BEWARE !!!!!!
If you should ever get a notion (as I have) to be creative and make certain food groups of your own for your family, please be advised.
THINK VERY HARD ABOUT WHAT YOU ARE TRYING TO DO.
As you know I am now retired and thus far I have attempted several different food related experiences with a variety of results which I will gladly explain as a public service announcement for which I think I can get a tax deduction this coming year.
Number one, if you are planning on attempting to make any of the following:
Cheese, butter, bread, jam.
I suggest you take my advice and look at the cost of your labor and materials in much the same way you would when buying a boat that you only use 3 times a year when your brother-in-law comes to visit and wants to go fishing for ½ a day. It is not cost efficient.
Cheese- I can buy a block of good cheddar for $5.24. The gallon of whole milk needed for the same amount of cheese costs $7.85. You are already in the hole before you start. Then you need cheesecloth to strain, a cheese press and various and sundry other chemicals to help the process. These various chemicals have a shelf life of about 13 hours from the time they arrive until they expire, and you will need new ones which can only be bought from the Cheese Institute of the World. If you have the milk and your chemicals ready you must start the entire cheese process within about 45 minutes, or everything will automatically go bad, and you must start all over. If you do succeed you will be forced to wait up to 6 months for the cheese to ‘cure’ to see if you did the process correctly.
Thus, I am a no-go person for trying to make cheese again.
Butter- 4 sticks of butter cost us $4.18 and requires nothing other than peeling off the wrapper. On the other hand, a carton of whipped cream costs $5.54 and requires a stand mixer with either a paddle or a whisk and several hours of your time to make the same 4 sticks. I initially used the paddle attachment as the video shows and after one hour switched to the whisk and got a sizeable amount of soft butter which firmed up after being in the refrigerator overnight. It had zero flavor.
Scratch butter from my list.
Jam-a jar of strawberry jam costs $2.62. Enough frozen strawberries to make the same amount costs $3.00 each. I need two bags of it, so my material cost for a product I can buy at $2.62 is $6.00 before any labor is required. I can’t even calculate the cost of the sugar and other stuff.
Needless to say, unless you are the government, this is not a workable effort.
Bread- I have saved the best for last. Do not, I say again do not believe the recipes you get on a hourly basis from some guy in Boise about his ‘fabulous’ bread. He is lying to you and wants you to subscribe to his substack account for only $5.00 a month. He has been making bread for about two weeks. No, use the recipe your grandmother wrote down on the cover of a 1956 Sears and Roebuck Christmas catalog. At this point in time, I am about 0-15 on my bread making efforts. It either doesn’t ‘proof’ right or it’s too dense or the crust didn’t harden or any of about 25 other things. Rye bread at our store is $4.45 a loaf. Bread flour is $5.86 a sack, so you are on the downside right there. But even if the cost of the materials isn’t too much out of whack, there are several other things to consider. You need a Dutch Oven, not a English oven or a French oven. Only one from Holland. Mine says ‘made in China’ but Amazon says it’s Dutch. Who am I to argue with Bezos? Then you must have a banneton basket to proof it properly. I am wondering how native Americans and cave men managed to get their water temperature at precisely 110 degrees, no more no less? Then you have to have a ‘lame’ to cut the bread before baking. A regular knife or razor blade wouldn’t do at all.
If you have the proper equipment and if you hold your mouth just right and if the moon is properly aligned with Venus and your room temperature is not too hot or too cold, you may end up with a pile of dough you can put in the oven.
Trust me, it is less stress and heartache to just buy this stuff at the store. I know, I know you don’t have the mental satisfaction of actually producing something with your bare hands, but it leaves you time to explore other venues.
Like gardening.
I’ll keep you posted.
See you next week… Peary Perry
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