Butter Making In My KitchenAid

Something I thought I would never do is make butter. I do all my baking and cooking from scratch, so we use a lot of butter.  But, with the price of real butter at almost $4.00 a pound, I was kinda forced to "do something" about it.  I saw a post here and decided to give it a try.  (there are some video tutes on youtube as well)  I bought the cheapest whipping cream I could find. (hopefully next time I'll be able to get some on sale) and I put it in my KitchenAid.  Turned it on and let it go.  It took about 15 minutes total and my splash guard really helped.  The kids thought it was "awesome!"  It was very interesting to see it go from cream, to fluffy "whipped cream", to butter & buttermilk.  In the end I spend $3.25 on the carton of Whipping cream and I got 11.5 oz of butter and 2.5 cups of buttermilk.  The butter tasted amazing and the buttermilk whole wheat oat pancakes that we had that night were equally amazing.  The kids are now asking me for more!  I'll definitely be making more when I need butter and it's not on sale. 

Yummy Christmas Mint Fudge - With Recipe!

Today I did some Christmas baking and discovered a new recipe. When making fudge I always use Kraft Jet-Puffed Marshmallow Creme and I follow the directions on the back for their fudge. But, tonight I didn't have any evaporated milk and I wanted to try using dark chocolate chips. Below is my improvised recipe. It turned out sooooo yummy.

Use the Fantasy Fudge recipe over at Kraft, but make the following adjustments:

- Substitute the evaporated milk for 2/3 cup of coffee creamer (seriously! I used my french vanilla coffee creamer and it is sooo yummy. I would imagine that you could use any flavor and your fudge would come out with a hint of that flavor.)
- Substitute the Semi-Sweet Chocolate for a bag of Dark Chocolate Chips
- At this point I wanted to go with a mint fudge so I substituted the vanilla for 3/4 tsp of mint extract

Follow all the rest of the directions and you'll have some really good fudge. Happy Cooking!

Perry Family Salsa Recipe

Salsa has quickly become tradition in our home. No Mexican meal would be complete without it. But, it can't be just any ol' salsa. It has to be home made salsa. This stuff is sooo tasty that our oldest who won't eat any veggies will eat this stuff by the spoonful. And, as an added bonus, the kids love to help make it.

I'm going to share our recipe with you all. Well... I guess it's not so much a recipe as it is a general idea of how to make salsa. Just a note before we get started though. All measurements are approximates. Really... just add in the ingredients until it tastes good to you. Some people like more onion, tomato, or heat. We find that we like equal amounts of onion and tomato. If the onion is really strong, then more tomato. Also, the recipe uses a food processor, but I have chopped all ingredients by hand many times and the salsa turns out just as yummy!

Perry House Salsa
1 medium yellow or white onion
8 Roma Tomatoes – this was all I had in the house when I made this batch. I would probably have added 4 more if we had them.
½ to 1 Bushel Of Cilantro
4-6 Slices of Jalapeno – we use the kind that comes sliced in a jar. It's not to hot, but has great flavor. You could use fresh, but I've never done that!
Juice of 1 Lime – or you can use 1 tbs or so of the bottled lime juice
Salt to taste
Optional – 1 tbs Garlic

Yield – This batch made 3+ cups of salsa. I usually make more than this, but we only had a few tomatoes today.
Step One – Pull off leaves of Cilantro. I had approx 2 cups. Don't worry about the stems to much. Throw it in the food processor and pulse it until it's fairly well chopped. Then scrape it out and into a bowl. It should look something like this:
Step Two – Chop off ends of onion and the outside skin. Chop into quarters and put in food processor. Chop until desired consistency. We like it a bit chunky. But, you could certainly keep chopping until smoother if you prefer that. Add to bowl.
Step Three – Chop tomatoes in half and remove insides. We do this so the salsa won't be to watery. But, if you prefer more liquid then by all means just chop the tomatoes in half and toss into food processor.
I do my tomatoes in two or three batches so they don't get to mushy. In one of the batches I add the jalapeno and garlic so they get good and mixed in. Put tomatoes in bowl.
Step Four – Mix it all up and add the lime juice and salt to taste. You may want to add more cilantro or tomatoes... Don't be afraid to add stuff if you want!
Step Five – I usually stick it in the refrigerator until dinner so the flavors can all meld together. But, you can eat it now if you want. I can't tell you how many times the salsa never makes it to the refrigerator before it's gone.

Eat and enjoy with chips, burritos, eggs... or even just in spoonfuls.

Artisan Breads = Yummy

I saw this post on House on Hill Road and I got the itching to make some yummy bread. I haven't made bread without the bread maker in soooo long. It was kinda peaceful to kneed up the dough this afternoon while both girls were at school. I found a few free recipes online to try out. One of them was just a basic crusty white bread recipe and the other was a artichoke bread recipe. The white crusty bread turned out great and tastes very yummy. But, the hit of the night was definitely the artichoke bread. I'll try and post the link to the recipe later if I can find it again. Inside the bread there is artichoke hearts cut in to small pieces, pine nuts, garlic, pepper, and hard goats cheese cut into large chunks. I'm quite proud of these breads. I don't think I've ever gotten such good results before.
(the picture was taken after we ate half the loaf. note to self: restrain family from munching bread until you've taken a picture)

Brynn's "Almost" Organic Chocolate Chip Cookies

I've been developing this recipe for almost a year now. Slightly changing something from one batch to another. I wanted a cookie that was healthier and more "organic" for my family to be eating. These cookies have helped my kids slowely adjust to that "wheat" flavor in things. We are now eating whole wheat pasta, bread, muffins, pancakes, etc. (Pancake recipe to come) My kids LOVE these cookies, and I hope your family will love them too.


Brynn's “ Almost” Organic Chocolate Chip Cookies (photo will be added tonight)
Very Budget & Child Friendly

1 cup (two sticks) Cheap Margarine
1 cup Dark Brown Sugar
¾ cup White Organic Sugar
1 Egg
1 tsp. Baking Soda
1 tsp. Salt
1 ½ tsp. Vanilla
1 cup Ground Flax Seed
2 ¼ cups Whole Wheat Flour
1 bag Dk. Chocolate Chips

Soften butter. Mix in ingredients in the order given. Use a cookie cutter to for cookies OR drop large spoon fulls on your baking sheet. Bake at 350% for 7-10 minutes. This time depends on the size of cookies. Cool & Eat.

Notes about the recipe:

I make these with and without the flax seed. You may replace the flax seed with wheat flour if you wish. And, you may also use semi-sweet chocolate chips in place of the dark chocolate.

Also, I use a 1.5” and 3” round cookie cutters to make my cookies. I place the cookie cutter on my baking sheet and fill it with dough. I then lift the cookie cutter and repeat until the sheet is full. This makes for a cookie like the ones you get at the stores. No thin edges.. just a perfect plump cookie that is crispy on the outside and soft on the inside.