Homemade Sour Cream

• 2 cups fresh cream, preferably raw
• 2-3 tablespoons cultured buttermilk
• sprinkle of salt

• Boil a canning jar to sterilize. Mix the cream and buttermilk together and pour into warm jar, mix hard and sit at room temperature overnight or until thick to your preference. Keep well covered and store in ridge up to 3 weeks. Can be mixed with spicy or other yummies to make a flavored dip, or added last minute to dishes you want a bit creamy.
  

PS: update. I skimmed this cream off myself. turns out it wasn't totally just cream.... so my sour cream isn't exactly creaming/thickening at this point --- but hopefully it will at least get a tangy sour taste so that i can mix it into things.


I belong to a local raw milk co-op: we get raw milk from a dairy in Schulenberg who raises pasture fed jersey cows. Organic goodness.  Since reading parts of Nourishing Traditions I have decided to radically change our diet. I have long preached eating as much homegrown, whole foods, as i say "eating close to the earth." But when i really thought about what we eat most often, i come up with : soy milk, tofu, cereal, canned beans, lunch meat, and purchased veg/chicken broth, low fat honey mustard salad dressing. These are overly processed things treated with chemicals and high heat, even when i buy as organic as possible. So what will i be doing differently?

To start with : lots of fermented foods. Kim chee using whey from cheese making and yoghurt making, cultured milk products from raw milk, soaking grains in whey and making my own warm cereals, sproating more grains, making my own ketchup, mustard, and mayo from homegrown tomatoes, mustard seeds, and chicken eggs. I also whipped together some very simple salad dressing: some fresh herbs in a bit of olive oil and a mixture of red and white vinegars. That's just a start. I'm motivated and ready to plant some mustard!

First thing i'm trying with this batch of raw milk is sour cream. I skimmed the cream off the top  so that our drinking milk will be lower fat. With the cream i will add a bit of cultured buttermilk and let sit overnight to produce sour cream. This isn't the same as the stuff you buy in the store as it is cultured and more alive. Won't be for cooking but can be added last minute to things to cream them up a bit and add some good milk without as much lactose that i can't digest.

I highly recommend chicken Nourishing Traditions out of your library - it is truly inspiring!  It reminded me of so many things i used to know and practice, and gave me some better information on some of the pieces of knowledge i had but didn't know how to explain to others.
Fats must be consumed to help absorb good vitamins and minerals and make our body function. Raw milk when cultured is a great source of good enzymes and vitamins that are more easily digested than pasteurized milk not fermented. I need to be eating more balanced whole things to be getting all the good things my body needs, and to help wash out the bad things like heavy metals that have found their way inside me.