A Chance to win...and hopefully get some HELP!

So yes, I know. I'm a horrible blogger. I just have not been feeling like I'm doing a great job of all of this. I completely destroyed my buttermilk starter. I need/want to get a sourdough starter and a kefir starter going but am nervous about doing so...I'm just afraid of failing again.

I know this is going to take practice. As a friend has told me time and again, this is something that most women used to learn from birth. I am just starting into this process of nutritional and traditional foods and hoping that I can start to get a handle on all of it somehow.

I am extremely sensitive when it comes to my husband's reaction of my cooking. I want him to love it. I want to know it tastes good. But in the world of trial and error, one with a steep learning curve, sometimes that just doesn't happen.

And there is still so much I don't know. Which is why I need some help. I need the expertise of someone who has been in my shoes - done this, been there and learned how to make it work for them.

And there are such people! Wonderful women who have been doing this for years now and are willing to share what they have learned with us.

One of those women is Jenny from Nourished Kitchen. She is going to be having a 12 week online class on learning how to cook traditional foods. Anything and everything from fermented vegetables to how to cook grass-fed meats, baked goods, etc! Her class looks amazing.

And even more, Ann Marie over at Cheeseslave is having an awesome contest where I could WIN a free enrollment in the class!! This is SO exciting to me - just what I need to get me motivated and back on the bandwagon.

Here are the details if you are interested:

How to Cook Real Food Online Class

YAY!! I really, really would love to win. I guess we'll see!

Butter Meltdown...

Step 1: Get cream out of the freezer to thaw.

Step 2: Borrow KichenAid stand mixer from SIL to try out.

Step 3: Let cream go round and round in the mixer. After an hour, it still hadn't made butter.

Step 4: Give up and put the now "whipped cream" into the VitaMix (as done before). Butter separates almost immediately.

Step 5: Proceed to mold butter together, realize it probably needed to mix a little more, but too late. Start rinsing butter out in the ice water.

Step 6: Plop the butter back into a bowl to get new ice water. Buttermilk still left in the bowl, splashes all over me, all over the counters, all over the cabinets.

Step 7: Complete and total meltdown. Crying. Hysterical crying. Screaming about how I can't do this. Hubby comes out and tries to be encouraging, but I'm past the point of responding to encouragement. Tears streamed down my face. I fell to my knees at the kitchen sink and just bawled my eyes out. Not to mention my DD had woken up from her nap and I knew could hear me screaming and crying while she played in her crib. I hate that she could hear me fall apart like that.

Why do I think I can do this? I mess it up. ALL. THE. TIME. I drop things. I put the wrong ingredients in. I mix up the jars of sour cream and buttermilk. I spill things.

I'm not a natural. I don't know what I'm doing. I have to spend at least half my day reading and researching and I still get it wrong. I feel like a failure. I want to be good at this. I want to do this for my family, for my husband.

Don't get me wrong. I'm totally committed to this. I WANT to do this. But it's been almost 2 months and I still screw things up all the time.

UGH. This will get better, right? Someday I will be good at this?

Oh no....

I've already dropped the ball on posting and it's been over a week!

Can I blame busyness? And an 8 month old baby who has discovered who "mommy" is and wants all her time? And trying to spend some time away from the computer so I am not quite so attached to it all the time and actually see people in real life? :)

I'll blame it all - but I'm here now!

Part of the reason I haven't posted is I haven't been doing anything spectacular in the cooking arena lately. In fact, I've had a few bombed dinners. But I suppose that's part of the process - sharing the failures and the successes, right?

Anywho, I'll try to get a post with my latest endeavors and another one with an update on hubby's health up asap!

For now, I'll just say that cooking without garlic and onions is just NOT NEARLY as good. I miss them - a lot.