A spread for your bread

Two main environmental concerns have led to nearly all of the changes we've made over the last year or so.

1. The amount of power used in our household (and its source)
2. The amount of rubbish produced by our house.

The second one has led to some of the most obscure changes. Each time I put something in the bin, I wonder - could we change our habits so we don't produce this waste or produce less waste when using this thing. Is there a way I can reuse/recycle of reduce the overall impact of this bit of waste. And frequently, can I make the processed product myself so that it has less impact in terms of materials used in the production and packaging, and is made using more simple ingredients.

One of the things we've changed is our consumption of margarine. I grew up using margarine and not thinking anything of it. We used it for spreading on bread, baking etc and the only time butter ever really came to our house was at Christmas when mum would use butter for the baking. I used to find it frustrating when we would go to a butter using household and I couldn't spread the hard stuff on my bread! Stu also grew up using margarine, so when we started shopping for ourselves, we didn't think twice about becoming another margarine household. Over the years, we started watching our weight and changed to reduced fat margarine, and I used it for everything.

Then last year, I noticed the margarine containers in the recycle bin. And, I started reading labels. That's not a good thing for the case of margarine. It occurred to me that a spread that was made in a lab wasn't the right thing to be putting on our now fully homemade and simple bread. So we switched to butter.

Switching to butter isn't easy. It's great for baking, there is less waste, but you have the tough choice of either popping it in the fridge to prolong its life and ending up with a brick that is useless for spreading, or keeping it at room temp (perhaps in a butter keeper) which shortens its shelf life, but is otherwise great until the temp rises and you end up with a yellow puddle.

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So I did some research and experimenting and over the next few months came up with a solution. A homemade spreadable butter. This isn't new of course. You can buy spreadable butter (though it is pricey and comes in plastic tubs) and lots of others have made it too - that's where I was researching. But this is what I do...

In the bowl of a food processor or mixer, put in about 250g of chopped room temperature butter (I use salted and then don't add salt). Add to that about 125ml of warm (not hot) water. Beat. The water being warm helps the water and butter combine. Once your butter and water are really well mixed (it'll take a few minutes, feel free to wander off and multitask), slowly drizzle in about 125ml of olive oil. Keep beating. When the mix is homogenous (that means "all the same", but using big science-ey words brings out the ex-scientist in me and makes me feel like I'm back in a lab!), you're done! Put it into a container and refrigerate.

This spread is a bit firmer that margarine, but after a few minutes at room temp is spreadable. It has no nasty chemicals like margarine and has less fat, and healthy oils too.  It also tastes good!  Enjoy!