months of July and August of 2010, a number of vegetable crops in California’s central coast were affected by calcium deficiency disorders. Usually referred to as “tipburn” (except in the case of celery, for which the disorder is called “blackheart”), these problems are often triggered by environmental factors and hence can affect a large number of acres and plantings during windows of time when tipburn is occurring in Salinas and other coastal valleys.
Tipburn symptoms on lettuce, endive, radicchio, and spinach are distictive. Symptoms occur on the margins of developing leaf tips and initially consist of light to dark brown lesions and necrosis. In romaine, tipburn is often first seen on the small veins along the margin of young leaves. In severe cases tipburn can progress and result in extensive damage to these leaf margins. Symptomatic leaves are usually found within the inner whorls of open head vegetables and underneath the enclosing wrapper leaves of closed head vegetable types. For spinach, tipburn always affects the inner, newly developing leaves which may develop a hooded appearance as the leaf continue to expand around the dead tissue. For blackheart of celery, symptoms form on the margins of developing leaf tips deep within the central growing point. Such symptoms consist of light to dark brown speckling, lesions, and necrosis. As the celery grows, the damaged tissues turn black and the affected foliage grows up and out of the inner plant whorl.
For tipburn of artichoke, the margins of immature leaves turn black as in celery. In addition, the immature artichoke flower buds develop black lesions along the upper tips and edges of flower bracts. Cauliflower also develops tipburn, with the inner wrapper leaves enclosing the cauliflower head turning tan to light brown.
Tipburn is a localized calcium deficiency. It often develops along the margins of leaves in the final weeks before harvest when the plant growth rate is at its highest. It is often unrelated to soil calcium levels. Because calcium is not very mobile within the plant, expanding tissues on young leaves and growing points may run short of this essential element and begin to develop deficiency symptoms. Conditions that favor rapid plant growth (warm temperatures and high fertilization rates) or low transpiration rates (foggy conditions) may create conditions that trigger this disorder.
Managing this disorder is difficult. Varieties vary in susceptibility, but tipburn resistance is only available in head lettuce. Maintaining even soil moisture levels and preventing the root zone from drying out helps increase calcium uptake and may reduce the risk or severity of tipburn. For field grown vegetables, soil and foliar calcium supplements have not provided consistent control.
For further information on tipburn see Monterey County Crop Notes - July/August 2007
Initial symptoms of tipburn on romaine occur on veins at the edge of the leaf.
Tipburn of butter lettuce.
Tipburn of cauliflower.
Blackheart of celery.
Tipburn of artichoke.