Easy-peasy. That's what this is.
But, and there is always a but, you gotta wait for it. A couple of months but it's really, really worth it.
Grab a bunch of vanilla beans, make a slit lengthwise on the bean, and throw them in a bottle of vodka. That's the easy-peasy part I mentioned. Then, put the bottle in a cool, dry place and forget about it. That is the "but" part of this process... the waiting game. Go check on it once in a while, give it a shake and put it back. The longer you leave it, the more infused the vodka will get with vanilla and the richer the color will get.
When I get half way through the first bottle, I start another one and then I always have vanilla extract ready.
I think next time I will substitute the alcohol with rum or a whisky.
Tip: Don't throw those vanilla beans out! Scrape out the insides and use them to make a delicious dessert or
Vanilla Bean Ice Cream as they still have a lot of flavour.
Or allow the beans to air dry and pop them into a container with white sugar. Vanilla sugar is so heavenly scented and doing it yourself saves you plenty of pennies, since vanilla sugar can be somewhat costly at the grocery store.
I have several herbs that come back every year throughout my garden beds. This year, my peppermint patch has been pretty hardy even with the late start to spring.
Nothing gets me more annoyed than the yogurt aisle at the grocery store. I am a label reader and you can spend a lot of time at the yogurt section (and I have), sifting from one brand to the other, only to realize most of it just another variety of the same thing. Crap. Yes. crap I say.
Looking at a 125g single serving containers of your typical fruit yogurt, you will probably have 20 grams of sugar. A yogurt of that serving size would probably have 8g of that sugar being lactose (1.5g - 4g lactose in a greek/balkan yogurt variety) so that leaves a remainder of 12 grams of sugar left. 1 tsp of sugar = 4 grams so that my friend is
3 TEASPOONS of sugar in that little single serve container you send to school for your kids. Capiche? You are better off buying a balkan/greek non-flavored yogurt and adding jam yourself. I have a jam in my fridge right now that says 3 tsp is 4 grams of sugar, which is a far cry from 12 grams. Plus, I wouldn't be adding 3 tsp of jam to that little amount of yogurt but we never bat an eye when packing those little containers into our lunchbags.
I also have a problem with all the lowfat yogurts. I personally think it's important that children get enough fat in their diet and it is hard to find amongst the sea of 0% milk fat yogurts. When you remove the fat, you need to fill it with something else and as I mentioned in the above paragraph, that is often sugar. Also, when there is no fat, your yogurt is not very thick so that is when the yogurt ingredients get longer with things like gelatin, cornstarch, carageenan or guar gum or extra milk solids. I sit there scratching my head wondering, is there any yogurt in here anymore?
One last thing I will gripe about and then I will get off my soapbox: Yogurt is expensive! I buy a lot of it every week and I usually pay more because I buy the plain greek yogurts. A 500mL tub usually costs me about $3.50-$4! If you make your own yogurt, to yield 500mL you will need about 1 litre of milk. I buy 4L jugs of milk for about $5 so that is about $1.25 of milk used.
Interested in making your own? The yogurt I made came out pretty thick and we were all really happy with the results. I used plain 2% greek yogurt as a starter so there was a slight tang. Make sure you find a starter with active bacteria cultures listed on the ingredients. After you make your first batch, you can use it as the starter for your next batch.
I'm not swearing off buying grocery store yogurt but I will definitely be making more of my own yogurt since it is easy to do.
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I have to admit, I thought making pumpkin puree would be hard. Thoughts of laboriously peeling the tough pumpkin or squash skin kept coming to my mind but with this approach, there is no need. In all factuality, it was quite easy. It also reminded me of the days of making baby food for my children.
Cut, Scrape, Roast, Scoop, Puree. That is all there is to it.
I'm thinking that squash or pumpkin puree would be the savory counterpart to applesauce. Applesauce is used to cut down fat in recipes by substituting part of the oil or butter with it. It also helps to moisten and more nutrition in recipes. I think squash or pumpkin puree can do that too.
Another great thing about the puree is that you can freeze it. I have put mine into freezer bags and will be pulling it out for later use.
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Squash or Pumpkin Puree
Cut the squash or pumpkin in half and using a spoon, scrape out all the seeds and strings.
In a roasting pan, put the squash/pumpkin cut-side down. Fill the pan with about 1 inch of water.
Roast for 1-1/2 hours at 350F. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely.
Using a spoon, scrape out the insides into a food processor. Discard the skin.
Puree the pumpkin until fine. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator until needed or freeze in freezer bags for later usage.
I have no idea how grocery stores keep their strawberries or other berries looking fresh without them developing mold or getting soft so quickly. Never fails, when I buy a big batch of strawberries, there are always casualties by the next day. Either they shrink a bit and become soft, with their skins looking unappetizing, or a few start a mold science experiment by the next day. I hate throwing out berries I just bought.
So, I have made the no-waste berry challenge this year. I'm going to prolong my berry eating, without waste with two easy techniques.
Freezing and Macerating.
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Freezing:
Why let berries go bad when you can freeze a bunch for those winter days? I froze the bulk of my fresh raspberries last year and enjoyed them all winter long. I made shakes, pies or just enjoyed them over pancakes whenever I wanted. So fantastic when you are craving some tasty fruit.
Freezing is simple enough. Wash your berries or fruits and let them dry. Remove any stems, pits and hull your strawberries. Cut them into any desired size or leave them whole. Line a wax paper in a baking pan and arrange your berries, keeping space between them. Pop them in the freezer. Once frozen, you can put them into freezer bags and since they are frozen individually, you can take out as little or as many as you wish later on.
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Macerating:
I often macerate my fresh fruits and berries. It's a delicious way to prolong the fresh berry eating. I often eat my macerated fruit over ice cream, use it on pancakes or my yogurt or just even eat them like that.
Wash all your fresh fruit and cut them into your desired sizes. Place them in a bowl, sprinkle them with sugar and mix. With a little time, the fruits release their juices and makes it very flavourful. I then pop it into the fridge and use it up within a couple of days. It's an easy technique that prevents any berries being thrown out.
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Both these techniques can be used for all sorts of berries and fruits. I often mix up different fruits together too. Good luck!
I used to would avoid cutting onions whenever I could. I love onions but the stinging and crying was just unbearable for me. I don't know if my eyes were just more sensitive to it but I just hated it. Hated it. Wouldn't you avoid the feeling of little daggers in your eye?
I've spent many years trying all the tips and techniques and I call bullshit on them. Pardon my "french" but most of those techniques just don't work. Lets run through a list, shall we?
- Use a sharp knife to prevent slicing as many of the cells within the onion that cause the stinging reaction. - Uh, what?!? Onions cells are about 75 micrometers or 0.075 mm. That is small. A sharper knife will reduce how many cells from being broken? Not enough for me. I had new sharp knives to test try and it did nada in helping ease the crying and screaming (from me, not the onion). If this was the case, you might as well just forgo dicing or mincing your onions, which is how I need them most of the time. The more cuts, the more pain! Better just throw the thing in whole in your recipe - maybe that's a better tip.
- Cut your onions under running water. Oh sure, why don't I just hunch over the sink and try not to cut off a finger while the water is running. Maybe I'll dream of waterfalls while I give my onion a bath and lose a diced onion or two down the drain along with a fingertip, but maybe I'll cry less. Don't think it's worth it. Not very practical.
- Cut the onions fast - No kidding? Well, what do you think I'm doing? After the second cut, I start feeling the stinging setting in. After dicing a whole onion, it has taken me a good 20 minutes to recover, if not more. I'm literally blind because I can't open my eyes from the pain and I have once run into a wall running away from the devilishly laughing onion.
- Wear goggles or eye protection. -Why don't you also take out your swimsuit and flippers while you're at it? Pina Colada anyone? I'm sure I'd cut off a fingertip due to lost peripheral vision of my goggles. Does anyone really do this? Anyone??? Maybe I should look into patenting some onion goggles.
- Chew gum - Whoever came up with this idea must have an IQ of an ass or works for Wrigley's or Trident. Just you wait, commercials will be coming our way with 9 out of 10 chef's recommending chewing said gum while chopping onions.
So what tip or technique do I have for you today? It's super simple.
Put the onion to cool in the refrigerator.
Yes, that's all.
A cool onion never makes my eyes hurt or water. It's divine. I always have one or two in my vegetable drawer of my fridge and now I never have tears in the kitchen, except for tears of joy.
You'll thank me if you don't already know this tip.
You are welcome.
Power to the people.
When I was in University, I spent 4 years working part-time at a Baskin Robbins. With time, I learned to decorate cakes and this wonderful tip when filling the icing bag.
I make up the icing in a bowl and then pull out a rectangular piece of plastic wrap. Then I add icing to the middle. Proceed to fold over the plastic wrap, leaving a small opening at one end for the icing to go through and twist off the other end.
Then, you drop the icing into the white icing bag, with the opened side going in first. It's ready to go. When you run out of icing, you just pull out the emptied plastic wrap and pop in a new bag.
A LOT less mess and easy to use. Good luck :)
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Do you have any good tips or techniques?
Send them to me at oomelement (at) gmail (dot) com and I'll post them.
