Summer in the Winter!

Update: We had French toast for dinner, and hubs tried both kinds on his.  He absolutely loved it!

It's Saturday.  I love spending Saturday mornings with my husband...although, honestly, I love spending any and all time with him!  We usually sleep in and just take it easy, and this morning was no exception.  We got up and watched an episode of The Pioneer Woman on the DVR, and of course, she was making more delicious goodness on the ranch.  One thing that really caught my attention was her berry butter, and I made up my mind to try this recipe at some point today (with one minor addition to the recipe).

Butter freezes well, due to its high fat content.  Most anything with a lot of fat will freeze well.  During the holidays, I like to stock up on butter because it usually goes on sale quite often, so I had around ten boxes of butter (or ten pounds, I guess) in the freezer.  I took a couple boxes out, along with a bag of blueberries that I froze when they were ripe during the summer.  I have stopped freezing blueberries, though, because I find that they really seem to absorb the plastick-y flavor of the freezer bags.  I thought that I might be able to use them for recipes, though, so we'll see how this tastes :).  I also happened to have a container of strawberries that I picked up at the store a few days ago, so I decided to make blueberry butter and strawberry butter.  Here's what I did!

First, assemble your ingredients: 1/2 C (or so) of the fruit of your choice, 1 TBSP of honey for each batch of butter you plan to make, and two sticks of butter (I used unsalted).

Next, put in your favorite CD.  Crank 'er up!

Put two sticks of softened butter (room temp or a little softer) into your mixer.  Using the whisk attachment, whip the butter on high for several minutes, until it's fluffy.

Whip it.  Whip it good.

Drizzle in the one tablespoon of honey while the mixer is still running.  You'll have to scrape the sides down and let it whip a little more.

Then, add in your berries, and mix on low-medium speed until they are mixed in.

Lay out a length of plastic wrap and scoop the butter onto the plastic.

Begin rolling the butter up in the plastic wrap.  Wrap it tightly, because you want to get most of the air bubbles out of the log.  Once the air is out, twist the ends to close.

Then wrap it in foil, wrapping it as tightly as possible.  Twist the ends to close.

Repeat as much as you like!  I made three blueberry and one strawberry butter log.  Freeze these until you want them: you can take the log out and slice off what you want, and return the rest to the freezer.  Since it's just two of us, it'll probably take a while to go through it.  I did keep some out in the fridge for toast or biscuits or crumpets or English muffins or whatever we might eat!  Tasty, and having the fresh berries in the butter makes it feel like summer even in the deep of winter.  Thanks, Pioneer Woman, for another delicious recipe!  The strawberry butter would probably taste great on this strawberry bread that I made a while ago!

The Twelve Days of Christmas Recipes, Day 9: Spicy Dr. Pepper Pulled Pork

Howdy!  We're truckin' right along through the Twelve Days of Christmas Recipes.  Hard to believe how close Christmas is!  Won't be long before we're all counting the days until warmer weather and spring showers.  Until then, here is a recipe found on The Pioneer Woman website.  It's so simple--just throw a few ingredients together and stick it in the stove for about six hours.  Think of what you can get done in those six hours while it's cooking...gift wrapping...cleaning...more cooking...hiding from the guests with a glass of wine and your IPod...This is a great recipe for pulled pork, and really, if you need a break from Christmas turkey, this would be a great substitute to serve to your holiday guests!

Day 9: Spicy Dr. Pepper Pulled Pork

Ingredients:

1 whole large onion
1 whole pork shoulder (aka pork butt), 5-7 lbs, bone in
Salt and pepper
1 can, 11oz, chipotle peppers in adobo sauce (I don't like really spicy stuff, so I use a 7 oz. can)
2 cans Dr. Pepper
2 tbsp. brown sugar

Preparation:
Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.  Peel the onion and cut it into wedges, and spread the wedges across the bottom of a large roasting pan or dutch oven.  Salt and pepper the pork, rubbing the seasoning into the meat with your hands.  Pour the entire can of peppers (sauce and all) over the top of the meat and into the pan.  Pour in the Dr. Peppers and stir in the brown sugar.  Place the lid on top of the pot and place in the oven.  Cook for at least six hours, turning the meat over a few times during cooking.  After six hours, remove meat from oven and test with a fork--if the meat pulls apart easily with the fork, then it's done.  If it doesn't, place the meat back in the oven and cook for another hour.  Once the meat is cooked and falling off of the bone, remove the meat from the pan and begin to pull apart with forks.  Discard juice, onions and fat pieces.  This makes a ton of pulled pork, and it tastes incredible!!

To see the original post of this recipe, click here.

Luke 2:15: When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”