So I have a deal going with a good friend over at pipeandharp. We're both young wives and mothers, so we're encouraging each other to post more blog entries! She's already got a jump on me with some wonderful posts about cheese making. Seriously Natalie, you're making me so hungry! :-) But on that note, I need to start my own post.
There's been a lot going on here, Brad's doing well at his new job and has already earned a raise :-D I'm busy baking bread, keeping house and taking care of our lil one! Looking forward to the Spring and Summer! I'm planning on purchasing a good waterbath canning set and putting up lots of fruits and veggies! Particularly, I'm planning on putting up lots of tomato products. I'm so excited to start my garden! Here are some things that I'm looking at differently this year though. I'm steering clear of Genetically Modified seeds, I'm planning on planting all heirloom seeds and plants this year! I'm also starting a journey of teaching myself how to use herbs A LOT more! In both culinary and medicinally ways! Herbs are so powerful and so much better for you than chemically based meds. I'm also getting honeybee's after about 3 years of wanting to! Yup, I'm finally taking the plunge. So here's to looking forward to posts on bee's and sweet sticky honey! :-)
Zayden is growing so fast, almost 9 months old, saying Ma ma and Da da, signing Mom, Dad, Milk and More, starting to eat table food, crawling, standing and walking around items(while holding on)! I've been babyproofing the outlets with ducktape :-) And he's loving his lil phone and laptop, I think I have a potential techie on my hands!!
Anyhow, I'm going to start trying to post something each entry regarding cooking, organizing, gardening or herbal! This time I'm going to just post a bit about my vanilla! :-)
Here we have 80+ vanilla beans that I ordered from Amazon.com from Beanilla Vanilla. I was very impressed with the beans. I split each bean in half lengthwise and stuffed them in the gallon glass jar! My kitchen smelled SO good. After they were all in the jar, I poured a gallon of vodka over and gave it a good shake! Then I placed it in my pantry for about 5 months, shaking it every few days. You want to let it soak for at least 4 months but not really longer than 6!
Here we are after 5 months, I dumped it out and WOW, did it smell good! It was so rich that it was almost syrupy. Yum!
I pulled all the beans out and laid them on a towel-Tell you why later :-)
Then I started ladling the vanilla into my jars, I made sure to stir it up each time so that each bottle would get lots of the lil black seeds inside! Mmmm! I also added a few beans to each bottle, kinda a lil creative flair I guess :-)
Here's all the leftover beans, I stuck them back in the jar and added......
SUGAR!!!! So in 6 months I'll have a gallon of yummy vanilla flavored sugar to use in my iced coffee and baking!
I made a HUGE batch as I intend to sell some, to give some as gifts and cuz we use a lot of vanilla! You can totally make smaller batches!
