food

Stock up shopping at Costco: this is $956

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

What a change a day makes! Yesterday, we had a high of -9C/16F, and an overnight low of -14C/7F (that I saw; it might have gone lower). That doesn’t count the windchill, and we had high winds yesterday. Today, we’ve reached a high of 2C/36F and our overnight low is expected to be only -3C/27F

[Edit: while I was still working on this post, we reached a high of 3C/37F, which is higher than was forecast for the day, by as much as 3°, depending on which app I got by.]

Which will make life much easier on the kitties.

I did a head count this morning, and again when I fed them after unloading the truck, so I could safely drive it out of the yard to park it. I counted 33, each time. Which means, taking into account the one I know we’ve lost, we’re “missing” three cats. Just as I couldn’t tell which ones were “new”, I can’t tell which ones are missing. There are some cats that are distinctive and we see regularly, but others look so much alike, and won’t let us near them, we just can’t keep track.

I did get a good action shot this morning, though!

I so want to be able to get Brussel and the other calicos socialized!!! They just won’t let it happen, though.

Today was my day for the Costco stock up shopping. This is what $956.06 looks like.

I did not get everything on my list. Some just wasn’t there. No sugar, for example, except for things like super expensive raw cane sugar or fake sugar. Rogers is on strike right now, so I wasn’t expecting to see that brand, but I was sure Costco also carried other brands. Ah, well. Our next stock up trip will include a Walmart, and they carry Redpath sugar, and they’re not on strike.

I asked to have all the cat food on a separate bill. When they were doing the rest, the cashier motioned to the flat cart, which still had the other heavy stuff on it the other staff member was scanning. I couldn’t make out what he said, but was able to figure out that he was asking about the separate bill, so I repeated that I wanted all the cat food on a separate bill.

Apparently, canned cat food is not cat food, because he included that in the main bill with the groceries! 😄😄

I usually get the 9kg Kirkland brand of kibble, which is cheaper per kg, but there was none. Not even an empty space where they would have been. So instead of a dozen 9kg bags, I got ten 11.6kg bags of Whiskas. They were $37.99 each and, after taxes, came to $425.49

Ouch.

As for the rest, first the non-food items:

Canned cat food: $38.99
LED light bulbs, 8pk: $19.99
AAA batteries: $25.99 plus 80¢ eco fee
Laundry detergent: $18.79
Dish detergent: $9.99
Toilet paper, Kirkland brand: $22.49

Finally, some actual food! 😄

pork blade roast: regular $20.44, -$5 at the till
pork chops: $24.05
chicken 3pk: $28.59
bacon, 5pk: $23.99
rotisserie chickens, two at $7.99 each
double cream Brie: regular $10.99, -$2.50 at the till
cream cheese, 4pk: $9.49
goat cheese, 2pk: $10.99
Old Cheddar: $14.99
mozzarella: $14.99
butter, 5 at $5.45 each: $27.25
whipping cream, two 1L at $4.79 each
10kg bag of flour: $9.99
pasta, 9pk: $13.99
flat of ramen noodles: $13.99
raspberry jam: $8.99
Kirkland brand mayo, 2 at $8.99 each (usually we get Hellman’s, but I couldn’t find any)
avocado oil: $16.99
Kirkland brand EVOO: $23.99
lemon juice, 2pk: 4.99
5 dozen pack eggs: $16.49
rye bread, two 2 pks: $5.99 each
tortilla wraps, 4 packs at $9.99 each for $39.96, – $8 at the till

Subtotal: $512.21
taxes: $18.39
Total: $530.57

Some of the things on my list were more paper products, like facial tissues and paper towels, but the packages are so big, I would have run out of room on my flat cart. As it is, the packages of bread and wraps kept vibrating off as I tried to maneuver the flat cart. 🤨

Also, it blows me away how many people don’t think twice about cutting off a loaded flat cart. Do they really think I can stop on a dime?? Then there are the people that stop to look at products, parking their carts right where there’s a pillar or something, leaving no room for anyone to get through. I get the need to park your cart. Heck, with my flat cart, I often have to park it and walk over to various displays to get something, simply because it’s not worth the effort to wrestle the flat cart through the aisles. Especially for cold rooms, like the dairy and eggs room, or where the soft fruits, salad kits and mushrooms are kept. However, I also make sure people can still get around the cart when I do!

Costco has changed brands of butter since I was last there, but the price is still under $6, making it the best price for butter I’ve seen, still. The whipping cream, at under $5 for 1L is also the best price I’ve seen. Since a 1L carton can make about a pound of butter, it’s the only place where it would be economical to make our own butter. Everywhere else I’ve seen, a 1L carton of whipping cream costs more than the house brand butters. Not that we’ll use the cream for that. If that were the plan, I’d buy a lot more than 2 cartons!

For this trip, adding the canned cat food to the kibble bill (about $43.66 after taxes), we spent about $469.15 on just cat food.

Taking the canned cat food off the rest of the bill, we spent $473.22 on stuff for us. Of that, we spent $375.17 on food. The rest was non-food items and taxes.

We are literally spending more money to feed the cats, than to feed ourselves.

Yes, we still have other stock up shopping trip to do, which will include more food items for ourselves, but those 10 bags of kibble won’t last the month. Last month, we bought 12 bags of Kirkland 9kg kibble, or 108kg. I’ve lost track, but we ended up buying another 7 or 8 bags, ranging in size from 7kg to 11kg, depending on what was in stock. If we use an average range of 9kg for 7 bags, that brings it up to 171kg. Right now, we have 116kg on hand, which means we might need to buy another 55kg in kibble before the end of the month.

And this is why we have to seriously consider starting to euthanize some of the yard cats. We just can’t keep this up. Not when we now have a car payment, even with the girls helping out when they can.

At least the inside kittens will go up for adoption again, once the Cat Lady’s housing situation settles, so the number of indoor cats will drop. We are also hoping to adopt out Toni and Ginger. We adore Ginger, but some of the other cats are starting to really bully him, and he deserves a better home situation than ours. But who would be willing to adopt three legged cats? Even if they don’t have other health issues?

I suppose this is a good time to point out the donation button at the top right, but I know things are tight for everyone right now.

*sigh*

Oh, I almost forgot. There was also the cost of gas and meals, spent today.

On the way out, I stopped to put $30 of regular gas into the truck, at 150.9¢/L I filled the tank once I reached Costco. The price for regular gas there was 135.9¢/L It cost me $66.41 to fill the tank. So, in total, it cost $96.41 to fill the tank from just below half. I also bought breakfast and lunch, for maybe another $20-$25 in total.

Also, the truck has a trip counter that I reset before heading home from Costco. With a short side trip to pick up the mail, it read just over 108km, so about double that for the entire trip.

I must say, I’m going to be very happy in January, when we get our quarter beef order in! With the hung weight being the highest we’ve had yet, I’ve doubled the last two monthly payments, which means in January, we’ll have only about $40 left to cover the balance. I don’t know that we’ll be able to do this again, though. It’s been great to be able to make monthly payments towards a quarter beef at the end of the year (or, in this case, beginning of the year), but with having truck payments now, we need to put some wiggle room back into our budget.

Well, it is what it is. We’ll deal. Somehow, we always manage to make it through.

The Re-Farmer

Upside Down Strawberry Cast Iron Skillet Cornbread

/ Re-Farmer / 5 Comments

It’s been a long time since I posted anything recipe and cooking related!

Not long ago, I took advantage of an excellent sale, and picked up a whole bunch of fresh strawberries. A couple of clamshells needed to be used up quickly, as they were starting to get past their prime, so I decided to experiment.

I took our basic cast iron skillet corn bread recipe and modified it to make an upside down strawberry cornbread.

It turned out rather well!

First, I’ll give our basic recipe, then explain the modifications. We rarely make it without some sort of modification, so I’ll include those as well.

Basic Cast Iron Skillet Corn Bread

Ingredients:

  • 3/4 cup cornmeal
  • 1 cup flour
  • 1/3 cup sugar
  • 1Tbsp baking powder
  • 1 1/4 cup milk
  • 4 Tbsp butter, melted, plus extra for the pan

Optional:

  • add seasonings to the dry ingredients, such as paprika, garlic granules or whatever herbs you feel like, to taste.
  • there is no salt in this recipe, but I sometimes like to add a small amount of course or rock salt that would normally go into our salt grinder, which leaves some nice little crunchy chunks to discover while eating it!
  • add savoury ingredients like a semi-soft or semi-hard cheese (mozza, cheddar, gouda, havarti, feta, etc.) cut into small cubes (shredded cheese will just disappear), or leftover ham cut into cubes, to the dry ingredients.
  • instead of butter, you can use oil or melted ghee. We like using ghee quite a bit!
  • substitute part of the milk for an equal amount of cream, sour cream or yoghurt. You could also try using buttermilk instead of milk, or even use reconstituted powdered milk.

Instructions:

  • preheat oven to 425F
  • place cast iron pan with some butter in it into the oven until the butter is melted. Spread the melted butter evenly around the pan, including the sides.
  • combine dry ingredients into a medium bowl, including any optional ingredients
  • add the wet ingredients and mix until just combined.
  • pour the batter into the pan
  • bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown and pulling away from the sides, or a toothpick stuck into the middle comes out clean
  • flip onto a rack to cool. Can be served warm with melted butter.

Modification: We start the oven preheating, prepare the cast iron pan, mix the batter, pour it into the pan, place it into the still preheating oven, then set the timer for 25-30 minutes. Basically, it’s because it takes a long time for our oven to preheat to 425F and we’re impatient. It has always worked just fine.

Upside Down Strawberry Corn Bread modifications

Extra Ingredients:

  • fresh strawberries, cleaned and hulled
  • butter
  • brown sugar
  • Place the clean cast iron pan on the stove and melt a generous amount of butter into it. I used a couple of tablespoons, maybe a bit more, for our 10 inch pan.
  • After the butter is melted, use some to oil the sides of the pan
  • Add enough brown sugar to cover the bottom of the pan evenly
  • Cut the strawberries into enough slices to cover the bottom of the pan; lay them on top of the brown sugar
  • Chop more strawberries into small cubes and add them to the dry ingredients of the corn bread batter.
  • Once the batter is ready, gently pour it over the strawberry slices, so as not to disturb them. If there is a chance that the butter and brown sugar might bubble up the sides of your pan, place it on a baking sheet in the oven, or have a baking sheet on the rack below.
  • Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until the cornbread is golden brown and starting to pull away from the sides
  • When done, turn off the oven and let it rest in the oven for a few minutes, then remove and cool, still in the pan, outside the oven for a few minutes more. The heat from the cast iron pan will continue to crisp up the edges and caramelize the brown sugar base.
  • slide a knife around the edges of the pan to make sure it’s not sticking. Take a plate larger than the top of your pan and put it upside down over the cornbread. Carefully flip the pan upside down and remove the pan.
  • can be served served warm with a touch of cream poured over the top, or completely cooled – if you’re willing to wait that long!

As I wrote this post, my daughters made another batch. It’s out of the oven now, and I can’t wait to have some!

The Re-Farmer

It feels good!

/ Re-Farmer / 3 Comments

Well, I’m quite happy with how our Thanksgiving dinner turned out yesterday. The main reason is, just about everything on our plate was from our garden!

Starting from the top, going clockwise:

Uzbek Golden and Naval carrots, steamed, then tossed with butter, salt and pepper, and a touch of brown sugar.

Red Thumb fingerling potatoes – these are most definitely a mashing potato! – with butter, cream cheese, mayo mashed in, seasons with dill, salt and pepper.

North Georgia Candy Roaster squash. The squash was quartered and the cavity was coated with a mixture of ghee, brown sugar, cinnamon, cloves and a touch of salt, and roasted with the spatchcocked turkey. If we’d done the turkey without spatchcocking it, we wouldn’t have had room for both! 😄

Finally, at the top left, is the quick pickle of both types of carrots, turnip, radish and garlic, spiced with whole cloves and whole cardamom seeds.

I look forward to a time when the meat is also from our own animals.

Unfortunately, I completely forgot to cover the peppers and eggplant yesterday evening. By the time I remembered, it was past midnight and we already reached freezing temperatures, though of course, none of my weather apps agreed. When my daughter and I went out with the covers, there was already frost just starting to glitter on the ground. It was chilly, but the stars were incredible! So many, and so very bright!

Heading out this morning, the frost was still heavy on the ground. At the last minute, I decided to take video for another garden tour. It will probably be the last one for the year. I’ll start putting that together in a bit, as I wait for things to warm up a bit more before going back outside. The forecasts for a milder October have all changed, though we’re still expected to get a few days at 10C/50F and above – though again, that depends on which app I’m looking at. It’s still nothing to complain about. After all, we could be having snow right now!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2023 garden: Thanksgiving harvest

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

The turkey is almost ready, so I thought I’d make a quick post.

It’s not the only thing that’s quick today. From this morning’s harvest…

… of orange and yellow carrots, turnips and radishes to…

… a quick pickle! A few carrots, turnips, radishes, garlic, whole cloves and whole cardamom. I made this first thing, so it would have a few hours to pickle before being included in our dinner.

I hope it’s good. 😆 I am no fan of radishes, but I will try it.

The Re-Farmer

Things to come…

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

One bonus of having company: we do stuff we don’t take the time for, if it’s just us. Like…

… roast some pink banana squash.

Or use the Dutch oven…

… to make a pot roast.

Everything but the meat, we grew ourselves.

The squash is in the oven, and the pot roast is on coals right now.

Time to go and get some booze.

The Re-Farmer

Ready for the freezer

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I let the tomato sauce we made yesterday cool over night – with the current overnight temperatures we are getting right now, the kitchen gets really cold, so there were no concerns there!

This morning, I ladled it into some size medium Ziploc bags.

We did use some of it last night, while it was still hot. I still ended up with 6 bags for the freezer.

I left them on the baking sheet in the freezer, so they’d stay nice and flat while freezing.

Once this was done, I prepped more pans, then washed and sliced some Black Beauty tomatoes to dehydrate. Only 2 pans fit in the oven. I should look into getting extra oven racks. With enough oven racks, we could use all our 9×13 baking pans at the same time, and have room to spare for air circulation.

Something to keep in mind over the next while.

Anyhow, those went into the oven on the lowest “warm” setting, which on our new oven is 145F. I left the oven door propped open slightly with a wooden spoon to let the moisture out. It’ll still take a long time, though. Some of the slices ended up a bit on the thick side.

I also completely forgot to take any photos!

I’ll be sure to take some when it’s time to flip them.

The main thing is, these could stay in the oven to dry out, and I could go do other things. I was intending to get to the trellis bed again, but that didn’t happen. You’ll see why in my next post! I’m pretty excited about it. 😊

The Re-Farmer

Use Watcha Got Creamy Chicken and garden vegetable soup

/ Re-Farmer / 3 Comments

One of the odd things about our garden plans not panning out this year is that, while we are harvesting more of some things faster than we can conveniently eat, it’s not enough to make it worth canning or freezing.

Today, I decided to take most of what’s been slowly building up to make a large soup. We roasted a couple of chickens yesterday, so that was my main protein.

Since I was using whatever was on hand, I measured nothing. I just chopped everything so that they would finish cooking at about the same time.

So here’s my not-a-recipe.

First, a couple of shallots and a small onion that got accidentally harvested while weeding, were sautéed in butter along with some Uzbek golden carrots and a few Gold Ball turnips, and the one tiny Honeyboat Delicata squash that got accidentally harvested when the stem broke off while in was checking on it. All of those needed the longest time to cook. A small handful of Spoon tomatoes went in, then green and yellow beans, and finally some green and yellow patty pan squash. A whole bulb of garlic went in, too – all 2 cloves that were so big, I was able to dice them. After those sautéed for a while, I took the pan juices from the chicken roasting pan and ran them through a sieve into the pot, along with just enough water to barely cover all the vegetables, bringing it to a boil, adding a big spoon full of chicken stock powder as well. I didn’t need to add any other seasoning. Last of all went some Irish Cobbler potatoes. These were the small ones I’d brought in, leaving the larger ones to continue curing, that had gotten a thorough scrubbing last night. I picked out the smallest ones, most of which didn’t need any chopping at all. More water was added until it seemed like enough, and it was brought to a boil.

At that point, my daughter too over for me so I could make a quick run to get more kibble. With the running around I have to do over the next while, I wanted to get more while I had the time.

My daughter simmered the soup until the potatoes were soft, then added some diced roasted chicken. For the final creamy touch, she also added an 8oz block of cream cheese and took the immersion blender to the whole thing!

It definitely went over well. By the time I got home, there was just over a bowl of soup left for me to try!

It was delicious.

Even the parsley I sprinkled on top was dehydrated from our own parsley we grew a few years ago. We dehydrated so much, we still have some!

I had it with a couple of slices of bread. The girls have been making at least a loaf every day, then sometimes starting another one during the night. I’m really glad we picked up that bread machine!

Meanwhile, on a less cheerful note…

I got an email from my sister letting me know she wasn’t going to be able to visit my mother tomorrow as planned, asking me to go over instead, as her car is in the shop. Turns out that knocking noise in the back was a loose wheel! TTT is getting her staples out tomorrow, but not until 3, so I would be able to go, but earlier than I normally do. I called my mother and the first thing I asked was if she’d talked to the pharmacist about the T3s she’s refusing to take. She said no; my sister was coming over tomorrow, and she was going to get her to drive her to the pharmacy so she could talk to the pharmacist in person. Not just any pharmacist, though, but the new store manager. I told her about my sister’s email about her car, and said I could come in to drive her around, but since I had an appointment, it had to be earlier. I suggested 11. In reality, 10 would have been better, but I didn’t think my mother would accept that. Well, she didn’t like 11, either, and asked if we could make it 12. I said no, I wouldn’t have time for that. Oh, so I’m always in a hurry…

???

Long story short…

I’m always in a rush and never spend time with her. My sister’s car troubles were just an excuse she made up, and now my mother’s entire day’s plans have to change (as if ours didn’t change as well!) Also, my brother is dropping the responsibility of taking care of her on me and my sister. None of us call her or spend enough time with her, we’re all terrible people who don’t go to church and don’t know right from wrong, my brother should practically be her slave because she “gave” the farm to him, and she paid for “everything”, so we should all be doing whatever she wants us to do, no matter how badly she treats us, because she needs our help. Oh, and I don’t allow her on the farm anymore, but when I do, I don’t serve her tea.

When I finally said, if I’m so bad, maybe I should stop coming over to help her completely. Did she still want me to come over tomorrow? Of course, she twisted that around and said that, if I didn’t want to come over, she would just find a way to walk over.

To the bank, the pharmacy and the grocery store?

I called her on the manipulation and guilt tripping, then simply told her I’d be there for 11, while she kept insisting she would walk. Her knees are so bad, she is starting to have trouble navigating her tiny apartment, never mind the half block to the grocery store. The pharmacy is something like 6 blocks away.

Of course, she’d have an easier time of it if she would take the T3s, but she sure as heck wouldn’t want that!

Do I sound a bit frustrated?

Yes. I’m frustrated.

I’m especially ticked off over how she is about my brother. No one has bent over backwards for her more than he has. Now he has the burden of this property on his shoulders – we are helping him by being here, but the place has problems well beyond either of our abilities or finances to fix, plus he still has the headache of dealing with property taxes and insurance for a place companies don’t even want to insure! She has no understanding that she didn’t do him a massive favour in signing the property over to home now, rather than in her will, but saddled him with a white elephant. Then she turned around and stabbed him in the back, and still can’t understand how badly she hurt him. He has pulled her butt out of the fire so many times over the decades, with zero gratitude or appreciation, it’s mind boggling he hasn’t cut her off completely.

He’s a much better man than I am, that’s for sure!

Well, we’ll see how it goes. She may act as if nothing happened at all. Or she may decide to be vindictive. Either way, she’s going to be ticked off that I will have to leave early enough to drive back home, pick up TTT and take her to the vet in time for her appointment to get her staples removed. I certainly didn’t tell my mother is was an appointment for a cat. She would have completely lost it, if I did. She’s always hated having pets in the house (my father loved them), and cats in particular. Dogs were accepted only because they helped with the cattle. They never took a dog to a vet. Not even when one of them got kicked in the heat by a horse and lost its eye. That dog lived to a grand old age, with a very messy, untreated eye. As a child, I had no understanding that this was not a good thing. Heck, I didn’t even understand that there was such a thing as a vet when it happened. So you can probably imagine that she would not be happy that we took a cat to a vet at all, even if it meant the cat living outdoors with a dangling broken leg. For us to be taking a cat to a vet on a day when she wanted me to devote my time entirely and slavishly to her would be just that much worse.

*sigh*

We’ll see how it turns out.

I’ll go back to thinking about how good that soup turned out!

Well. Try, to, anyhow.

The Re-Farmer

Happy Mother’s Day!

/ Re-Farmer / 3 Comments

My darling daughters have treated me to Chinese food today!

They got enough to last us a couple of days, at least! We can’t order often, so when we do, we order a lot!

The Chinese restaurant we order from is right next to the lake, which is still covered with ice. What a refreshing breeze coming off the lake! Here, we are at 24C/75F, and tomorrow is supposed to be even hotter. So I really, really appreciate that we don’t need to do any cooking for a couple of days!

There is only one downside for today. I had some friends let me know that the thief that stole my personal Facebook account is at it again. The first scam they tried was to give away a PS5 in revenge for a cheating boyfriend. Today, they used the same pictures, but claimed it was meant for “my” newly deceased son. Of course, I have no son, and most people on my friends list would know that. But some whom I only know online through mutual interests might not. The first friend that let me know about it reported my old account as hacked (again!), and left a comment telling people my account was hacked and recommending unfriending me from that account. Since then, I’ve had another friend let me know about the scam post, which was at least flagged as false information by FB, but there’s nothing to show that there are any comments, so the first friend’s comment likely got removed, and I imagine she’s been blocked as well.

Some people are just slime.

But, I will not let that ruin my mother’s day!

Excuse me while I enjoy some delicious Chinese food!

The Re-Farmer

Use-Watcha-Got Cooking: Tuscan style stew

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

Okay, so I made this video a while ago, but had all sorts of problems exporting the finished video into a file format that I could upload to YouTube that worked. After trying for days and having it fail, suddenly it worked. Nothing had changed on my computer, and there was no software update. Just, one day no-worky, another day, yes-worky.

Frustrating!

No matter!

Normally, I would have done a long, photo heavy post on making this, but I don’t have the media storage space, so I’m trying to make more videos. I’d found a video on how to make a Tuscan beef stew that looked really good, but I didn’t have the exact ingredients.

So I made it with what I had on hand.

Here is not-quite Tuscan style beef stew, made with mead.

Let me know what you think, and if you have any suggestions to improve things!

The Re-Farmer

Home made butter

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Last night, I finally got around to making some butter, using whipping cream. It’s been ages since I’ve made butter! I decided to try it again when I was picking up butter at the local grocery store, and the cheap, house brand butter had gone up in price so much, it was actually more expensive than whipping cream.

Making butter is easy and relatively fast when using an electric mixer. It can also be made by putting the cream in a well sealed jar and shaking it. Hopefully, with someone that can take turns shaking it with you!

To make butter with an electric mixer, a fairly large bowl is needed, since it will be in the fluffy, whipped cream stage for quite a while. It feels like it’s taking so long, whipping and scraping the sides and whipping and scraping and whipping and scraping some more, when then suddenly it “breaks” and you’ve got butter!

Also, even with a deep bowl, you’ll get cream splattering all over! You are forewarned! 😄

One thing about using a mixer is that the churned butter’s initial texture is very different. You don’t get a lump of butter. Instead, you get this.

The beaters keep the butter from forming larger pieces, so you get lots of very little pieces, instead. This photo was taken after the butter had been drained of buttermilk, then rinsed with cold running water. The smaller pieces made it easier to gently turn it while it drained, being very careful not to push the butter through the sieve.

Once drained through the sieve, there’s still water in the butter than needs to be removed as much as possible. That’s actually the part I find most difficult. It might be easier if we had one of those old style butter presses, but I just had my flat wooden spatula to squeeze and mash the butter in a bowl. I’d press it, drain the liquid, press it again, drain the liquid, and when I thought I was done, I’d press it a bit more and get even more liquid out! Finally, I got to the point where I could mix in a bit of salt to taste. Then, I pressed the butter into a small bowl with a lid, and put it in the fridge to sit until we use it today.

In the end, I estimate I got about 1 3/4 cups of butter, and about the same volume of buttermilk. A pound of butter is 2 cups, so there’s less butter from 1L of whipping cream, but we also got two products out of it. That buttermilk will be very nice in baking!

Whether or not it’s worth making butter with whipping cream is debateable. At least if price is your measurement. Whether it’s the cream or the butter that’s more expensive seems to change rather quickly. About a year ago, I remember whipping cream selling for over $8 for 1L, while butter was still under $4 a pound. The next time I went shopping, the price of whipping cream had gone down again, though still higher than butter was at the time. If you consider being able to control the amount of salt, the flavour, and getting buttermilk as well, the benefits do add up.

If the price of butter keeps going up, while the price of whipping cream remains more stable, it may well become the most cost effective way to get butter!

The Re-Farmer