A Little Effort Provides....

As some of you may know...my husband is a man of many talents and we have been adding on and remodeling our home for quite a while now. We are doing this ourselves with me being the supervisor/design expert and Jason being the manual labor. Anywho, we are almost finished! How blessed to have built our home ourselves and for our children to be able to say "My Dad built those cabinets, made that trim. " Truly blessed are we. What's even better? Zero house payment my friends!

In my kitchen you will find a shelf above and to the right of our stove. That shelf is full of extracts. I have vanilla extracts, orange extracts, lemon, cinnamon, and even one that is a combination of vanilla and cinnamon that smells and tastes an awful lot like a certain "Hot Damn" liqueur. No, really. I made for my holiday cooking and my husband even drank a bit to be sure of his assessment. Not a proud moment of mine, Lol. Homemade extracts are super easy to make and you can get as creative as you want. For instance, you may have noticed that in my previous shortcake recipe I used lemon extract. I have 2 different ones. 

Lemon Extract 

1 lemon peel with pith removed as much as possible (the white part between peel and fruit) 

Jam jar with lid

Alcohol of choice - I have vodka in one and sambuca in the other. 

To your jam jar add your lemon peel and then pour your alcohol in - covering peel. Place lid on jar and place in a dark, undisturbed location (for me it's the corner in the bottom of my pantry, I've even been known to use an empty tater box). Shake jar once a week for at least 6 weeks, and of course the longer it sits, the better the flavor.

I often start making these at the end of October to use as Christmas gifts. 

My list of extracts:

Lemon-Vodka

Lemon-Sambuca

Orange-Vodka

Orange-Bourbon

Vanilla-Bourbon

Vanilla-Vodka

Vanilla-Cinnamon-Vodka

Cinnamon-Bourbon

For the cinnamon, I use cinnamon sticks. Vodka is the most common alcohol used and what is used for your "grocery store" extracts. Go ahead and try some of these or make up your own. I'd love to hear what you end up with!

An Update and Homemade Vanilla Extract

I have been gone from the blogosphere for a while now.  Not by choice, granted.  It has been nutso in my neck of the woods.  Snow storms, tornadoes, kids, chores, farm, etc.  You get the idea.  I’ve been having a hard time with recipes, lately.  I seem to be stuck in a rut and when I do try to think “outside the box”, it’s been pretty gross.  Does that happen to anyone else?  I guess I need to get back to basics.  My family and I recently took a trip to Nashville, TN for a weekend; it was great!  We found lots of restaurants that we could eat at.  There is a bakery called Fiddlecakes that made us a batch of brownies when I called ahead and alerted of particular allergies.  They make their own gluten free bread and fresh sandwiches that made for a yummy lunch.  We also encountered Mellow Mushroom for the first time.  It was such a treat for all of us to enjoy pizzas together as a family.  We ended our trip with a visit to The Whole Foods Market to store up favorites that are unattainable in our area.  Lots of pastas, panko bread crumbs, snack bars, you get the idea.  Needless to say that we had our Expedition loaded for our trip back home to Kentucky.  My daughter also had her Immunocaps drawn for an upcoming appointment with her allergist.  We’re not sure what, if anything will come of that.  Did I mention that my baking has been a bit “different” for the past couple of weeks?  I’ve been experimenting with a lot of different flour combinations trying to find a “fit”.  Up to this point I have been splurging on Bob’s Red Mill AP flour but I really want to make my own mixes.  What I have accomplished is the best vanilla extract.  We started it before Christmas and are currently enjoying homemade vanilla extract.  Super easy to make, I plan on gifting it for the holidays in the future.

Homemade Vanilla Extract

1 jam jar

2 vanilla beans split

Vodka

Place the vanilla beans in the jar and cover with vodka until filled.  Place top on jar and let it rest in a cool, dark place for at least 6 weeks; shaking occasionally.  I currently have mine located on my counter top to use at my whim.  Nothing tastes as good as homemade vanilla extract when a vanilla bean cannot be used.  Keep it natural.