Va-Va-Va-Vanilla Extract!

I purchased some Mexican Vanilla Extract from a friend several years ago.  It was completely authentic and easily the BEST Vanilla Extract I have ever tasted.  I savored it.  I used it in everything.  I loved using a teaspoon here and a tablespoon there.  Then, my friend moved away, several states away.  My source for this excellent extract dried up.  The label on the bottle was in Spanish and didn't have an address  so I was at a loss to get more.  I tried a local Mexican market, but unfortunately, all I could find was a "Mexican Vanilla Blend."  Blend?  Huh?  This is unacceptable.  It contained Mexican vanilla, yes, but it also contains an artificial vanilla flavoring - vanillin.  YUUUUUCK!  Nope, that is not for me.  Martha Stewart drilled into my head as a young baker that only pure vanilla extract was good enough to put into my creations. 

What was I to do?  My stores of outstanding vanilla were dwindling, and while I can buy "Pure Vanilla Extract" at my local grocery store, it simply isn't the same as the robustly flavored vanilla extract to which I and my baked goods have become accustomed.  I was just about to get desperate and make a run for the border when I came across THIS.  Kelsey Nixon (remember her from The Next Food Network Star) gives a great, EASY recipe for making your own vanilla extract.  There isn't even any cooking involved!  SAY WHAT?!?  I can make my own vanilla extract!?!  Well alrighty then,  let's get to it.  

To make vanilla extract Kelsey says you need three things...

1. Vanilla Beans

2. 80 proof Vodka

3. A glass bottle with a tight-fitting lid

That's it.  I can totally do that.  Let's get to it!

See -- Three things!

You want to use non-reactive glass bottles with tight fitting tops.  I got mine HERE and HERE.   

Kelsey Nixon used a smaller glass bottle (half the size of mine) and only five beans.  My bottles hold 1 liter of liquid so I am using 12 beans.

These are plump, moist, beautiful beans!  I cannot wait to get working!

 *There are three common varieties of vanilla beans: Mexican, Tahitian, and Madagascar.  Each type of beans has special qualities making each better suited to specific uses.  The Madagascar vanilla bean is the most common type of vanilla.  This is the type that is most often found in grocery store vanilla.  Tahitian vanilla is the most aromatic.  It is best used for things where the smell is the most important factor.  Mexican vanilla beans pack the most flavorful vanilla punch.  Click HERE for more information about vanilla beans.  MMMMM!  They are the beans for me!

Use a sharp knife.  Slice each bean down the center lengthwise.  Keep all of the tiny seeds inside the bean. 

This process smells so great!  Stick the sliced beans into the bottles.  If you use a smaller bottle, you may need to cut the beans in half the other direction too. 

Don't spend a lot of money on fancy vodka.  Don't get anything with a flavor.  The most important thing is the proof.  GET 80 PROOF!  By the way...I don't drink alcohol.  I've never purchased alcohol before.  Should I be offended that I wasn't even carded at Costco?  SIGH!  My 1.75 liter bottle at Costco was $13.99.  Ironically, it was across the isle from a Crystal Skull full of vodka for around $75.00.  Nope, I didn't get that.   That is a little too Indiana Jones for my taste.

Pour (use a funnel)

Glamor Shot!  Notice how clear the vodka is. 

SHAKE!

Side-by-Side after a good shake.

Store in a cool, dark place. 

Don't judge my cabinets.  :)  I'm just trying to keep it real!  Take  your bottles out once a week and give them a good shake.  In 6 to 8 weeks your extract will be ready to use!  Now you go make some extract!

This is how the liquid looks after one day of soaking. 

This is what you have after 4 weeks of soaking.  

This is how the extract looks after 6 weeks...

The extract is really smelling more like vanilla and less like vodka.  Yummy!

I waited 8 weeks for maximum potency before I decanted my homemade extract.  Strain the extract through a coffee filter.  Leave the vanilla beans in the bottle.  Cover the beans with new vodka and make more extract.  Add a new bean every now and then.  You'll have new vanilla extract almost indefinitely!

Make sure your bottle is DRY!

Water will ruin your new extract.  Even one drop will destroy all of your patience and hard work.  I let my bottle dry for over a day and a half.  I even used a blow drier.  Blowing down the neck of the bottle was not very effective, but blowing the warm air onto the bottom of the bottle did a great job.  It warmed the glass and caused the small beads of water to evaporate.  It didn't effect the larger beads of water. 

New extract on the left, ready-to-use extract on the right!

I can't wait to try it!

I would love it if you became a follower of my blog.  You can find me HERE on Facebook and HERE on Pinterest!  Come follow all of the craziness!

You might find these other cooking posts at Greetings From the Asylum interesting...What do you think....

Hamburger Cookies make great treats for when it is your turn to bring the snacks to preschool.  I recreated the Orange Blossom Lemonade from my favorite Middle Eastern restaurant that is now a pancake place.  You could also try my recipe for Green Chili Shredded Beef.  It is for the crock pot so it is E-A-S-Y and DELICIOUS!

Thanks for visiting!

Dress Up Your Drawers!

As you may know, I am redoing my daughter's bedroom.  Yesterday I showed how adding a little fabric dressed up THIS bookcase.  Today I'll show you how I fixed up the open-backed spaces in the shelf.  I picked up four of these small canvas storage drawers like THESE.  I added a little paint and...Voila! I had this....

My daughter saw her shelf and said, "I LOVE IT!"

My canvas drawers a slightly smaller than the ones linked above.  That was important because I had some electronics connectors and plugs taking up some of the space in the middle right square.  See...

The smaller sized drawer doesn't even touch the plug!

O. K.  Here's what you need to make these cute drawers...

Four canvas storage drawers.

I picked up mine at Walmart.  They come in several different colors.  Choose the ones that match your decor.

One smiling girl, some acrylic paint, stencils, spouncers.

It was all I could do to work on this project without this girl on top of me.  She wasn't interested in the Super Bowl which you can just make out in the background playing on the television.  

This plate is left over from my son's first birthday.  (He's seven.)  I'm not a hoarder, really I'm not!

I needed only a small squirt of paint.  I used the medium and small sized spouncer to fill in the stencil.  The medium-sized spouncer fulled in the larger spaces easily.  I needed the small spouncer to get into the corner details.  You could also use a sponge brush. 

I laid out the stencil and held it down while I painted.  The stencil was small, and the canvas took the paint nicely so I didn't need to tape the stencil down to the drawer.  I know, I was living on the edge.  I am just lucky it worked out.  

Here are the finished drawers.

Close-Up!

All four drawers

Left and right drawers

Top and bottom drawers

The finished shelf is perfect!  My daughter can't wait to fill them up with all of her precious treasures. 

I would love it if you became a follower of my blog.  You can find me HERE on Facebook and HERE on Pinterest.  Come check me out there!

If you enjoyed this post you might enjoy my post for this 4th of July Wreath.  Find out how to make your Toddler his or her own textbook HERE.  Get ready for Easter with some Thread-wrapped Easter Eggs.  

Thanks for visiting!

Dress-Up Your Bookcase!

For Christmas, my daughter received a paint bucket, roller cover, and a paint brush.  Her face was priceless.  She had gotten the shaft in the present department, and she knew it.  However, once I explained that she was getting her room redecorated, she was excited about her present.  The task was supposed to take up the vacation time between Christmas and New Year's.  Illness made that impossible, but the room makeover is underway!

We painted the walls white and added lots of pink accents.  I have been looking for decorating ideas for the last several weeks.  I even set up a secret board on Pinterest!  She needed a bookcase to hold all of her treasures.  I wanted it to have some personality.  I came across THIS, which gave me the idea to do this....

A quick fabric makeover for a build-yourself shelf!

I picked up THIS little kit at the store and set about putting it together.  It was a really easy project.  It took about an hour to assemble (and that includes my extra work covering the backs).  Four of the nine cubes are open to the back.   The other five have a closed back.  I covered the cardboard backs before I nailed them to the back of the bookcase.  Here's how...

Assemble your bookcase.

 Use a large open space in your house to put your bookcase together.  It is really simple.  

These are the fabrics my daughter chose for her room.  They are absolutely perfect! 

My daughter always wonders why my favorite color is green.  She says that it is not a girl color.  I disagree.  Green is an awesome girl color.  She prefers pink so with these fabrics we have the best of both worlds! 

Fold the fabric several times.

I laid a cardboard back on the folded fabric and cut several covers at once.  I opted to use the paisley fabric on the four corners and the green in the center.  I left about two inches on each side for folding and securing.  

Cut the fabric at least 2 inches larger than the cardboard. 

Fold over the corners and secure them with packing tape.  Pull them tightly.  The cardboard pieces came folded in half.  I weighted them down with my pinking sheers to keep them from folding while I did the taping. 

I had to use my pinking sheers because I could not find my sewing scissors.  Can you believe that!  Shameful, truly shameful.

The cardboard backs had tiny divots to show you where to place the nails when securing the cardboard to the back of the bookcase.  I used a pen to transfer the marks to the fabric from the cardboard.  That way I would know where to pound the nails. 

Look closely,  you can see the marks.

I started by nailing the center panel because it was the most difficult to reach AND because it needed to be in place before the outer panels were secured.  Each panel took 12 nails.  It is a wonder that I only have one bruised thumbnail.  It did not feel good. 

Securing the panels!  Watch out for your thumbs. 

I LOVE how the bookcase turned out, and more importantly, my daughter LOVES it.  It is perfect for her dolls, books, jewels, and such.  Here are a few close-ups of the cubby holes. 

Corner squares

Center square

The center square fabric is difficult to see, but it looks awesome especially as a contrast to the paisley fabric at the corners.  It looks great peeking out from behind her books and toys.  See...

I'm still trying to figure out what to do with the lamp.

I have plans for the open-backed cubbies too.  My plan involves these canvas drawers.  Check back or click HERE to see what I do with them.  

Canvas drawers

I would love it if you became a follower of my blog.  You can find me HERE on Facebook too, and of course, I'm HERE on Pinterest!  

Here are some other crafty things from my blog you might enjoy!

Make your own Hide And Seek Bag!  This headband looks great on little heads and even not-so-little heads - Twisted Flower Headband.  Put together a Lined Canvas Backpack just in time for travel season. 

Thanks for visiting!

Is that Ironman?

My daughter was invited to a birthday party yesterday.  It was a superhero party.  The invitation instructed attendees to dress as their favorite superhero.  There really was no contest.  My four-year-old daughter was going to be Ironman.  There had to be a mask.  That was a must.  She also wanted eyelashes and sparkles.  Hmmmmm......Eyelashes and sparkles.   How about this...

Red tinsel eyelashes - just what Ironman needs.  Don't you think?

 Tough with a touch of femininity!

Profile!  Look at that smile!

 She was so excited!

Pair the awesome mask with a pre-printed Ironman t-shirt and you are cooking!

She looked so CUTE!  The mask didn't last long on her face.  (The party had a bounce house after all.)  I also must add that I think Tony Stark would approve of the pink tennis shoes.  She fit right in with all the other superheroes at the park.  Our neighborhood is definitely safer with all these super kids living so close to us!

I would love it if you became a follower of this blog!  You can also follow me on Pinterest!  Thanks for visiting!

I am Thankful for...A History Lesson!

My American family tree is pretty tiny.  I am only a third-generation American on my mother's side.  My father's side goes back farther, but only about a hundred years or so.  I have some neat family stories.  I'm just not sharing them right now.

My children, however, have a LONG and STORIED genealogical history in America.  My mother-in-law is a member of the DAR and other historical societies.  Yeah, there is some serious history there!  For instance,  do you know what this ship (The Mayflower):

source

This country (Bermuda):

source

and This playwright (William Shakespeare):

source

Have in common?  You don't?  Hmmm...  Well, I'll tell you!  It's him:

source

This is Stephen Hopkins.  He joined the passengers of the Mayflower with his family.  My children are related to him as well as his daughter, Constance, who was 14 at the time of her first and only trans-Atlantic crossing.  I mention that it was her first crossing because it was her father's third.  Steven Hopkins originally traveled across the Atlantic to settle  in the Jamestown colony.  However, that is where the country of Bermuda comes into the story.  Back in 1609 Steven Hopkins boarded a ship, the Sea Venture, headed for the Jamestown colony and bound to the Virginia Company for a period of time in exchange for his passage and land in the New World. 

Bermuda's 1987 commemorative $5 coin shows wreck of the Sea Venture Source

Here is a brief history of the ill-fated voyage of the Sea Venture...

The Sea Venture was one of a group of nine ships that departed in June of 1609.  The voyage passed uneventfully until the flotilla was about one week away from their destination.  At this time a vicious hurricane struck the group of sailing ships.  Eventually all but two of the nine boats reached Jamestown.  One of the two boats was lost at sea and the Sea Venture which was shipwrecked.  Where was it shipwrecked, you ask?  Bermuda, of course. 

At this time in history Bermuda was uninhabited because it is surrounded by shallow water that made travel to the island extremely difficult in the large sailing ships of the day.  Colonizing nations hadn't bothered with Bermuda because it wasn't easily accessed from any point.  While this is a good defensive position to have, it is highly inconvenient in all other aspects of colonization (particularly trade).  Bermuda was also viewed as a highly supernatural place.  For the superstitious sailors living four hundred years ago, that was a deal breaker.  They just gave Bermuda a wide berth on their way back and forth across the Atlantic. 

The former passengers of the Sea Venture had no choice but to make their way ashore on Bermuda.  That is where their captain aimed their battered and broken ship.  Once there, they found plentiful food, mild weather, and abundant resources.  They set to work immediately building two new pinnacles to carry them to Jamestown. Stephen Hopkins was a bit of a revolutionary thinker at this time, but he was able to talk his way out of serious trouble (i.e. a death sentence). 

The passengers' time in Bermuda was not without perils, souls were lost, hardships abounded, but overall, those Bermuda castaways lived an easy and worry-free existence when compared with the trans-Atlantic crossers from the other ships that actually arrived at their destination.  The Jamestown settlers were suffering through the "Starving Time" while the two small ships were being readied and stocked in Bermuda. 

When the pinnacles Deliverance and Patience arrived in Jamestown in May of 1610, laden with food and supplies they had gathered from Bermuda, their arrival was viewed as a miracle.  The souls on board the Sea Venture were thought to have been lost so to have them arrive bearing desperately needed food was a remarkable sight indeed. The experiences of the Sea Venture's crew were sent in reports to England and were distributed widely in London.  One person who was very interested in the account of the Sea Venture was William Shakespeare who, it is believed, utilized many of these real-life experiences as a foundation for his fictional play The Tempest.

You can read about the whole adventure in Hobson Woodward's book:  A Brave Vessel: The true tale of the castaways who rescued Jamestown and inspired Shadespeare's THE TEMPEST.

 
I read this book with my book club.  We enjoyed it very much.  The best parts are surely the adventurous parts surrounding the hurricane and life in Bermuda! 


Less than two years after his arrival at Jamestown, Stephen Hopkins returned to England because his wife had died and he was needed to care for his young children.  His previous experience in America was most likely the reason he joined (or was recruited to join) the passengers on the Mayflower a few years later. He was not traveling to America with his family to find religious freedom as the Pilgrims were.  The knowledge Steven Hopkins gained while in Bermuda and Jamestown was seen as a great asset to a group of religious separatists who had never been outside of Europe.  Steven Hopkins saw it as an opportunity for a better life for both himself and his family.  With that hope, Steven, his second wife and their family became passengers of the Mayflower.

Upon his arrival in Plymouth, Stephen Hopkins was chosen as the first mayor and also an ambassador to Indian relations.  One of his house guests you might recall - Squanto.   Yes, that Squanto!

For more information about Stephen Hopkins, you can read:   Here Shall I Die Ashore: STEPHEN HOPKINS: Bermuda Castaway, Jamestown Survivor, and Mayflower Pilgrim

It is a great read about an interesting, important man in American history!  I am so excited that my children are related to him!  His life is a great example of perseverance in the face of adversity!  

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Thanks for visiting!