Tasteful Tuesday

I am running short of time today so I thought I would answer a question I received about Buttermilk. There are so many things you can do with buttermilk: waffles, muffins, breads (My Kitchen Cafe has a great banana bread made with buttermilk), etc. I usually go through spurts where I use it a lot and then I go for a while without using it at all. So, I flip-flop between buying it and just making my own. I am sure all of you know that you can make your own buttermilk by adding 1 Tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar to 1 cup of milk and letting it sit for 5 min. However, did you know that you can make something more like the buttermilk you get from the store with just a little work? Basically, you take 1/2 cup of store bought buttermilk and add 1 quart of milk to it. I either mix them together in the quart container I bought the original in or just use a glass jar. Then you leave it out for 12 hours. Kind of gross if you think about it but that is all it takes. When you are getting low, take another 1/2 cup and start over. Every once in a while, when it starts to get really thin, you will need to start with a stronger start of buttermilk. That is when I buy a new container and begin the process again. Supposedly you can freeze buttermilk for just this purpose but I have never had much success with that. Buying powdered buttermilk is another option and one I use for food storage but mostly I use the other two options. Hope that helps those of you who use buttermilk regularly. Have a great day!