Animal Petting

We went to the Four States Fair in Texarkana last night. Baby D enjoyed it a lot. Our favorite part was petting animals.

This is D petting a small deer. It was very soft. There were tons of little goats, a few big tortoises, caged llamas, and a small deer roaming around. I was shocked to see how tame it was. This is D's second experience with goats. He loves them.

Thank you to Becka for sharing these pictures with me.

Pressure Cooked Boiled Peanuts

I love Boiled Peanuts. I started eating them when I moved to Georgia for a short time. That is also where I fell in love with Hot Wings. Yumm!

How to? Soak the peanuts in cold water for a little bit before, maybe 20 minutes or so. Drain the raw peanuts, found in your local grocery store. Put them in a pressure cooker. Add a cup of salt if you want it salty and 2/3 cup if less. Cover with water and you can fill about 2/3 full. Cover with lid and bring to pressure. Cook at pressure for at least 45 minutes. Turn it off and depressurize. Let it sit and cool in the water. If you take it out of the water early, they will shrivel up a little and not be as tasty. That will give it more time to soak up the salt. You can tell that the peanuts will sink in the water after they have set for awhile. After a little bit, you can drain them in the sink in a colander.

Storage: I like mine cold, the best. Put them in a Ziploc bag and they will keep in the fridge for 2 weeks. You can also freeze them.

Variations: You can add Tabasco in while cooking if you want them hot.

No Pressure Cooker? No problem. You can boil them on the stove for 2-3 hours.

I soaked the oats

I made this recipe, and it turned out fabulous. I soaked my oatmeal in buttermilk that I made last week when making butter. I used this recipe from this blog below:

Baked Soaked Oatmeal Recipe from Kelly the Kitchen Cop

This is the picture from her site. I did not take any pictures, shame on me!

The only differences I did were that I added some prunes in with my raisins. I also added some peaches with mine along with the apples. I kept the fruit measurement the same. Super yummy!

Butter and Whey

Yesterday, I made butter again. It's pretty easy because I make it in my Blender. I used the large container of whipping cream. I let my butter rest on the counter top for half an hour. The jar beside it is the buttermilk it made. Last time I had some of this buttermilk, I made pancakes with it. Maybe some buttermilk fried chicken is in my future. I have a great recipe from the cookbook "From Elvis' Kitchen to Yours."

Since the butter was washed with cold water, it has some water in it even after draining. It will seep out for a bit.

After all of the extra water seeped out of the butter, I finished it. I use two spoons and mix it around while adding salt. I put some in a container for the fridge and made 2 small logs for the freezer. :)

Later, I wanted to make some whey because I read that you can soak brown rice in it. I put yogurt in a cheesecloth lined strainer so that the whey could drip off of the yogurt. I saw this here at The Nourishing Cook.

After a few hours, it slowed down enough to change it to hanging suspended. I put a larger piece of cheesecloth around my ball of yogurt so that I could bring all four corners together and tie it up. Then, I tied it to a wooden spoon that was sideways across a big jug. Do not squeeze the white glob. Just let it drip out slowly.

After it set out all night at room temperature and dripping. It was done. It made cream cheese and whey. Pretty cool! I started with half a container of yogurt (16 oz). It made around 6 ounces of cream cheese and a little jelly jar of whey (plus 4 TBSP you can't see). I used StoneyField Organic Plain Yogurt.

The cream cheese will last for one month refrigerated, and the liquid whey will last for 6 months refrigerated. I have already used some of my whey while making Kimchi (another new adventure). I found a good quick use for my cream cheese. I was dying to try it out.

Not too pretty, but I made a quick cheese ball. I had a seasoning packet of Hombres Garlic Onion Chipotle Dip Mix. I didn't make much cream cheese with my half-batch so I just used half of the packet. I mixed in 2 TBSP of my homemade butter and 1/2 cup of shredded cheese. I rolled it in a ball. I should have just stuck it in the fridge for a bit so it would firm up before I rolled it in the green onions and chopped roasted pecans. I was in a hurry and just forgot. Put it in the fridge and chill for a few hours and then it's ready to eat. It was super tasty and way spicier than I suspected. Ugly but good.