Adventures with raw milk

I want to get a cow. I don't want to rely on The Man for my milk needs. (Ha. Ew.) You know what I mean.

Would there be anything more satisfying than milking a cow and making your own butter, cream, yogurt, sour cream, buttermilk...? I think not.

So we bought a gallon of raw milk the other day from the cutest Amish lady. I'm not going to lie, I am a little nervous about it. I made Kyle try it first. He hasn't died yet.

I left the milk in the fridge so the milk and cream could separate. I am obviously a pro at making my own butter so I thought the butter making would be exactly the same. WRONG.

So wrong.

When you buy the cream from the store all you have to do is whip it good. That is not the case with raw cream. Who knew? Probably the internet, but I don't check those things.

Luckily, I salvaged some of the butter, but it wasn't much. A quart of store bought cream will make a pound of butter. This made about a pat. Maybe more, I'm not good with measuring things.

Kyle decided this butter needed to be a little fancy. Here it is as we are smushing the buttermilk out of it. We added hickory smoked salt.

Then we got some rosemary from the front yard and smushed it some more. Here is the finished product. Not as exciting as I thought it would be. 

I think I should have put a quarter by it for reference. 

Was this adventure in raw milk worth it? I don't know. But I did use some of the milk to make cream of chicken soup, and that was good.