Back into the kitchen once again

I'm excited to work on my cooking blog again! I guess I got pre-occupied by life and was spending a lot of time on the computer at work and didn't feel motivated to share on a blog what I've been up to in my culinary adventures. However,  I now work in communications for a living and I re-discovered I enjoy writing for fun.

The latest tools that've fueled my interest in writing about cooking again are Pinterest and public television cooking shows. Yes you read that, not the Cooking Channel or the Food Network but shows like America's Test Kitchen, Rick Bayless' cooking shows, even Lydia's Italy. I began my obsession with cooking shows when I was teenager. Sunday afternoons, when my family was resting after church, I'd quickly finished any leftover homework for Monday and tuned to our PBS station to watch shows hosted by Julia Child and Jacques Pepin.

Let's cover my Pinterest board finds on this post. This week, I made two items from my cooking board: homemade vanilla extract and cookie mix in a mason jar.

Much to my surprise, the easiest thing to make was the vanilla extract. The most trouble was picking out the bottles I wanted to store the contents in. I found apothecary style bottles at A.C. Moore. I researched multiple examples of vanilla extract recipes on the boards, which is a tip I always encourage before trying out a new recipe.

There are two ingredients for vanilla extract: alcohol and vanilla beans. The ratio is 1 cup of liquor to 3 vanilla beans. I went to Trader Joe's and found moderately priced vodka for half my bottles and a well-known label dark rum for the others.

Then I went to a spice shop I adore, Savory Spice Shop , to pick up vanilla beans. For those who've used vanilla beans in baking/cooking before, you may know they can be price prohibitive. However, I let the store clerk know what I was made making (homemade gifts) so she understood I was on a budget. She recommended Moroccan Vanilla Beans. If I wasn't very eager to begin, as I am when I'm inspired to try out something new RIGHT NOW when it comes to cooking, I would've purchased them on Amazon as many of the boards recommended.

The next step was cutting the beans in half, putting them in the bottle and finally putting in the liquor using a funnel. You may ask: why didn't you use either vodka or rum? The answer is I wanted to see how strong the vanilla comes through with each flavor of liquor (or therelackof with the vodka). Now the beans are extracting out subtle flavor in their bottles. Based on what I've read, they should reach their optimal flavor in 8 weeks.

The last thing to note about making the extract is there was NOTHING to clean up! You can't beat that.

Now onto the messier part of my day: putting together cookie mixes in mason jars. The primary tip of note is remember what SIZE jar you've purchased when looking up recipes. I know- if you love math, this is not a big deal. For me, math is a challenge and not a pleasant one. I started measuring a QUART size amount of the layered dry ingredients into a PINT size mason jar and very soon realized my calculation error- yikes! Luckily I had only mixed the flour with the baking soda/powder so it was easy to pour back into my mixing bowl. Now back on track, I quickly made 6 PINTS and 2 QUARTS of cookie mix.

As you'll see with this post, there are 2 jars of jam. I intend to write a separate post on how easy but sticky it was to make those.
Until next time, have fun in the kitchen with these new ideas...