butter & buttermilk

For the most part, Dalena Vintage has been a place for me to talk about all things fashion related. Lately though, I've been thinking about changing it up a bit, incorporating more of my loves and giving it a rounder feel. After all, in the scheme of my life, vintage clothing is only a teeny tiny piece of who I am!

So this is a test. Just a test. Here we go...

Starting up your own shop isn't always all it's cracked up to be. It's freedom from the man. It's living on your own schedule. It's doing what you love. It's a limitless list of good things really. But it's also long hours, living on a tight budget, a perpetual lesson in stress manangement, ecetera.

This said, I've recently fallen out of the honeymoon phase and into a being-broke-is-no-fun-let's-get-this-thing-moving phase. I've learned quite a bit about stretching what I've got and simplifing my life. Over the past few months, it's been an interesting challenge to bring this mentality into the kitchen but I've managed and actually found it quite fun. Let's take last week's kitchen project, turning one simple ingredient into two useful products. Butter and buttermilk!

All you'll need is heavy cream, a mason jar, an extra container and strong arms.

1. Fill your mason jar about halfway with heavy cream. Close it up and start shaking!

2. After about 5 minutes, your cream will turn to whipping cream. Keep shaking you're halfway there.

3. The mixture will start to thicken and look like this.

4. Now the fun part, it's going to separate into two parts. The solid piece should be a slight yellow color, and yup, this is the butter. The liquid is fresh buttermilk.

Now you'll want to pour the buttermilk into your extra container. With cold hands, take the butter and squeeze out the excess buttermilk. Next rinse with cold water, folding a few times and voila! Fresh butter and buttermilk.

Stay tuned later this week for what to do with that buttermilk!