Category Archives: kitchen crafty

Time Enough At Last

kitchen crafty

Now that my semester and my college career is finally over, I now have time to devote to some crafty experimentation.

This weekend, I believe I will make ice cream. So challenging I know. I found a recipe for malt flavored ice cream using not malt powder but real malt…stuff. You know, like Whoppers. We’ll see how it goes. I also want to try a dulce de leche with swirls of the sticky stuff through out. I don’t see that going well, but I’ll try.

Crafty Update

kitchen crafty
  1. Meringue cookies: SUCCESS! They were pretty damn good!
  2. Jam/jelly: 4 dozen so far. Double berry sangria, pomegranate-cherry, apple pie (with real apples…looks like applesauce 🙁 ), and a pomegranate-cherry-Christmas Wine one.
  3. Bourbon caramel sauce: That shit takes too long to make. Maybe next year. When I have more time. (wheee!)
  4. 3 flavors of marshmallows: SUCCESS! The last batch of chocolate ones that I took to work were described as tasting like Count Chocula without the milk.
  5. Chocolate Cherry Bourbon bark: meh. The cherries were too wet and cause the chocolate to look like it was moldy. The second batch seized so bad I tossed it. I might try again with slightly better directions.
  6. Honey Caramels: Nope. didn’t even try.

Now here is a list of stuff I did manage to get right that I hadn’t planned to do:

  1. 3 batches of fudge. I might make more since I have more chips. It’s quick and easy and people seem to like it okay.
  2. A Longhorn patterned no sew fleece throw. I made one for my mom in Cowboys pattern a couple of years ago. I swore I would never make another. Apparently I lied. My back still aches. Those things take minimum two hours to make for an adult sized one. I think I’ll move on to making baby blankets. Or pillows.

So..two is not really a list, huh. I plan on making more jams/jellies because I ran out of time and got started way late this year. I’m going to experiment with IKEA juice drink concentrates. Ooooohhh…

It must be Christmas Time…

kitchen crafty, , ,

Because I apparently really only update this thing at Christmas. Ugh.

So, I did indeed strain my infusions, sweetened two of them and set them all to age. They will be bottled for presents. They look quite festive. I also discovered a large Svedka bottle of raspberry-apricot infused vodka in the back of the pantry. The raspberries were infused LAST YEAR and the apricots I added in January ans strained sometime earlier this year. Oh and there was a jar of apricot infused vodka. Dunno what the hell to do with any of this. I make stuff and either don’t eat/drink it or just give it away blindly. Who knows if people even like these experiments.

Anyway, on to the other kitchen stuff. This season I have on my list to make:

  1. Meringue cookies (another experiment. Never made them before)
  2. 3 types of jam/jelly with a variety of fruit. 2 is a variety, right?
  3. Bourbon caramel sauce (again, an experiment)
  4. 3 flavors of marshmallows
  5. Chocolate Cherry Bourbon bark (experiment. recipe includes the lines “hat bourbon you drained off? Swig that shit.” Yeah.)
  6. Honey Caramels. I have not yet decided if I’m going to do this one.

So yeah. And I haven’t ordered my jars yet. I may just deal with the regular canning jars from the grocery store this year. It’s about what’s inside, not the outside. Yeah. That’s it.

Infusions

kitchen crafty

I have a lot of herbs. I planted 3 types of basil (I only count one maybe two that have survived. tip: don’t use popsicle sticks as markers) and I don’t use a lot of basil. In fact, I don’t know of anyone outside of the country of Italy that would use this much basil. So I decided I had to do something. I made Lime-cello last Christmas (went over quite well) and I heard I could do the same with herbs. Herbs have a far shorter infusion time (36 hours instead of 6 month for fresh fruit). So. Here I am. Veritable small hills of basil, mint, and lemon verbena (the hell do you do with verbena??) and a Spec’s nearby. 100 proof vodka and Everclear in hand, I made up some infusions. So far:

  • 1 12oz jar of Everclear + Lemon Verbena (it turned green in 4 hours)
  • 1 12 oz jar of Basil + Everclear (again, green in 4 hours)
  • 1 12 oz of Basil + vodka (not as vibrant green in a day)

This was done Sunday. I still have not strained out the herbs. why? LAZY. I will do it tonight and probably won’t sweeten it until it’s aged up a bit. I dunno. Sugar is cheap.

Jams!

kitchen crafty

Cherries were on sale a couple of weeks ago. I made 4 12oz and 5 1oz jars of nice cherry jam! No pictures. Of course. Because this is the poor neglected bastard blog.

That week I also made 3 quart jars of pickles from cucumbers I got at the farmers’ market. Two jars were kosher dills from a recipe I found online (using fresh dill and a bit of basil from my garden) and one was kosher dill with a bit of curry powder. We’ll see how those turn out

Holiday Recap

kitchen crafty

I know I know I know. I was bad. I didn’t update my holiday crafty crap like I said I would. So here’s a recap with pictures:

  1. Lime-cello
  2. Cherry Bourbon
  3. Cucumber Gin
  4. 3 batches of honey caramels
  5. 6 dozen jellies/jams (yes, dozen)
  6. 3 batches of marshmallows
  7. 2 batches of fudge
  8. 3 jars of pickles
  9. 1 jar of pickled asparagus
  10. 2 jars of pickled green beans
  11. 2 batches of fruit cakes (6 mini loaves each)

More Progress

kitchen crafty

11-6 weekend:

  • 2 batches of caramels
  • fruitcake recipe #2  (less dried fruits, more candied traditional fruits)
  • 2 batches of prickled green beans
  • 1 batch of pickled asparagus
  • lime vodka infusion sweetened to make it limcello.

11-13 weekend goals:

  • *drumroll please*  JELLY!

Between this, homework for two classes, and a project; it’s gonna be a long weekend.

Oh Lord

kitchen crafty

53 pounds of canning jars and other assorted packaging is motoring (i’ll be damned if I splurge for air shipping for some jars!) its way here. 53 pounds. 2 boxes.

Also, just ordered 1.5 pounds of vanilla beans. WHO NEEDS THAT MANY VANILLA BEANS?? Not all for me though.