Decision Made...Garden Ho!

 

After a week of yet another artic blast sending daytime and nighttime lows plummeting below freezing, I reached a decision about the garden. It's full steam ahead with seed starting this week. I just can't chance a long hot summer arriving too soon.

I've got some broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, napa, carrots, and onions planted into soil blocks. It's no where near what we'd need to be self sustainable, but it's something. Yes, I'm trying for a spring planting of my cabbages this year. I've ordered row covers to help protect them from the moths. I'm shooting for a 35% of our needs. That will be a pretty good start for these new sustainably bound crops. I rarely plant brassicas because the in season price makes it unnecessary. But things change and times are demanding I rethink this. I'd rather have some than none. If I get a fall season planting too, that'll increase our yield to 50%. 

The garlic and leeks beds have over wintered quite well under the thick hay mulch. As did the asparagus so far. I should be set at sustainable levels for garlic and leeks this year. I'll be dehydrating most of those harvests. I can always pull some up that have naturalized in the orchard area in a pinch. Oh, and all those yummy garlic scapes to cook with. I'll have to share a recipe with y'all for them on a Wednesday entry when it's time to harvest some in May.

We are watching and waiting for the chickens to start their spring laying glut of eggs. We are down to eight hens now. It's been a rough winter for them. At the peak of summer they numbered twenty-two. Mel is so fed up that she's lost interest in chicken farming as an income producer for the homestead. All the hens that went broody last year are dead so it will be interesting if any of the others will go broody this year. Now that Big Red, Rhode Island Red rooster, is entering his 4th year on this earth it'll be interesting to see if he's still fertile. I'll decide next month whether I want to bother and order some new chickens.  They won't start laying until summer. I still think it's good idea.

The quail are doing fabulous. We are now fully self sustainable in the little, dark meat birds in eggs and meat with just 25 quail for the two of us. In the spring, I may bump up their numbers to 50 and try to sell the eggs, hatching eggs, and breeding quads (3 hens and 1 roo).  I may just look into being certified for selling across state lines, but then again the way things started out last year and are continuing this year, I may do well just selling them in my five county area too. I wonder if the local livestock market will be open this year? They suspended all auctions last year because of the virus. But, there's always Craig's List. Or, I can just be happy that I'm self sustainable in one meat product.

Anyhow, I just thought you'd like to know what we're up to this week.

Y'all have a blessed day!

Cockeyed Jo

Cooking with Chef Jo: The BOB of the Cookbook & Italian Wedding Soup

BOB refers to the back of the book  Of course, I'm talking about the cookbook I've been compiling for the past four years. The last section has to be written out of the cookbook  I have to work on is my seasoning blends and dry mixes. I still need some goodies for the sweets section too, but otherwise I'm finished with compiling the recipes. The canning and preserving section is huge! It's been a long process with taking pictures taking the longest. There's almost 300 recipes by the time I called a halt to it. (over 160 published here on Wednesdays) This has been a true labor of love. Scratch cooking and baking at it's best from my homestead perspective.

I probably have a few hundred or more recipes and how-tos left in my brain for at least another cookbook or two. You can't have worked in food service, globe trotted, or listened for decades to older folks without collecting a recipes or two along the way after 60+ years on this planet. Yeah right, who am I kidding! Who would want another cookbook? Would you pay for an e-book or printed volume when you can just download 80% of the recipes from this area for free? Maybe my children would want a copy or my grandchildren if nothing else for posterities sake. Still there might be someone out there who might be interested in it. Who am I to deny them?

I haven't even started on the cover nor have I come up with a title as yet. I'm not sure what to do for the either. I figure our logo should be on it, but that's as far as I've gotten with it. This is totally unlike my previous writing experiences. n those cases the title and cover popped into my head while writing and in some cases before the story was story boarded. I'm tempted to do a plain background with our logo and just let it go. Whether I add colors to it...I dunno. I'm not as creative nor fru-fru as I once was. I also don't have my drawing software on this HP Stream either.

Now for the recipe I promised, Italian Wedding Soup. Most people find it daunting, but really it's quite easy especially if you've canned the meatballs previously. That's what I'm serving for dinner tonight along with some crusty garlic bread.

Italian Wedding Soup

Serves 6

What you'll need

1 TBS olive oil

1 1/2 c diced carrots, diced 1/4"*

1 1/2 c diced onions, diced 1/4"*

3/4 c diced celery including leafy green leaves, diced 1/4"*

5 pints chicken bone broth, or regular chicken broth

1 pint jar mini meatballs, if not see below for a recipe*

1 c orzo pasta

1/2 c dry white wine, such as a Chardonnay

2 tsp minced garlic

12 oz fresh spinach, escarole, or other tender green, chopped into 2" pieces

1/2 tsp dried basil

Parmesan Cheese for service

Notes=* I use the small grate on my Vidalia Onion chopper to make short work of chopping my vegetables a uniformed size.

* On average of 4-5 meatballs per serving. What can I say, I cram those little suckers in a pint jar. 😂

Putting it all together

• Drain the meatballs in a colander. Reserve the beef broth for another application.
• In a stock pot add the oil and bring up to heat, almost to smoking point.
• Add onions, garlic, carrots, and celery to the pot.
• Allow to sauté until onions are translucent.
• Pour in stock wine, and basil. 
• Allow the soup to simmer for twenty minutes.
• Add pasta, spinach, and meatballs to the soup. Cover and allow to get happy for 10 minutes at a simmer.
• Serve with freshly grated Parmesan cheese for service.

If you have not made meatballs previously, you'll need to make some for this soup.

You'll need

3/4 lb ground beef

1/2 lb ground chicken

2/3 c bread crumbs

2 tsp garlic, minced fine

3 TBS dried Parsley

1/2 c Parmesan/Romano cheese, grated

3 TBS milk

1/2 tsp basil

1 egg, beaten

salt and pepper to taste

Putting it together

• In a bowl, place the bread crumbs and milk with the beaten egg. Allow 5 minutes to soak up all the milk/egg mixture.
• Place all ingredients into the bowl and mix together thoroughly.
• Cover the bowl and refrigerate for 1 hour.
• Take a TBS scoop and form the meatballs. 
• Brown the meatballs in a skillet or in a 350℉ oven.
• 
  Add to the soup.

Serving suggestion- Add a tossed salad with an herb vinaigrette and a slice of crusty garlic bread for a balanced meal. My version is so hardy that there just isn't room in our tummies for salad too. By using my home canned meatballs, this recipe is a thirty minute fix and sit down to eat meal.

Y'all have a blessed day!

Chef Jo

Planting the In Ground: To Garden or Not to Garden

 I'm facing the dilemma I do every year at this time, to plant my garden or wait. The nights no longer fall below freezing, but the daytime highs are still low. I planted potatoes and carrots, and it snowed. I started seeds are the temperature plummeted to highs in the forties for a week. The days warm up to the 60's one week and then we get another artic blast come through. The weather has been predictably unpredictable.

I looked into buying heat mats to go under my transplant trays. Bot, they want a pretty penny for them, don't they? I'd need at least five for my lettuces and brassicas alone not to mention the electricity to run them. There's also no guarantee that they'd last over a year of seed starting. 

Grow lights are a different story. It's just a question of replacing tubes as they burn out. Not that those are cheap, but they seldom go out all at once either. In my experience one or two out of twenty-four bulbs will burn out a season and the starters will be replaced about every three years or so. So I get a whole lot of bang for my buck. But the warming mats, it's all enclosed so if a wire inside breaks there's no way to fix it short of cutting it open and try gluing or taping it back together ruining the waterproof nature of the product. Water and electricity shouldn't be mixed, right? Not without at a minimum of tripping the circuit breaker, nasty shocks, never working properly,  or causing a fire.  So, it's basically trash and there foes money down the drain. 

I have a healthy respect for electricity. This was reinforced by an incident I experienced as a young teen. I was helping the servants buff the terrazzo floors. I grabbed the power cord to move it out of the way as I buffed. Unknown to me, there was a break in the cord and the protective wire coating had worn off from I assume was running over the cord while buffing the floors. All 240 volts shot into my hand. My fingers tightened around the cord and I couldn't let go (darn reflexes). When I finally let go, my index  through the ring fingers  were burned almost down to the bone along the first joints. I was lucky. I could have died. To this day, I have minimal use of those three fingers because of the scars. It's a permanent reminder of how dangerous electricity can be even with the US's dialed down 110. 

I think I'll err with caution and wait until the end of March or April before I plant outdoors.

Y'all have a blessed day!

Cockeyed Jo

Cooking with Chef Jo: Cream of Anything Dry Soup Mix

 Have you ever notice how many recipes call for Cream of something soup? I usually keep my condensed cream of chicken and cream of mushroom soup canned (2 cases worth at all times in my food stores). I get nervous when I get below a case of my cream of anything soup gets low. The same thing goes for soup bases like poultry, beef, and vegetable.

Now being a scratch cook that makes her own bases, usually bone broths for the added minerals and vitamins, I spend hours making just these and canning them up because I love my body. My body, such as it is, is my temple for God. I take care of it the best I can. No MSG, low fat, low sodium, GMOs, and organic when I can get it. Read available and afford it. Not everything is this way, but I do try. By the same token, I'm not opposed to shortcuts like purchasing powdered bases and bouillons also in a pinch. This is the case with most of my dry mixes. Yes, I have access to a freeze dryer to make my own, but when averaging out the cost and time to make my own versus purchasing it, buying it in bulk wins.

This isn't my recipe, but it's pretty much standardized from many recipes. I make this up a quart jar at a time, then I'm less panicky when my food stores run low. If you have dehydrated vegetables and poultry on hand, then you can make Cream of anything soup by just adding water and a few extra ingredients to this base.

Dry Mix for Cream of Anything Soup

Makes Approximately 9 cups

What you'll need

2 c dry, whole milk (I use Hooiser Farms brand through Amazon)*

3/4 c cornstarch

2TBS onion powder

1/2 tsp black pepper

1/4 c chicken, beef, or vegetable bouillon*

1/4 tsp dried thyme

1/4 tsp parsley

2 tsp garlic powder (optional)

* Note- If you are watching your fat, you can substitute skim dry milk.

Can't decide what flavor to use, leave this out and add 1/2 tsp of base when you make a cup of soup. These recipes are pretty forgiving. 

Place in a quart jar and shake well. Store in cool, dark place.

Now how about some recipes on how to make a cup of soup? You know I wouldn't leave you hanging.

Cream of Chicken  Soup

What you'll need

1/3 c cream of Anything base

1 cup boiled water

1/2 tsp chicken bouillon if you didn't add it earlier

1 heaping TBS dried diced chicken or canned chicken

Putting it all together

• Add all ingredients in a small saucepan over medium heat.
• Stir well.
• Bring to a boil.
• Turn off the heat.
• Put lid on the pot and let steep for 5 minutes.
• Like a thicker soup? Return to low heat and stir until the soup reaches the desired consistency.

Cream of Celery Soup

What you'll need

1/3 cup of Anything Soup Base

1 cup water

1 heaping TBS dehydrated celery

1/2 tsp vegetable base, if not added to the mix

1/2 tsp celery seed, ground

Putting it together

Same directions as above.

Cream of Mushroom Soup

What you'll need

1/3 cup Anything Soup Base

1 cup water

1 heaping TBS dehydrated mushrooms, broken into small pieces

1/2 tsp either beef or vegetable base

Putting it together

Same instructions as above

Cream of Tomato Soup

I don't know about you, but I normally add milk to my tomato soup for the richer mouth feel.

What you'll need

1/3 cup of Anything Soup Base

1 cup of water

2 TBS tomato powder*

1 heaping TBS dried diced tomatoes

1/2 tsp vegetable or beef base if not added to the mix

1/4 tsp basil

*To make tomato powder, place dried tomatoes in a coffee grinder and pulse it until the pieces become powder.

Putting it together

See Cream of Chicken instruction.

The possibilities are endless. Cheese sauces, or casseroles, or have a different cream soup everyday for a month. Fix a sandwich and a small tossed salad for a complete, notorious lunch or dinner in a snap with this Cream of Anything Soup base in your pantry. There's no need to have to rush out to the grocery store for a can of Cream of Anything Soup because you forgot to pick some up.. Enjoy!

Y'all have a blessed day!

Chef Jo

Taking Down Time

HAPPY V-D!!!! 

With physical therapy twice  a week and doctor appointments in between, it seems like we're constantly on the go. I've been trying to get all my 6-month check ups over and done with before we get into planting season. The problem is that I've got -ologist-itis. I have an inflated amount of too many doctors and specialists. Seven doctors to be exact and counting. I remember to the old days when you had one doctor with yearning. So come the weekend, it's usually our downtime. No, doctor calls, no laboratory nor hospital calls etc. My phone doesn't ring unless it's a solicitation call or family. I simply ignore the solicitation calls. Thank God the elections are over with!!! I was getting texts and calls every other call.

So I'm taking my downtime very seriously. We'll sit in front of the wood stove to stay toasty warm as the cold of winter temperatures blow down into the hollar. The chickens have taken to roosting on the front porch. They'll wake and chortle at us each time we turn on the porch light to get an armload of wood to feed the wood stove. High today is 47℉. It's a far cry from last week's highs in the 70s. It's gonna be another cockeyed weather year again. No snow or days on end of of below freezing weather. It's strange for the northeast Georgia mountains. Of course, with no snow means rain and a lot of it. 

"Mel calls the chickens feathered raptors. They'll swamp your feet when they realize you are outside. They want to be fed. No matter if you fed them ten minutes ago, if you are outside you must be needing to feed them. They are almost comical as they run to greet you when you come up the driveway. Yes, they know our car. They stop short as you drive past them as you pull in. They'll swarm my feet as I get out of the car until Mel takes off to turn the car around. They'll stop swamping me and take off at a run again after the car. I'll hear Mel yelling at them to get away from underfoot as she makes her way up to the walk. If she's got groceries in the back of the car, it's "get out of my car!" and "No, this is not for you." or "Get out of that bag!" She'll slam the front door in their faces and lean on it, huffing and puffing. "Geez, this is ridiculous!"

I'd start, "Well, if you'd finish the chicken run..."

"Ah, shaddup!" This would be followed by her standard litany of excuses of why this hadn't been done yet. 

I had long since tuned her out. That's the problem with both of us having to break up our days with off site appointments. Not much gets done here with both of us off the homestead.

I'm still looking at purchasing a replacement truck for us. I refuse to take on car payments. So far, I've got about $2100 in the kitty ear marked for one. I was searching Craig's List the other day and thought I found one. 1987 Chevy Silverado pick up with 4wd for $800. It only took a couple emails with the owner to realize it was a scam. A real shame too. It was just like Mel's old truck except it was white and a few years older. It would have been perfect. Why do people feel they have to do this??? I just don't understand the pleasure they get out of doing this!

 So that's my news for the week, what's yours?

Y'all have a blessed day!

Cockeyed Jo

Cooking with Chef Jo: Menu Planning for a Year!!!!

Yeah, I'm kind of extreme like that. I used to plan my meals menus for breakfast, lunch, dinners and snacks. I drove myself nuts! Now, I've simplified my menu so much that I pretty well know what to fix on any given night of the year so I can plan a rough menu for a year with little or no trouble. This is extremely helpful when growing your own food comes into play.

It didn't take long for a patterns to emerge. Once a week, we'd do an Italian night. Items like Spaghetti, lasagna, Ravioli, pizza, etc. With that came the usual tossed salad and garlic breadsticks. Once a week, we have a seafood night. Fish, shrimp, or other seafood. Sunday meals was always a roast of some kind and there had to be a dessert planned. I usually planned for leftovers of Sunday's fare for at least another night. This could be either a just as it was or made into another dish (roast beef= hash). At least once a week we'd have soup/chili/stew and cheese toast as a crockpot (cook's day off) usually on Saturday. That's five dinners out of seven. so planning a week's menu were really a no brainer. 

Breakfast during the summer was always fresh fruit and yogurt or commercial cereals. During the winter it was grits or oatmeal with cinnamon and dried fruit. I make pancakes, French toast and waffles once a month and freeze the excess for sprinkling in during the month. Plus, I'll make cinnamon rolls, Danishes, air fryer fritters, and doughnuts when I feel froggy and have extra time. And, there's always the old favorite of bacon/sausage and eggs with potatoes or grits.

We'd fill in the rest of the week with a grazing night (lunch meat, crackers, cheese, and fruit) And, for me, an oriental food night. Now we'd do a chicken or quail night because we grow our own. We'd supplement lamb/mutton nights when available or beef dishes. Since I rotationally purchase sides of meat during the year, we have choices or alternate meal plans for what we have the most of.

Snacks are simple things like peanuts and M&Ms, or peanut/cheese crackers, or fruit and veggie sticks and dips. Lunches are also simple ranging from snacks or sandwiches. I usually make chicken, egg, or tuna salad each week or maybe deviled ham.

Every meal has at least on starch and two cooked vegetables. So with all of this in mind, planning a meals for a year is really a matter of plugging in what we want when. So planning for a year is not that big of a deal. 

In the spring (Mar-April)I'll buy half a lamb. This way I'll be able to have a leg for Easter. Lamb stew or Shepherd's Pie for St Patrick's Day. I'll corn a beef brisket in early spring or late fall for yummy corned beef during the year.  So I can can the brisket or better yet smoke it for Pastrami for delicious sandwiches later. Do you know you can make corned beef out of any thick cut of meat? Several times a year one of my local grocery stores will have a sale on London broil. I'll stock up on them. I'll make jerky, corned beef, and Pastrami with them too. Just because I buy my beef on the hoof doesn't mean I won't take advantage of a great sale during the year from time to time. So by extending my menu out over months, I can see what I'll need when.

When buying meats in bulk, I'm able to can about half of it freeing up freezer space. That's how I get away with having only two freezers. This way I don't risk my entire meat supply if we lose power for a long period of time. I'll partially thaw large beef or pork roasts, and cut them into bite sized pieces and can them.  Add a jar of mushrooms, onions, and egg noodles with yogurt and you have Beef Stronganoff in the time it takes the pasta to cook. Or, pulled pork BBQ sandwiches. It's fast food, but homemade goodness. I'll always have some room for the odd deer, rabbit, quail or, chicken. If I process these in bulk, I'll can a portion (50%) too. This way I'll always have a quick fix option because you never know what is going to happen on the homestead from one day to the next.

Having said all of this, can you see how planning a meal menu plan for a year is possible? It helps me plan when to purchase meats in bulk, what vegetables and how much I'll need for a year. So is there any wiggly room in my menu plans? You betcha! For any Italian night, there's five or six menus and they are interchangeable. The same goes for any night of the week. There's only, at most, five weeks in a month.  If you are making a menu plan for a month you are 1/6 there towards a year plan. Figuring you can rotate every month every other month. Do you have to stick to the plan? Of course not! Feel free to play with different recipes, I know I do, but try to stick with the same meat. If the menu calls for meatloaf and you want burgers instead go ahead and make the burgers.

Grow your own, shop locally, eat well and thrive! This is what homesteading is all about.

Y'all have a blessed day!

Chef Jo

Paranoid Much?

 

I'm not a gloom and doom type of person. I guess you can figure out that about me if you've read a few of my posts. The news is filled with posts that would make anyone paranoid, right? Coupled with fake news, it's enough to make a sane person a little bit crazy or concerned at the very least. While I am concerned by recent events, I've moved myself into spectator mode. I don't spend my waking or sleeping moments swelling on it. I stand on my faith to do this. My "Daddy" in heaven has control over all in my life. He promised that I'd have a shelter, food, and clothes on my back. Through my decades on this earth, He hasn't failed me. It's a blanket coverage. So why should I be more than concerned about all the goings on outside my immediate realm? Things just have a way of working out in the long run.

My roommate, Mel, is not like that. She refers to folks like me as those who "drink the kool-aid," or have blinders on. Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and anything made in China are evil. She refuses to use them anymore. She just sits in front of her computer each day ( a HP running Windows) and scours the internet for like minded people who believes as she does. Isn't this type of behavior like "drinking the kool-aid" also?

I received a package from Amazon last week, a set of pans to make my air fryer more useful. She hit the roof. Then she read the box and the products were made in China! It sent her into outer space. I spent the better part of a hour half listening to how she was trying to make my stroke addled brain understand how wrong this was. How Amazon and China were huge devils bringing about Revelations. How China hates us so much that they not only sent a worldwide pandemic nut they are trying to poison us with their products too. 

It's not that I don't understand her, but really?! There's nothing wrong with my mind. Yes, I buy American when it's possible but honestly, they usually have Chinese made parts in them. There isn't electronics that doesn't have some bit or piece of them not made in some third world country or other. America hasn't been in production mode in a very long time.  It will take time to fall back into it. I really don't think it's even possible to do across the board anymore. Price point matters also especially in these economic times also. The dollar doesn't stretch as far as it once did. Now that I think about it, did it ever? It seems the same complaint no matter which decade you are living through. I also believe in shopping locally as much as I can. I do not ask where individual components come from. I'm just not that obsessive about it. Maybe I'm wrong.

I pray about the welfare of others. I pray about major decisions I have to make in my sphere of influence. Within that sphere, I'll fight injustices after given all sides of the story as a logical choice. But I do hear all sides of a story not just one side or the other. Do I care about election fraud, stock market wrangling, and any one of a thousand issues being reported? Yes and no. I reserve the right to choose my battles. Let's face it honestly, how much influence do I have in the afore mentioned areas... not much. All that I can do is pray about it and hope that saner heads prevail. So that's what I do. After all, there's no greater powers than faith and hope.

Y'all have a blessed day!

Cockeyed Jo

Hello February! Let the Gardening Begin!

It's hard to believe we've already had a couple of months off from gardening. Maybe because we were laying out the new beds in the orchard until mid-December. It always seems to be a bigger and bigger push to get the garden to bed before Christmas. Although typically, it should be done around Halloween or the latest Thanksgiving. We just never seem to make it. I was still fresh harvesting Collards and Kale for New Year's day dinner. I could count on one hand how many daytime temperature highs were below freezing so the cockeyed weather continues. No snow until yesterday evening, and then we had a steady snow fall of large flakes for several hours for a total accumulation of a couple inches of white stuff on the ground. It just goes to show ya, winter ain't done with us yet.

So why am I talking about gardening? This week I sowed our Red Bliss and russet potatoes are planted in their hay bales with compost. Carrots, green peas, and a host of cool weather crops fill my shelves as soil plugs to germinate all snug within their plastic bag coverings. It's the excitement of the coming spring and it's contagious! Any homesteader, or even just the run of the mill gardener feels this way. We set up trays of seeds that we are looking forward to growing, harvesting, eating, and putting by. Anticipation is at an all time high. Yes, that's February!

Not much is actually planted in the ground yet, but in the next 60 days it will be and the race will be on once again to beat the bugs and weeds into submission.  So we might have a decent harvest to hedge against shortages and starvation. But from the later part of January, when our seeds were ordered and started arriving and now we dream of the abundant harvest and the lush, green plants to come. Somehow the bleak, gray days of Winter seems a bit brighter. Even though the hoped is sitting in trays of plugs that really won't show anything for a few weeks yet.

This is the beginning, it's a fresh start of the 2021 garden. It's an exciting time for us. One of hope and promise of good things to come. It's the first ten trays of  a multitude to follow. May all our gardening dreams come true in 2021.   

Y'all have a blessed day!

Cockeyed Jo

Cooking with Chef Jo: Make Your Own Flavored Extracts

 

Now that the holidays are over, I imagine your flavored extracts are running a rad bit low. I know they are in my cabinets.

Now if you have a problem with alcohol like I do, then you are pretty much out of luck buying grocery store flavorings. Unless you go to the natural food stores and buy their high dollars, alcohol-free kind. Y'all know that's not me on my budget. Right now, I've got a small ton of peelings from the oranges, grapefruits, tangerines/ Mandarins, lemons, and limes I peeled to can my citrus salad and individual fruits I canned a few weeks ago. I really don't have room in my freezers to keep them. Yes, I used about half of the zest in my canning process,  I use about 1/4 of the leftovers to dehydrated some zest for stores.  But, there's still about a 1/4 left that I really do not have a use for.

I set about researching. I typed in alcohol-free extracts into my search engine and voila! One of the first choices was thespruceeats.com that gave the steeping liquid as 3:1 vegetable glycerin to water. My husband got a buzzer from Staples once. It says, "That was easy!" I don't know why I've kept it all these years, but it sits on my desk. I hit it. For good measure I read the whole blog post. It takes four cups og material (whatever extract you're making). This was no problem. I had almost 8 cups of zest that I'd left on long, thick strips in freezer bags in my household (above the refrigerator freezer) All the stuffed, individual qt sized bags were compressed and put into gal bags to keep them together. I bought a gallon of non-GMO, 100% vegetable glycerin off Amazon and a case of Amber glass, 4 oz bottles and caps  from U-Line (I've had an acct with them for decades). For less than $50, I was all set up to be my own extract making demon. I already had some empty, clean 1/2 gallon mason jars handy to start the process with. For good measure, I'd sterilize these. Now, I'll I had to do is wait on Amazon delivery for the glycerin in a couple of days to get started.

A few days later. I turned my kitchen into a chemistry lab. I sterilized my jars in a 250℉ oven for 20 minutes and turned them over onto a clean dish towel. Measuring cups too. I poured 9 cups of glycerin into each jar with 3 cups of water. I placed the zest strips of lemons, oranges, grapefruits. limes, and tangerines//mandarins into there respective jars. Shook them up, labeled them, and set them up in the cupboard. I'd visit them for the next six months every other day to shake up their world. Then, I'll strain the liquid, and decant them into more usable 4 oz bottles. I can foresee  taking a year to go through this much flavorings pf deviousness at my fingertips. I mean really the store bought bottles are 2 ozs at most.

Vision of vanilla, almond, walnut, and cherry extracts dance through my brain with all the yummy recipe possibilities for pennies on the dollar prices. Oh yeah! Good flavors are abound with ao many flavor retracts to experiment with.

Y'all have a blessed day!

Chef Jo