My new kitchen has inspired me to be more active about meal planning, shopping, and making new things. I got a refurbished Kitchen Aid Pro 600 for Christmas, so I've been playing with it a bit. Last night I made chocolate chip cookies with walnuts, and today I made butter.

Yes, butter. Never knew it could be so easy to do. I had 3 pints of whipping cream expiring, so I decided to use it rather than waste it. Hubby wanted me to make ice cream with it, so I took out about half the cream when it was whipped to the right consistency for ice cream, stirred in a can of Eagle Brand sweetened condensed milk, a teaspoon of vanilla, and a can of chopped up peaches, and stuck that in the freezer.

I turned the mixer back on and let it do its thing until I had a mixture of butter and buttermilk. Poured the buttermilk into a Mason jar to use later for baking, rinsed the butter in cold water and added some sea salt, formed it into a ball, and put it in my butter jar.

In all, it took about 30 minutes to make a quart of ice cream and probably about a half-pound or more of whipped butter. And I saved wasting $6 worth of cream.

Just call me Tori Homemaker from here on out. :)