Making butter, yogurt & kefir

For the past couple of months we have been ordering dairy products from an Amish farmer and we get cream and milk straight from the cow, eggs straight from the roaming chickens. A friend, Nickie, who I met through this buying co-op, noticed that I was buying kefir (cultured milk) and offered to show me how to make it, as well as butter and yogurt. I was excited, yet a little overwhelmed by the possibility. But as I learn more and more in my studies through the Institute of Integrative Nutrition I become more clear about the many, many benefits of knowing exactly where your food comes from. I know that buying organic butter is OK and that it is a better choice than non-organic butter, but making my own from the cream that I bought straight from the cow that is eating green grass? Wow, how amazing. My older girls get so excited that we can so easily pretend to play Little House on the Prairie these days! :-) Mary & Laura churning their butter, only it is Elizabeth & Molly hand-mixing the butter. Hours of fun. I should have snapped a picture today when we were making it. I will make a mental note to take some pictures to add to the blog next time!

So our first batch of butter turned out wonderfully. And the yogurt we made last week is still in the refrigerator, being consumed every now and then with fruit on top, or in a smoothie. I was amazed at how easy it was to make these dairy products from scratch. I haven't yet attempted to make the kefir, but I've heard that will be just as easy. I will be doing that next week after I procure the kefir grains, so stay tuned! (And I will post recipes too, I just don't have them written down yet because I made the recipes through watching Nickie make them.)