Homemade Vanilla & Homemade Ketchup

Whew!  Sure felt good to prop my feet up this evening.  Mondays are our errand/ cleaning days. I knew I had to make a grocery run and a stop at Walgreens to work a coupon deal.... but when PrepDad brought in the mail and I opened these little babies, I knew I had one more stop!

My vanilla beans! I had found this post @ Heavenly Homemakers  and really wanted to try making my own.... This was easy peasy to do.  The hardest thing for me was acting like I knew what I was doing at the liquor store.  But, with a couple of small bottles of vodka and my french vanilla beans I began the long process of making homemade vanilla

 For these smaller bottles of vodka I put 5 beans in each bottle. I did slice open but not through each bean. I ordered the beans off ebay.... from France.. The total cost with shipping was less then 5.00 .. the package smelled heavenly!

 These babies will sit for the next 6 months in the pantry and get a little shake once a week to keep things going.  I foresee gift giving for next year int he making!


  At the Hispanic market this weekend I picked up 5lbs of Roma tomatoes.  Now, everybody in the world but us probably knew that Romas are the maters to use for the best sauces, salsas...........and homemade ketchup.

  My book came on Friday and I was so anxious to try the ketchup recipe...

So a bit of chopping..... a bit of boiling..

I am not sure I have tasted ketchup this good.... we decided that we needed chili cheese fries for dinner.. toss the sliced taters with olive oil and bake... cover with chili and top with cheese... and dip in ketchup..

 Now,  in between errands, cleaning and petting a few cats... lets see how this weeks goals are going:


1. Continue decluttering  I am so proud of myself today. I was in the mater bath and tossed  stuff I knew we would never use and filled another box with stuff to donate to the local woman's shelter.
2. Continue work on fire pit
3. Continue work on bathroom
4. apple sauce
5. apple pie filling
6. make and can ketchup 7. Check and treat water storage
8. plant spinach/kale
9.Hit the discount store int he big city for canned goods we are running low on
10.  transplant aloe


.. and I really didn't expect the vanilla so making that was a bonus do.

Press in and Press on

PrepMom

Sept 27th , 2011 preps

 Today was the first day we have been home long enough to do several loads of laundry. We have not owned an electric clothes dryer in over a year so we had waited also for a summy day to do sheets and towels.
 We do own a large drying rack purchased from Lehmans. we love it and it can hold jeans and such no problem
Amish Drying Rack.

We also own this outdoor drying line  
 It has been a great time saver and holds up well.

For lunch we had
Racelettes

mashed potatoes, bacon, keilbasa & cheese mixed together and baked for 45 minutes  . It seems we can do most of these things from food storage. I have yet to order bacon but we will, and I think the keilbasa can be substituted with spam.

Dinner was chicken burritos
We had  leftover beans mixed with three chicken breast and salsa, next week I think I might attempt the tortillas on my own.

How well did I get on my to do list for the week?

I researched making vanilla and ordered the whole vanilla beans. I ordered 20 online from ebay for less then 5.00 . Seemed like a good investment for the experiment.

I also cleaned out the old dehydrator and it works great despite being abused and in storage for over a year..

Tomorrow is a busy day but hopefully I will be able to pare down the list a bit...

Press in and Press on,
PrepMom