Homemade Vanilla Extract

I learned from a friend about how to make my own vanilla extract. Since she's a world class cook and hostess, I took her seriously: she makes yummy desserts with this!

The instructions are simple:

1. Buy a fifth of vodka (cheap vodka will do; all it's doing is preserving and delivering the vanilla flavor. (I soaked the label off: it looks better.)
2. Add four or five vanilla beans. 
3. Wait three or four months. 

This is one month old, now. It should be ready around Thanksgiving. 750 ml of good real vanilla extract for $18.00 (if you get your vanilla beans at the Food Co-op in town).

I'm making lots of ice cream recently, and that's using a lot of vanilla. I like this!

Fall Harvest Into the Dehydrators

I decided to dehydrate some of the root veggies.

These are our epic carrots. We grew yellow carrots this year. Decided to shred some & dehydrate 'em.

These are your basic potatoes.

The method: wash 'em, julienne them (thank you, Cuisinart!), blanch 'em (boil 'em for 2 minutes), spread 'em on paper towel in the dehydrator.

Note: I varied the paper towels: one had a vent hole in the middle; the next had vent space around the paper towel.

I grew a bunch of purple potatoes this year. They are making pretty interesting shreddies.

LESSON LEARNED: NEVER USE PAPER TOWELS FOR POTATOES; CAN'T SEPARATE THEM WHEN THEY'RE DRY.



I did some sweet potatoes at the same time.

And I did one pumpkin (Japanese pumpkin, from German seeds).

These are going to make some awfully good soup!

All three dehydrators are full. It makes me happy.

Some Fall Harvesting.

I'd say that the carrots did better than we expected.

In addition, I dehydrated & ground the dill, tarragon, and a good bit of basil.Working on a double batch of peppers, which will be several kinds of pepper powder.

Made a boatload of pesto. I freeze it in ice cube rays. Have made with goat cheese for the cow-dairy-free people in my life.

We planted a good batch of wormwood today.

It's supposed to be a good insecticide, and it will be useful to a friend of mine who makes absinthe. 

And this is mugwort. First cousin to wormwood, it's medicinal, and it's also for a friend. But tea made from this herb is supposed to give you good dreams.

Ready for an Omlette

There's not much better than coming home to this every afternoon.

These ladies are hard working girls!

Morning & afternoon, I give them scraps from the garden. Special occasions (barbecues?) gets them scraps from the table.

Other than that, it's just chicken feed & water.

And who knew how affectionate chickens could be? Weird, eh?

Peppers

Note to self. When you spend the evening cutting and grilling ten pounds (!) of peppers, do not then rub that tender place on your cheek, or wipe your eyes, until after you have carefully scrubbed your hands. Repeatedly. Use nitrile gloves next time!

The peppers, now well roasted, went into the dehydrators.  24 hours later (active dehydrators), we ground them into powder.
 
Some mild ones: bell peppers and Anaheim. The other batch is made up of serrano, poblano and jalapeño. Got some oregano done while we were at it. 

Might consider a respirator for the grinding process next time.  

Good spices.

Early Fall Harvesting

This is maybe a quarter of the squash.

Zucchini, of course. The white ones are pattypan. The yellow crookneck are self evident.

The big orange ones are interesting. It's apparently a Japanese pumpkin, which we discovered in Germany. We brought some seeds home with us. They're prolific.

Harvesting the first couple tater towers.

I did not plant them right. I should have let the seed taters get started, developing eyes. I didn't do that. As a result, the harvest was fairly wimpy.

This is the first part of the harvest. I was hoping for twice this or more. 

And just a sampling of some of the 'maters and cukes.

Building the Drainfield

We needed to build a drainfield. It's for the water that doesn't end up in the rainbarrel.

So we ran a drainpipe over to the garden, dug a hole, and filled it with rock.

Danny dug it pretty deep. 

For the record, the drainfield works perfectly.