Nope, not gee like in "gee-whiz!" (which is an expression I get from my 40's-born, Southern father) but GHEE [EDIT: which, apparently, is pronounced with a hard "G" anyway, like Glee without the "L"]... also known as clarified butter.
One of the big things about going Whole30 for me is giving up my beloved dairy. Oh-Em-Gee. Full-fat heavy cream, savory cream cheese, sour cream, aged cheddar, soft mozzarella, crumbly feta, fancy-schmancy brie, decadent greek yogurt, and...
DUN-DUN-DUN...
Mmm... buuuuutter...
Oh, how I will miss thee my darling food-flavorer and favorite cooking fat. *pouts*
Uh, I won't miss you this much...
Ghee will be my alternative. Ghee is made from butter, but it is separated, through heat, from the milk proteins. It is the pure, good, healthy, fatty oil. Mmmmm. Without all the problems of butter.
I remember reading several months ago about how to make ghee on someone's blog, but I never got around to it. Starting Whole30 prompted me to wrack my brain and try to conjure up the name of the blog where I got the ghee info from (because I was too lazy to check my hard drive to see if I had actually saved the instructions to my computer). I googled around, looked at other clarified butter/ghee recipes/instructions, and le sighed all over the place, because the descriptions of how to create ghee in my googling... they just weren't all that good. Okay, slowly boil butter (but for how long?!)... let butter separate (okay...) And then eventually strain (but what should it look like, exactly, and how do I really know when it's done?).
Alrighty then. Maybe I just don't know how to Google? Or maybe I'm anal-retentive and need step-by-step instructions with interesting little tidbits of factual information and helpful hints along the way, complete with pretty pictures. Whatever. I needed to find that blog.
Thank God for sudden recollections and epiphanies, because then I remember that the ghee recipe that I found was from Affairs of Living! Yippee!
I followed her awesome and amazing directions (note the pretty pictures and step-by-step instructions complete with little tidbits of information and facts) on how to make ghee (minus the part where I had already melted it, trying to follow other less descriptive directions) and now I'm just waiting for it to cool.
My first attempt at a batch of ghee, cooling & waiting for another strain
Yay! I have ghee!
Pretty lookin' ghee in a jar.
My version of ghee in a jar, sittin' in the fridge (next to some Whole30-forbidden maple syrup of DOOM).
I think I'll be okay with this no dairy thing, after all.
Don't give me that look, Cow...
~*~*~
Esther
~*~*~
