Possibly one of the easiest way to impress your friends and family is to “make your own butter.”  No I am not advocating churning butter by hand, just taking regular butter and making it more awesome by adding lots of flavor.  This is an easy way to perk up winter veggies, just toss with compound butter after you roast or steam squash or root veggies.  Here are some ideas to get you started but really everything goes better with butter to just use this to get started and let me know what you come up with.

Blue Cheese Butter:  As evidenced by the picture above blue cheese can actually turn your butter blue but its so delicious you won’t notice.  PERFECT for on top of a steak you can also use it on top of a backed potato.

Herb Compound Butter:  This is by far the most versatile version.  I use it to flavor and baste my cornish game hens in one of my most popular recipes.  Its great slathered on bread or added to steamed or roasted vegetables.  The best part is you can use whatever herbs you have handy and in whatever combination you would like.  Sage and rosemary go great together as do thyme and parsley but the sky is the limit.

Roasted Garlic Butter:  Make a bunch of roasted garlic and combine some with butter and you have a great addition to mashed potatoes, pasta, or cream sauces.  This is great for shortcut garlic bread as well – just toast up crusty bread, spread on roasted garlic butter and season with salt and pepper.

Cinnamon Butter:  Salt is really key here – combine salt, cinnamon and butter together and put it out for a pancake bar, to top an English muffin or with scones.

Chipolte Butter:  Finely chop some chipoltes in adobo and add to butter to create an instant sauce for vegetables.  A nice light side for taco night the butter will melt right away when added to roasted asparagus or green beans.  Its also great on top of carne asada or corn on the cob.