Farmer Fridays - Guest Post from California's The Wife of a Dairyman

It is hard to believe another week has already come as the tractors have not moved at all on our family farm in almost a week.  For last week's Farmer Fridays, planting season 2011 was in full force after being delayed by rain for several weeks.  Well, planting season came to a halt after we received 2 inches of rain in a 24 hour period last weekend.  So needless to say, the stress level here is slightly high which is why I am so excited to have an amazing guest blogger today.

Nancy, The Wife of a Dairyman, is an amazing blogger and fellow farmwife that I have followed since I joined twitter almost 2 years ago.  Unfortunately, we have yet to meet face to face, but I have confidence that will change soon.

So with no further ado, here's Nancy, the newest member of The Real Farmwives of America & Friends.

Hello 3 kids and lots of pigs readers! Heather asked me to do a guest post for her Farmer Friday feature and I’m so happy and honored to do so!

My name is Nancy Grossi and I blog from out in California at The Wife of a Dairyman. We have a multi-generational family dairy. After my husband, Dominic graduated from college, he came back to the farm to run the dairy with his Dad. We have two kids, Bryce, who is 6 and Paige, who is 4.
One would think living in California; we would have many warm and sunny days. But this week winter has once again returned to our area with rain and even thunder storms.
On rainy days, sometimes it’s a challenge to please both a 4 and 6 year with fun indoor activities. We do a lot of cooking and baking. This week we decided to make Butter in a Jar, which is such a fun thing to do with kids {actually it’s fun for the adults also}. We talked about how the types of food we feed our dairy cows help them to produce milk. We even got a list going on our white boards of all the food items they could think of that milk is an ingredient of. {Ice cream topped the list}
Bryce was camera shy, plus he had just done this very project at a recent 4H meeting, so Paige is going to demonstrate how to make Butter in a jar~
Full directions below, but here's a quick summery:
Supplies:  heavy cream, jar with lid, butter knife and small kitchen towel.

Fill the jar half full with heavy cream and secure lid, tightly.

Shake, shake and shake for a 10 minutes.

Results.....butter

Drain the butter....

Squeeze any liquid from butter using a cheese cloth or small kitchen towel........

Use the butter knife to scrape butter into butter dish.....

 Salt it if you wish.......

Things you will need:
• Baby food jar
• Small kitchen towel or a piece of cheesecloth
• Butter knife
• Heavy cream
Instructions:
• Make sure your baby food jar is sanitized and all residue of soap is gone from the jar so that your butter won’t have a funny taste.
• Fill the jar about halfway to the top with heavy cream and put the lid on securely.
• Shake the jar with the cream in it for about 10-20 minutes. Make sure to shake it up and down, but never tip it upside down as it could leak.
• Once most of the liquid is gone and a large lump of butter has formed, take the lid off the jar.
• Scoop the butter out of the jar with the butter knife, and place it inside a clean kitchen towel or cheesecloth.
• Close the kitchen towel or cheesecloth over the butter, and wring it out over a sink several times. This extracts all of the left over liquid and leaves you only with the solid butter.
• Use the butter knife or your hands to shape the butter into a circle or square, rectangle or any shape you wish and place it in the fridge for about 1 hour to harden.
• Use your butter as you normally would and enjoy!
Directions from eHow
Thank you for taking the time to read my post!
Sincerely,
Nancy ~ The Wife of a Dairyman


Thanks Nancy and welcome to The Real Farmwives of America and Friends!!!