Crafty Gift Idea # 4 - Homemade Vanilla Extract

Believe it or not, but vanilla extract is unbelievably easy to make! And it is a great gift for the bakers in your life. All you gotta do is get a few vanilla beans (I use about 8 beans for 4 oz of extract), put them in a small jar and fill it with vodka or bourbon. Wait about a month, maybe swirl it around every few days, and it should be ready. As you use the vanilla, you can fill it with more alcohol. Or if you need a vanilla bean for a dessert, you can pluck one out and use the seeds. If you keep adding more alcohol and beans as you use them, you will have extract for years.

And if you happen to have extra vanilla beans, you can actually make vanilla sugar in much the same way. Take a bean, some sugar, put together in an airtight jar. Wait a couple weeks, remove bean, presto! Vanilla sugar. So simple.

Bread Machines - Worthwhile Labor Saving Devices

As a recently married person, I have acquired quite a few domestic tools to assist me with my newfound domestic duties. (All of which I requested of course, the tools and the duties) And while generally I like to do things the old-school way, baking bread has never been my forte.

So I must say, the bread machine that we received is far and away my favorite of all my labor saving devices. I have tried (and failed) to make fresh bread without this magical tool. The result was very dense, could probably be used as a cinder block, and I gave up trying to fix it. (Though it did make pretty good French toast)

It is hard to fail with a bread machine. I've started using it 2-3 times a week making everything from white bread to French bread to whole wheat to pizza dough. It may not have the romance of being elbow deep in flour with small children standing on a stool and trying to knead with you. But I can set it up within ten minutes, set a timer, go to work, and come home to fresh bread. Which is pretty freaking sweet. Plus, it allows you to actually know what is going into your bread. After all, do you really know what they put into Wonderbread?

Of course, if you are already talented in bread machine-free bread making, you are already deeply blessed. But for others of you who think that baking bread is too difficult, you just haven't had the right tool. If you have the means and the space I would highly recommend acquiring one. I have the latest Cuisinart. And its pretty freaking awesome, I must say.

Most Beautiful Pizza Ever Created in the H&H House...

I know I posted this picture in my old blog, but I KEEP THINKING ABOUT IT. It was soooooo good! Had to post it again. Its just too pretty to disappear and be forgotton.

BBQ Chicken Pizza... from scratch! Nuff said.