Confessions of a Cream-aholic

I love sour cream. I eat gobs of it. I get home from work starving, and I lay into a bag of chips, heaping sour cream on top of each bite. I hate magazines that suggest healthy snacks like carrot sticks. It's not the same, and everyone knows that. I did, however, recently notice that I was buying a carton of sour cream a week, which means I was consuming a shocking quantity (one pound per week, to be precise).

Since no one else in my house eats sour cream,
I can't hide from the fact that I eat way too much of it.

I decided that turning my nose up at carrot sticks is one thing and eating a pound of sour cream is another. It was time to cut back, and I made an announcement to my family. The first day after I made this public resolution, I came home and tucked into the chips and sour cream. My husband said, "I thought you were cutting back," so I gave him the stink-eye. The operative word here is Moderation, not Abstinence.

I've been meaning to try some of the recipes from The Home Creamery, and with all my newfound consciousness around my dairy habits, I got interested in trying to make my own sour cream. Call it masking gluttony under the virtue of skill building.

I made my first batch last week, and I'm serious that it is possibly the easiest thing I have ever done. You basically mix cream and buttermilk and let it sit at room temperature for a day. You have to try this!

An excerpt from the book is below:

1 pint light cream, at room temperature
2 tablespoons cultured buttermilk, at room temperature

1. Place the cream in a medium bowl or a glass-lined thermos.
2. Stir in the buttermilk and cover the mixture tightly with plastic wrap (or cover the thermos).
3. Leave the mixture in a warm place for 24 hours, until thickened to a custardlike consistency. Stir to blend, and refrigerate at least 24 hours before using. The sour cream may continue to thicken in the refrigerator.

Alethea Morrison, Creative Director