Real Food Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

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This frosting is to-die-for. You do the math: Real butter + real cream + real mineral-rich, tasty unrefined sugar = really super good frosting. I advise caution. You won’t be able to stop licking your fingers, the bowl, the cake and anything this frosting touches.

A Big Batch of Cultured Butter

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I’m at my friend Shannon’s Nourishing Days blog today, sharing how I make a big batch of cultured butter. How is this different than my cultured butter in the food processor? For one, it is a bigger batch, like 7 to 8 times bigger — instead of yielding 1 pound of butter, I get between 7 and 8. I like this because I can make more butter less often which equals less work. :) I also employ another time saver — culturing the cream while it’s still in the milk.

Nikki’s Roma Fresca

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Please welcome Nikki from Project: Family Cookbook. I’ve been working on a big project myself, thus the lack of posts here for the past few months — more on that later. So Nikki volunteered this beautiful recipe to fill the gap. (Anyone else interested in guest posting? Contact me.) I’m so thankful — and so excited to make some of her Roma Fresca myself. :) Thanks, Nikki! –Wardeh

FREE Video: Easiest Sour Cream EVER

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We get around 4 gallons of milk per day from our Jersey cow. For our family, this is plenty to make cheese, butter, kefir, ice cream and more — plus we have some to share with friends AND some to clabber (spontaneously sour) for the chickens and dog. I figured out a really easy way to get both clabber for the chickens and sour cream for us, with hardly any work at all. This week’s free video shows you how I do it.

Fermented Raspberry Preserves

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My favorite way to preserve berries is to use a tweaked lacto-fermented preserves recipe in Nourishing Traditions. Using lacto-fermentation increases vitamins, enzymes and probiotics, making these preserves even better than the berries alone. What conventional jam can boast that? I will demonstrate these preserves as well as a few variations in the fermenting class.

Free Video: Homemade Cultured & Flavored Cream Cheese

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Learn to make your own homemade flavored cream cheese, and you’ll never buy another tub again. Sure, the grocery store flavors taste good — but these taste fabulous (and are more healthy). Plus, there’s no limit to what flavors you can try! In this video excerpt from the Cultured Dairy & Basic Cheese eCourse, I show you how to make Onion-Chives or Cinnamon-Walnut cream cheese.

Lacto-Fermented Hummus

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Yesterday, I made our family’s traditional hummus — a recipe handed down from my grandmother and namesake, Tata Wardeh, to my mother and then to me. However, there was a difference: this time I lacto-fermented it. Yeah, yeah, by now you know that I try to ferment just about everything. :)

Free Video: Kefir/Yogurt Cheese Balls

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In today’s free video and recipe, I show you a traditional Middle Eastern method of preserving yogurt cheese that requires no refrigeration. My grandmother and namesake, Tata Wardeh, who has passed away, always had jars full of yogurt cheese balls available to add to our plates at breakfast, lunch and dinner!

Free Video: Lacto-Fermented Guacamole

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Want to make your guacamole just that much better for you? Lacto-ferment it! This natural fermentation process allows beneficial organisms to proliferate, and causes an explosion of vitamins and enzymes. The benefits to you? Better digestion and support for your immune system. Check out the recipe below, also demonstrated above in this week’s free video.