Homemade Vanilla Extract

A few weeks ago, Jace and I received 8 vanilla beans in our Bountiful Baskets food co-op order for the week. Since we never know what we're going to get, I was challenged to find something amazing to do with these delicious pods. I'd never dealt with vanilla beans before, and was somewhat intimidated to make an extract, but had a gorgeous bottle, just waiting for some love.

Homemade Vanilla Extract:
1- Small Bottle of GOOD vodka (you can use the cheap stuff, but again, isn't the point here to make yummy, better-than-store-bought extract?
1- Pretty, air tight, clear bottle. (The prettier the better).
5-8 Vanilla Beans

Step 1: Slice the vanilla beans lengthwise and remove the beans from the pods. The vanilla beans I had did not have large beans, so I ended up keeping most of the beans in there. If you choose to do this, just be prepared to strain through a cheesecloth in a few months once your extract is ready.

Step 2: Place your beans into the bottle. 

Step 3: Using a funnel, pour your vodka into the air-tight bottle with the beans.

Step 4: Label for 4 months later. (The extract takes about 4 months before it is fully cured, so labeling helps you remember when it is "good". Within one week, your bottle will smell of pure vanilla, so you can't just go off of smell :)

Step 5: 4 months later- enjoy. You also just saved yourself a ton of money, and have pure, real vanilla extract. Start baking!


Simple, easy-peasy,  and super yummy.

Until next time,
Cassandra

Composting, Co-oping, and self-sufficent living in Utah..

Believe it or not, there comes a time when you realize there is such a thing as too large a shoe or purse collection. Follow me here, because I don't think I've completely delved into delusion yet. I'm not necessarily sure if I've fully reached this point in my life, but I certainly have started to look for something more significant and sustainable. I received a gift card for Christmas, and like any self-respecting woman would, immediately jumped onto Amazon.com to look at shoes (you can't blame a girl for trying).. and yet, nothing resonated.
For some reason, I looked up from my keyboard, and found I was looking at tumbling composters... Really Cassandra? Tumbling composters? Wow. How the mighty have fallen. A few years ago, you would have bought a pair of designer sunglasses and called it a day. What is happening to me? Wait, did I just ORDER that composter? AND a book?! The joys of composting? Oh God, it's a downward spiral.
I'm excited to embrace a more sustainable lifestyle. Where did this come from?   I'll be honest, some of this came from living in Utah... but I place most of the blame on my future mother in law. Year after year, she pumps me full of ridiculously delicious homemade canned goods from the farm. Wait--You mean I can just go out to the garage and grab beans, fresh from the farm? In December with 3 feet of snow outside?  Organic beef that I know every single step of how it was raised, and how it made it's way onto my table? Corn so sweet and delicious, having never been touched by a pesticide? Oh my God... I'm a farm-fresh junkie. Give me the good stuff. Give it to me now, and no one gets hurt. If slow food is a drug, my mother in law is my pusher man......
So. Now I've certainly been bitten by this bug. I want to know where my food comes from. I want to spend my grocery budget supporting local farmers and businesses, and people who are interested in keeping food local. I want to dabble in this through food co-ops and composting to make my garden this year great. I found a great link through the Slow Food Utah page, "http://bountifulbaskets.org/", and will be trying it out this weekend.

My composter arrives next week, and I've picked up a few books to help get me started:
"The Urban Homestead" by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen.
and
"Your farm in the city" By Lisa Taylor.
I'm filling my cranium with as much garden knowledge as humanly possible in the desperate hope that this years bounty will resemble more of a bounty, and less of a morsel. Admittedly, ending the season holding the single, small pumpkin I managed to grow, up to the sunshine with tears in my eyes, (tears of joy.. thank you very much)... was probably not my finest moment; but a learning experience I truly needed. I learned that a garden cannot grow on love alone.. and that sometimes you honestly, truly just need some crap.

=)

Brown paper packages tied up with strings...These are a few of my favorite links...

In the quest to find some great inspiration for both my home, and my life, I have dug through countless websites and looked at goodness knows how many different great webpages. There are a handful, however, that I visit quite regularly- and wanted to share them with you. I'm also excited to post next week part one of my Christmas project. I will be making ALL of my Christmas gifts this year, and am determined to have them be amazing!

One Kings Lane: Amazing Ideas

Sweet Pickins: A local Utah furniture refinisher- (cute, cute, cute!)

Home Talk: GREAT feedback and tips from people who have done it themselves. I have gotten ideas for everything from composting to painting..

Happy Hunting!
-Cassandra

Our Engagements and the "Kitchen facelift" project

I've been frantically knocking projects off the to-do list, as though I am being chased by a tornado. This is half accurate, as the weather will soon turn and I won't be able to accomplish much in terms of reno. With Jace and I's wedding coming up in 9 months, we simply don't have the option to redo our kitchen the way I would really like it. I envision a complete demo and rebuild. This is financially about 5 years out for us right now, so I HAD to do something to the kitchen to make it work. (Side note: I cook between 10-20 meals a week in my kitchen, and am most certainly one of "those" people, where I feel the kitchen should be the focal point of the upstairs. In our forever home, I would love a large open concept kitchen with an island that has bookshelves on the side, power, and a small sink... THAT project is probably 10 years out, haha!)
Since work has been quite busy as of late, I have been staining a few kitchen doors at a time. I will take photos next week, and can't wait to share the redo. It isn't a full renovation, but what I'm calling a "kitchen facelift". Just what the cabinets needed before heading into the busy cooking season of Utah winter, holidays, and many nights gathered talking around the kitchen with a glass of wine and great friends.

Until then, I wanted to share the great photos our wedding photographer took for Jace and I for our engagements. We had such fun taking them! Sometimes I'm not sure how I got to be so lucky.. to be marrying my prince charming, and have an absolutely blessed life. Also, I turned 30 yesterday, and am excited to be starting this new chapter of my life. :)

-Cheers!     xoxo- Cassandra

In love with barn wood....

I have been having an affair for over six months now. Before you go and call my Fiance, let me explain------it's with a table. I've been wanting to replace the four-seater pub table that followed me through college as our dining table since I purchased my home last year. I was uncertain as to what I really wanted until I first noticed her as a centerfold in a magazine about six months ago.. There she was, gloriously displayed in all her natural beauty in Ballard Design. Her table piece set with elegantly glowing candles, mason jars, and shells- set with high overstuffed chairs against a slate gray wall and crystal draping chandelier. I instantly fell in love. There was something so intoxicating about old reclaimed barn wood, delicate linens, and beautiful Hydrangeas. Like most celebrity love affairs, I knew mine too, would never come true.. as this table was nearly three thousand dollars. .... You can stop a girl from buying a table... but you can't stop her from dreaming of it!

I thought as the use of reclaimed barn wood began to take center stage in home decor, that surely somehow, somewhere, I could find something in my budget. I felt like Goldilocks looking at tables--Some were too big, some too small, some too light, some not right. I dug out that issue of Ballard Design several months later for inspiration and had an astonishing find: The table I had been dreaming of the past few months in my mind looked NOTHING like the one I had first been inspired by.  I had concocted a fictitious table in my mind.. One that was perfectly suited to meet the needs of my fiance and I (and our future needs),  One that could take a beating and still be as stunning as the day I took her home... I soon realized this table did not exist in any store, and if I wanted my dream table, I was going to have to build it.

At first I thought perhaps I could build it myself, as I'm rather handy, and certainly persevering enough. However, purchasing reclaimed barn wood is akin to getting a pair of authentic new Christian Louboutin's for 20 bucks. It just wasn't going to happen. Apparently hijacking a derelict barn for wood in Utah is frowned upon, and although I love barn wood, I doubt a criminal record of trespassing and unlawful destruction of property would make a nice addition to my resume.  Not to mention I have never built anything from scratch using a saw and wood.. and I happen to have penchant for all ten of my fingers, thank you very much.

I came across an ad in the local newspaper from an artist who creates picnic tables using reclaimed barn wood. I sent her all the photos I could get my hands on, of wood colors, of table shapes, of legs shapes, you name it. She told me she could craft it for me in my budget and I'm fairly certain I quite literally jumped for joy. Jace and I went and picked out the wood from the pieces she had at her house, we saw other pieces she had created, and we knew... this is our shot. I had complete faith that she would create the table of my dreams... and low and behold, she exceeded them.

My table made it to my house today, and seeing it for the first time... I am in LOVE! This table will last us through any twists and turns that life may provide down the road, whether that be children, dogs, family dinners, holidays.. you name it. The knots and marks in the wood are amazing, and you can still see traces of the paint on the edges on the wood from the old barn. Not to mention the F-U-N I will have decorating my table for every holiday and occasion. So, in the end, I ended up with an amazing, hand-crafted, unique piece.. I will relish telling everyone the story of this table, and cherish that this old barn became my newest addiction.

Enjoy. xoxo---- Cassandra