Prepped Living Blog

We love making vanilla extract and recently made two new extracts: lemon and maple. Why would we make our own extracts? First, it is much more affordable than purchasing them in the store. Second, we can be assured that the ingredients are clean with no fillers or unwanted chemicals. Vanilla - We use a lot of vanilla in nearly all of our baked goods and enjoy different flavor profiles. We keep two "flavors" on hand: a vanilla infused in vodka or Everclear and a vanilla infused in bourbon. You could also do it with rum, which sounds amazing! We keep two containers for each type of vanilla - one container for use and one container in which we  infuse the vanilla. For the first jar, we purchased a glass oil/vinegar set with the pour tops. We keep the vodka vanilla in one and the bourbon vanilla in the other. These containers make it easy to dispense and measure the vanilla without spilling. The second jar is what we use for the "mother" container (the jar in which we ...

A while ago, we reported on the blog that we made coffee liqueur with used coffee grounds. The result was a strongly flavored coffee liqueur. I used this for a mix in many drinks, but it was pretty strong and not quite the same as the Kahula brand of liqueur. Part of it is likely because I used vodka to make the liqueur rather than rum. We had run out of coffee liqueur and wanted to either get or make some more. We have a friend who makes a wonderful homemade coffee liqueur, so we asked him for the recipe and gave it a try. This was a more mild liqueur that makes a better mixer than the previous recipe we tried.  What are the benefits of making your own liqueur? First, you know what the ingredients are. Second, you control of the quality. Third, it is much more economical than purchasing a brand name liqueur, especially if you use an economical brand of rum. Just remember, though, that the quality of your ingredients will affect the quality of the results! Here is the recipe we use...

When my husband and I first got married, we bought a very inexpensive set of china (think much less expensive than a regular set of dishes) so we could have enough dishes to host our families during the holidays. One of the first times we used it, our guests made fun of us for serving them on such nice dinnerware. They insinuated that we were showing off by using nice dishes. I was hurt and became reluctant to use the dishes again. This was the only set of dishes big enough for larger family gatherings, however, so we used them on occasion. I found myself feeling the need each time to explain why we were using our china set – we weren't trying to show off, they were just the only dishes we had enough of to serve everyone, and even though they looked expensive, they were really in expensive, etc. There was no reason we shouldn’t use our dishes, but that early experience made me wary of the criticism that would come with simply enjoying the use of something beautiful in our home. W...

We have had a few questions about how we deep clean our kitchen linens since posting about it in the newsletter a few weeks ago, so we thought it worthwhile to make a blog post for all of you. I don't know if this is the best method out there, it is just what we have tried that works well for us. How to Deep Clean Linens : Heat water in a large stockpot. (We do not measure an exact amount, we just put in how much water we need for what we are going to clean - approximately half of the stockpot.) Add approximately 1/2 c. of baking soda. Add linens when the water nears boiling temperature. (It works best if there is room for the linens to move in the pot. Too many linens at a time will decrease the efficacy a bit.) Use a spoon to move the linens around to make sure they are completely wet. Keep water on high or med-high for at least ten minutes, stirring frequently, to make sure the fabric is agitated and can release the oils. (The water needs to be hot, but does not have to boil dur...

We have a recipe for homemade ketchup that I copied down several years ago but never tried. We were curious to see how it tastes, so we tried it this past week.  While it wasn't just like the flavor of the commercial brands, it was quite nice and made a nice ketchup sauce for hamburgers. We made this batch with honey. We will likely make the next batch with cane sugar and compare the taste. Homemade ketchup Homemade Ketchup 6 oz. tomato paste Just under 1/3 c water 2 T vinegar 1/4 t. onion granules 1/4 t. garlic granules 1/4 t. dry mustard pinch of cinnamon pinch of cloves pinch of allspice pinch of cayenne 1/4 t. sea salt 1/8 c. sugar or 1 - 2 T honey Whisk ingredients together until smooth. Do any of you make ketchup? Feel free to share your favorite recipes in the comments below!

We had a blog post a couple of weeks back about ways we have used pine. We knew there had to be more ways pine, so we did bit of research online.  We found several more uses: Pine needle infused cooking oil - Infuse chopped pine needles in cooking oil and try it in your favorite dishes. Pine resin salve - This website has instructions for making pine resin salve.  Pine soap - This was such a fun one to research! As it turns out, there are many soap recipes out there that include using different parts of the pine tree - pine needles, pine resin, and pine tar. Pine Needle Soap : We found this winter spice soap recipe that sounds amazing. I would venture to guess that it smells as wonderful as it sounds. We like that we can put pine needles Pine Resin Soap :  We also found a pine resin soap recipe. We like this link because it directs you to use the resin to make an infused oil rather than adding the resin directly to the soap mixture. We also love this link because it i...