Just For Fun ............ Yogurt and Butter

This week I had a little fun doing things I have wanted to for awhile. I made yogurt and butter. Let me just say that you can't make these without real dairy products. At least you can't make versions of them you would actually want to eat. So this wasn't strictly a food storage endeavor, but it was definitely informative and fun.

First the yogurt. I LOVE vanilla yogurt. It's one of my favorite snacks, and my new favorite food storage book had a recipe so I tried that first. I bought some plain yogurt at the store that had live cultures and no additives. That is your starter bacteria that you need. You can buy it in other forms but this was easiest for me.

Then I gathered the other ingredients which included whole milk AND powdered milk (the whole recipe is under my recipe link.) It was SUPER easy to make and I let it "cure" in my wonder oven. I actually forgot about it in there so I left it a little too long, making it more tart than it would have been otherwise, but it was SO good. My kids gobbled it up. Plus for the next 2 days I took the jar and spoons around with me everywhere and forced my friends and family to taste test it. Weird. I know. But I was so proud, and it REALLY was good. :) One batch made a big and little jar as you can see in the picture. For more pictures and details, check out the recipe link.

Next I made butter. Yep. I MADE butter. Funny how something all women did 100 years ago, makes us feel like such a super woman now - LOL! Let me just start off saying that you CAN NOT make butter without cream. And you can't store cream, so unless you have a cow, or a goat, you wouldn't be able to do this without going to the store. And you can't use just any cream. It can not be ultra-pasteurized cream which is what most stores sell. It has to be just regular pastuerized. I was finally able to track down some regular pasteurized manufacturing cream at Smart & Final. I hear that they sell it at Whole Foods as well but I didn't check.

I almost want to just leave it at that and let you all be awed with my homemaking prowess, because you won't be nearly as impressed when you see how easy it was. :) Anyway, I let the cream come to room temperature. Then I poured it into my Bosch with my whipping beaters and started whipping it.

After about 5 minutes it started to turn into whipped cream with soft peaks.






A minute later I had stiff peaks forming.







Then about 2 minutes after that, the solids suddenly congealed into butter and separated from the buttermilk. That's right. Buttermilk ACTUALLY comes from butter! Who knew?



Because I used sweet cream, this buttermilk is not sour like the kind you buy in the store, although you could use lemon juice to sour it. 100 years ago they would let the cream sour before making butter which would create a sour buttermilk by product. These days we seem to prefer sweet cream butter so the milk by product is also sweet. Don't throw it out. It is excellent for baking with and using in your recipes.

After separating the butter from the buttermilk you need to "wash" the butter. This is to get all the buttermilk out of the butter, otherwise it will go rancid very quickly. Simply put the butter into a bowl and fill with COLD water. Then knead the butter until the water turns cloudy. Empty the water, refill, and repeat. Do this until the water remains clear. I had to do it 4 or 5 times.

Then I put the butter back in my mixer and added salt. You don't have to add salt but it tastes very bland without it. If you accidentally over salt it (like I did), just rewash it. Anyway, I whipped the salt in and then I used an old one pound butter container I had and put my butter in there. I had more leftover so I added garlic and parsley to it and made a container of garlic butter for rolls or bread.

So I started out with a 1/2 gallon of cream and I ended up with about 1/4 gallon of buttermilk and about 2 pounds of butter. The cream cost me $6.50 so it was more expensive to make the butter than to buy it, but it was SO much fun! And I feel good that I know how, and I know how easy it is.

BTW, you do not have to keep butter in the fridge. You do need to keep it in an airtight container. As long as air does not get to it as it sits, it will stay good for a fair length of time on your counter.

Making yogurt and butter and living off food storage this many months has given me a greater understanding of how invaluable cows are. We scoff at other countries that worship cows, or how they were given as wedding presents centuries ago, but I can tell you, cows are worth more than their weight in gold. When you have a cow, you have beef, milk, yogurt, cheese, sour cream, and more. Trust me when I tell you, these items are irreplaceable when you are trying to produce food for your family. If I'm ever given the chance to take just one thing with me and live off the land, it would be a cow.

And yes, I can hear you all laughing at me as you read this :)

This and That....

I experimented with quite a few things the last couple of weeks, but only a couple turned out. I made popped wheat, which tastes kind of like popcorn, but my little kids wouldn't eat it. I'm going to try making it a different way this week and see if it's better.

I also tried making yogurt - two different recipes - both were disgusting. I have several more to try this week though.

I also made an applesauce wheat cake. That was yummy! The texture is a little different since it's whole wheat, but the flavor was good, and it was very moist. It calls for spooning some applesauce on top which is important because the cake is a little on the sweet side but when you add the applesauce on top it gives it the tang that it needs.

Plus I made Peanutbutter Chews. I can't find the pictures, I think I accidentally deleted them. These were a big hit with the kids though and were great for satisfying a sweet tooth. I'm not going to pretend that they are the least bit healthy, totally NOT, but, then again, what are you gonna do when you have that craving for something sweet and your living on food storage? :) Anyway, the recipe for both of these is on my recipe link.

Lastly, I found a new book that I'm SUPER excited about! Oddly enough, it came from a friend who has some pretty strong feelings against food storage. She heard what I was doing though and gave me a stack of books. In them was a little gem called, "A Bite of Independence Through Self-sufficiency" Her mom paid .75 cents for it at a thrift store and, as far as I can tell, it is out of print. I could only find expensive used copies of it online. Since I think it's out of print I'm going to post the recipes that I make from there on my blog. This week I am going to try out the yogurt recipes from there and maybe even some cheese if I have time. Can't wait! I'm pretty sure this little .75 cent wonder is going to be my #1 must have food storage accessory.

Magic Mix

I'm back to experimenting with new recipes so I expect to be back to regular blog entries. This week I made pudding pops. Nothing spectacularly innovative but my kids loved them and they were all food storage of course.

The one unique thing about them was I used Magic Mix. If you are not familiar with it, it's a base mix that you can use even in your regular life to make so many things like pudding, white sauce, cheese sauce, creamed soups, etc. The wonderful thing about it is, you can make it up and then just keep it in your fridge up to two months and it will save you time when you are cooking. So far I've used it to make the best chocolate pudding you'll ever eat, and pudding pops.

I'm going to post a bunch of Magic Mix recipes on my recipe blog plus the recipe for Magic Mix itself. Try it out now, you can easily use it even if you are not currently using your food storage. You will love it.

Another Butter Option

Sorry I have not posted in several weeks. Truth is, I'm in a bit of a rut. Just cooking the same foods and doing the same things so there hasn't been much to blog about. Today I am REALLY excited though! I know that I obsess too much about spreadable butter but trying to live without it has made me realize how much we use it.

I finally got around to going to an Indian market this week and I bought Ghee, which is just clarified butter. They sell it in all kinds of sizes so I just bought a small one to try it out. It doesn't last a super long time (expires in about a year) but it does NOT need to be refrigerated, even after being opened. YIPPEE!!

The day after I bought it I tried it on toast. It tasted just like the butter that I used to can myself. Completely edible, even on toast. It does have an extremely low melting point so it tends to turn to liquid even just sitting on my counter in mild temperatures. You can keep it in the fridge which keeps it in a solid state, but it isn't necessary to refrigerate it.

Another option that I think I have already mentioned is the Red Feather canned butter from Australia. It's about the same price and, remarkably, is literally butter spread in a can. I've tried it and it taste great, just like butter spread you would buy from the store. The upside to this product is that is has a very long shelf life (15+ years) BUT, once it is opened, it must be refrigerated. Could be a big problem since the chances of us having to live off food storage and STILL having electricity seem small.

Anyway, I'm super excited about finding Ghee. There's no way I can store a whole year's worth because my family eats so much butter, and Ghee expires in just one year. That means we would have to use it exclusively in order to rotate it and it's far too expensive for that. My 8oz jar was $3.95. I will have to just store enough that we will be able to have butter when we really need it, but still I can't tell you how excited about this I am. If you could see me right now I'm doing the happy dance!

Food Storage Inventory

Many people have asked me for an inventory list of the food that I have in my food storage. I made a PDF document but wasn't sure how to post it here. I think I figured it out and you should be able to access it through this link: Food Storage Inventory or if that doesn't work try this Google Docs one: Food Storage Inventory.

It's just a simplified list of the food items that I store. My actual inventory sheet has a lot more information on it. This is the sheet I use to track my food storage. In addition to what you see on the link above, my original document also has a column that tells me where in the house each item is stored, when it expires, and the cheapest place to by it. At the bottom of the food list, I also have a list of non-food items that I store, or need to store, such as toiletries, cooking supplies, etc.

Just a side note. I store freeze dried meats but there are lots of ways to store meat. All of them have their advantages:

Freeze dried is light weight, lasts for years, and is easy to store. However, it is very expensive, and once you open the can, you need to use the whole thing that day or the next.

Canned meat is ready to eat, tastes good, and stores easily but it is heavy, expires more quickly, and is still relatively expensive.

Canning your own meat tastes best and is probably the cheapest and healthiest option but the glass jars are hard to store, canning meat is time consuming, and it expires after about a year.

If you want to have meat stored, just choose the way that works best for your family.

Anyway, I know that there are lots of terrific programs and websites out there that help you track your food storage. Whatever works for you - use it. The big thing to remember though, is to keep a hard copy. The last thing you want is to not have access to your inventory in the event of a power failure or computer failure; particularly a long term failure.

Good Food Storage book

I haven't posted a lot of recipes lately. That is because I have been systematically trying every recipe out of my new book Dinner is in the Jar. Because almost all of the recipes from the book have been good, it would surely break copyright laws for me to post them all on my site.

If you are looking for a bunch of good recipes you should definitely purchase this book. The author has a very good grip on the use of spices and, even though the rest of the ingredients are fairly plain, most of the recipes are pretty tasty. Plus they give you a list of items you need to store to make all of these recipes.

The author promotes this book of recipes as a great way to store your 3 month supply. However, I will probably use these recipes with my long term storage instead of my 3 month supply. Your 3 month supply is meant to be rotated in with your regular meals and, although these recipes are good compared to other things we have eaten lately, they are not going to be something you want rotate into your regular menus I don't think. They are, however, FABULOUS "convenience" food when added into your year's supply.

On another note. I decided to stop torturing my family with powdered milk and powdered butter. I don't think that there is anything more I can learn from continuing to force them to drink powdered milk and use reconstituted butter. I am still using them in my recipes but I bought some fresh stuff this week for them to eat. It was pretty funny actually. My husband opened the fridge, looks suspiciously at the gallon of milk in the door and says, "Is this....real milk?" I said yes. He grabs it immediately as if it will disappear, says, "Oh YES!!" and poured himself a giant glass.

I am still purchasing different brands of powdered milk and butter so that I can find the best tasting ones and store them. Ordering 2 more kinds this week.

Freezing Foods

We really should be keeping two types of food storage. First, foods that we use in our day to day cooking, and then long term food storage as well. I usually refer to the two different stores as my 3 months storage, and my year's supply.

My year's supply is made up completely of shelf stable foods that are in #10 cans or buckets and can last for years. My 3 month supply is made up of canned goods from the store, pre-packaged foods, and items that I have frozen.

After living off this stuff for 3 months now, I just want to put a plug in for freezing food. It's not ideal for long term storage, and of course they lose all value if we are not able to stay at home, with the electricity on, but it's great for being able to store foods you otherwise would not be able to.

First off I freeze my bread dough. I make enough for 6 loaves once a week, bake 2 right away and freeze the rest in individual loaves. The key to this I have found, is letting the dough you are going to freeze, rise in the fridge. So I put the dough for the loaves I'm going to freeze in a large bowl and cover with a towel, then I put it in the fridge to rise at least an hour. Then I punch it down, divide into separate loaves and roll them up in greased saran wrap, and put them in the freezer. Even at that, they will continue to rise in the freezer. If they happen to grow larger than your loaf pan, it's ok, it softens quickly and you can reshape for your pan. Just let frozen dough rise until double and bake as usual. Of course you can just bake all your loaves at once and then freeze but I don't have that many loaf pans, and I just LOVE the smell of fresh baked bread several times a week in my house.

Cheese is another GREAT item to freeze. I was already freezing sliced cheese by buying it in bulk from Costco and then putting it in my freezer. If you defrost it in the fridge, the texture stays virtually the same. You can freeze blocks of cheese as well; however, it will become crumbly if you try to grate cheese that has been frozen. To avoid that, I buy grated cheese in a bag and put that in the freezer. Again, defrost in the fridge. I know that pre-grated cheese costs a little more but believe me, if you have to live without cheese, no cost will seem too great :) You might be able to grate your own blocks of cheese and then freeze it. I haven't tried that but I would be a little worried that it might turn into a giant clump of cheese and not stay separated like the store bought cheese does.

One other great thing to freeze is eggs. You can live off powdered eggs (believe me, I know) but there is just no subsitute when you are craving a fried egg, so you might want to consider freezing some eggs. My friend told me how to do it. I borrowed her rubber muffin tins, sprayed them with pam, broke one egg into each, scrambled up the yolk, and then put them in the freezer.

After they were frozen, I just popped them out and used my foodsaver to vacuum out the air and store them in the freezer.


I also store some with the yolks unbroken so I can have fried eggs :) As you can see from the picture they defrost beautifully.


One thing though, while the yolk was somewhat runny it also remained a little firm. The taste was the same but it might not work out well if you were putting them raw into a baking recipe so it's a good idea to store some with the yolk broken up before freezing it.

As you are aware, many items can be frozen, especially if you have a food vacuum and the freezer space. Like anything, you can build up a supply a little at a time. We were doing that before with meat from Costco, and 3 months into eating our food storage, we even still have a little meat in our freezer. We save it for fast Sundays so we don't have it often but I can't begin to put into words the morale booster it is to have a treat like that, even once a month.

I'm putting up a recipe up for Frozen Fruit Cocktail. I used to make this every summer in my former life :)


I make a huge batch when peaches come into season, put them in the freezer, and have fruit salad all year round. Plus you always have an excellent side dish that is ready at a moments notice. It is SUPER yummy!