fresh shaken

I've been making my own whipped cream for a while because it tastes so much better than what ya buy at the store, but I would end up with leftover heavy cream that would just spoil in the fridge if I forgot to use it all up before we ate all our dessert.  felt like such a waste.  even more so when I found out I could make butter from soured heavy cream...  gah!  who knows how much potential butter I've tossed throughout the holidays :(

anyway, so I tried it on half of a quart of cream that got lost in the back of the fridge and was about a month out of date... it was the best butter I've ever had!  also, the best arm workout.  win win win :)

I used the mixer the first time which gets the job done much faster, but I think if I'm going to be eating more butter I should get a good work out first and just shake it in a jar ;)

I got 2 cups of butter from 1 quart of heavy whipping cream, with about 2 cups whey leftover, which is apparently what "traditional" buttermilk is. makes me think I could use the whey in place of water with powdered buttermilk for a richer buttermilk pie.  I'm so excited for holiday baking!

"traditional" buttermilk

my arms are incredibly sore after an hour+ of shaking, and it's not really cheaper for me to make the butter and buttermilk (unless I get a good deal on cream), but it's so much better when it's homemade so I'll be making it for the holidays and special stuff... or maybe when I need a good workout :)

the secret's in the sauce

I haven't been posting much lately because all my scheduled posts ran out in the end of May when we got kinda busy going out of town and with our anniversary and my birthday stuff...  it's also about when I started feeling really crummy from morning sickness!

I'm 9 weeks and sorta in and out of feeling well, so not much has been getting done at all.  we found out on Mother's Day so I had a few weeks of feeling fine to think about what all needed to get done, but once the hormones kicked in I was out of commission for a couple of weeks.   it hasn't been as bad this time around, but having Leo to keep up with isn't really helping me take it easy when I need to - this post has even taken me about a week and a half to write!

the day after we had Leo Matt asked when we could do this again.  I don't know if he was going for a serious conversation, but I seriously answered him with "I could do this again next year", so that's when we planned on giving it another go.  this time it took almost twice as long, and just like with Leo it seemed like every month someone else was finding out they were pregnant and not me, but after 7 months of let downs we finally have our baby #2 on the way!  January 18th is the due date, but Leo was 3 weeks early so it could be a December baby.

I surprised Matt with a small bottle of "Preggo" when I told him - he was thrilled! at first he looked at the pictures and thought it was sweet, then I told him to read the label, and he just laughed at the pun.  I thought I was going to have to explain it to him for a second, but it finally clicked.

I've been trying to get back into posting things I've done (I have a lot of drafts waiting to be finished) and I'm hoping once I feel better I'll be back to making things again and posting on a regular basis, but just looking at my computer makes me sick - one of the strange morning sickness triggers I'm experiencing - so it's probably gonna be a while!