Hi all! I've been off blogging for the past month or so, partly because I took a few weeks of much-needed Laptop Vacation, and partly because my energies lately have been drifting away from sewing and towards what I like to think of as "lifestyle DIY."
I've been having a few thoughts in this direction lately, and when Dear Fiancee came home from her library day job with a copy of
Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World, I was sold. Readers, I have tried every project in that book that an apartment dweller can reasonably try. In the past month, I've started an herb garden, cut my own hair, brushed my teeth with baking soda and a cloth dentifrice, made my own lip balm, forayed into traditional food preservation techniques, lassoed wild yeast out of the air and put it to work for me in the form of a sourdough starter, and so on, and so forth. I figure I've been keeping this to myself long enough: it's time for a DIY Roundup series.
Today I'll be laying out how to make butter, yogurt, and cheese--future posts will be themed around fermentation-based food preservation, apartment-friendly herb gardening, homemade cleaning products, and probably a few more things I can't think of at the moment. As I'm not an expert in any of these things, often I'll just be referring you to a wonderful tutorial someone else put together. I hope this inspires somebody!
First, and easiest, is butter.
All you need to make butter is a medium-sized container with a secure lid--I use a quart canning jar--and enough heavy whipping cream to fill about half the volume of your container--I do a pint at a time. It has to be heavy cream, not light--there's not enough butterfat in light cream to make successful butter.
