Besides feeding her big calf, Will and Christian are bringing in buckets of milk every morning and evening. About five gallons, total! So I’ve been busy making soft cheeses, cottage cheese, and butter. Lots of butter! Because we can’t possibly drink all that milk, I put the extra in my stock pots and skim the thick cream off every 12 hours. With the skimmed milk, I’m making cheeses and, of course, we drink all we want and use plenty in cooking. I’ve been making at least one type of cheese or cottage cheese every day plus about a pound of butter. And everything is SO good!

I’m cheating with the butter making as I have a hand churn that takes a long time before butter comes and my arm kind of gives out after awhile. So I use my electric hand mixer and whip the cream with that first. Then I pour the whipped cream into my churn and in about five minutes I’ve got beautiful butter. What a time-saver that is!

Butter_01

Butter_02

Butter_003

I am freezing the extra butter until I get time to can it up. I just opened a jar of three-year-old canned butter and it was perfect. It’s so nice to have it for those months when we don’t have all this milk.

I make a lot of plain fresh soft cheese which I use like creamed cheese. I add seasonings (taco yesterday) and (strawberry) with strawberry jam today. It’s great on freshly baked bread.

We’re so thankful to have all that milk! — Jackie

13 COMMENTS

  1. Do you can your goat milk? I have made cheese and did butter-but the butter seemed to have a strong flavor to it. The milk didn’t taste/smell goaty. I canned 6 qts of milk today…I hope the heat of pressure cooking doesn’t give it a “off” taste. That is why I am wondering if you can your goat milk and does it have a goaty taste due to the heat?

  2. Stephanie,

    I whip up the cream in the mixer until it is nice whipped cream. Then I dump it in the churn. Yep, that is natural butter; no coloring added. Lace is such a nice cow! We all love her.
    Thank you for the kind words. My folks didn’t homestead but did take us camping a lot and taught me all sorts of great homesteading skills and how to live in the wilds; edible plants, making shelters, fire starting, canoeing, survival skills as well as gardening and canning. I’ve always lived this life and after well over a half century, I’ve “been there and done that”. A lot! I also try to learn as much as I can, usually by doing, every single day.

  3. Terri,

    Yes, I do can up quarts of milk to use when our critters are dried off. It works great for all cooking and baking.

  4. All,
    Some days I don’t have “all that energy” and just have to plod along. The knee’s giving me fits so I have to go back to the doctor today and see what’s up. It was doing so great…. All I do is try to do as much as I can do in a day; sometimes it’s alot; sometimes not so much.

  5. Jackie, how long do you mix it with your mixer before putting it in your hand crank butter churn? What consistency is it when you put it in the butter churn? Your butter looks so yellow, is that natural or do you add food coloring? Love, love, love reading your blogs, so much to learn and do, how did you get so smart about such a wide range of things, did your parents homestead? Keep up the good work, I hope your recovering from knee surgery well, as I know this is a busy time of the year. Take care.

  6. Oh, I agree with Margie. Jackie offers so much encouragement and has so much experience that she makes us want all that too. However, we are in our 70’s and my husband is not well so that is not going to happen. BUT, Jackie often says to start with what you have so that is what we have done on our little half-acre. We now have a good-sized vegetable garden where we attempt to grow most all our vegetables for the year. We also have rhubarb, raspberries, gooseberries, blueberries and 5 fruit trees. At the first of this year we added 8 hens and now have Hopi Pale Grey squash started thanks to Jackie’s generosity! So, Jackie, thank you so much for the gentle push you give to us, your readers. We would not have done all this without your encouragement. May God bless you richly and may your knee be the best it has ever been!

  12. Yummy! Everything looks so wonderful! We have a milk cow too, and we are so glad that we learned how to make our own buttermilk, cultured sour cream and cultured butter….all from an initial purchase of cultured buttermilk from the grocery store. My kids love the cultured butter, and I love all the money that I’m saving by not having to buy sour cream at the store any more.
    I’ll have to try your way of making butter; it sounds so easy!!

  13. I applaud you. You have so much energy…I don’t seem to find time to do all that in one day. Way to Go!!

Comments are closed.