Birthday Butter

My youngest son turned 8 on June 21st. We like to really celebrate birthdays around here. From the moment you wake up until the moment you go to bed, it's all about you. You get to pick where you want to go, what you want to do, and what you want to eat. You can't get yelled at and everyone else has to treat you like royalty. Let me tell you, my little guy ate that up.

For his dinner of choice he picked macaroni and cheese. I wasn't about to break open a box of the nasty stuff so I hit the Internet and found a scrumptious recipe of the real, honest to goodness macaroni and cheese. It was loaded with five different kinds of cheese and heavy cream. It was made with regular pasta and I even buttered the dish although I left out the pancetta at my son's request.

You might be surprised to hear that I made such a thing for my son on his birthday but I am not an extremist. I believe in the 90/10 rule which means we eat healthy 90% of the time and we splurge the rest of the time. Now to be honest I eat more like that but the kids are probably more like 80/20 and I think that is OK too.

I have to tell you that the smell that was coming out of the oven while this monstrosity baked was overwhelming. It was crazy good. Even though I am allergic to every single thing in it, I had to take a bite just to see what I had created and wow, was it delicious! The whole family loved it and thanked Aidan for his birthday request.

The next day we had a bit of heavy cream left over and we decided to make some butter with it. It is a simple thing to do but I wouldn't say it was easy. You simply put the cream in a jar with a tight fitting lid. Add a marble and start shaking. You shake and you shake and then you shake some more. You are supposed to get butter in about 20 minutes but it took us longer. It didn't help that for a long time the kids were shaking and I don't think they were really doing the best job at it. The important thing was that we were all having fun.

The key is to listen for the marble. In the beginning, you will hear it clanking around in the jar. Then when the butter starts to solidify you will stop hearing. You are not quite done yet. Keep shaking until you start to hear the marble clanking again. Strain off the buttermilk and enjoy.

It was THE BEST butter I have ever tasted. You can see my little guys eating it up on some bread. They couldn't get enough! Let me know if you give it a try.