"Vanilla Stink Eye" or "I Swear I Never Touch The Stuff!"

How to make vanilla  extract

Step one, get the idea while browsing on Pinterest (in the middle of the night) head straight to the container store website and order the exact same cute little bottles.

Step two wait, wait, wait for the bottles to be mailed to you.

Step three, finally get the bottles in the mail and realize that you're totally dumb and ordered the 10 ounce bottles instead of the 1 ounce. Rail at decimals for a while but move on.

Step 4, head to the liquor store at 9am because you work nights and that's the most convenient hour. Sound like a total lying wino when you tell people that "it's just for vanilla extract" and you "don't even really drink". Make sure that you overbuy and choose the largest bottle you can find so that when the clerk rings you up and puts the giant booze bottle in a brown paper sack you'll be sure to look classy with a capital 'K'.

Alright, so I had a few problems getting started on this project, but making vanilla extract is actually really easy. All you need is high proof liquor ( I used vodka), some vanilla beans and a container that seals up tight.

Step 1, gather yo stuff. You need three vanilla beans per 8 ounces of vodka. You can make a ton if you like but I just made 2 cups worth this time.

Step 2, split your vanilla beans down the middle, leaving about a half inch of uncut bean at both ends (so it looks like a canoe)

Step 3, place 3 vanilla beans in a container ( with a tight fitting lid) large enough to hold a 8 ounces of liquid and fill 'er up. As it turned out my oops bottles from the container store were actually the size I needed after all, if I'd gotten the teeny tiny ones I would've had to wait to use them.

Step 4 put the lid on, give it a good shake to let the booze and the beans get all cozy, and set the bottle(s) in a cool dark place for at least two months. Give it a shake every week or two to keep things lookin right. After your two months are up, it should be ready to use.

It should also be a lovely shade of brown by then, but this is my first batch (so it's still a baby). I'll update you in two months (when my baby grows up).

Happy baking!

"Sloppy Joe, Slop, Sloppy Joe"

Hello my babies! How was your Halloween? Was it deliciously skantastic, or did you stay at home and greet trick or treaters? Guess which option I chose(here's a hint, I dressed as a Tardis.).

Okay honesty time, did you eat leftover Halloween candy with/for your breakfast today? I can't lie to you, I did this. Only the candy wasn't left over, trick or treaters took all my candy so I went out early this morning and bought a whole new stash at Kroger for half price (since it's officially November). I know, not an ideal set up for the most important meal of the day.

I mad up for it though, when lunch time rolled around I made sloppy joes (from scratch!) It's totally filled with real food, and it's warm salty protein delicious.

Also, it's the perfect way to gear up for round two of Halloween candy noms. You know... if you're into that.

P.S. Am I a total weirdo for singing Lunch Lady Land the entire time I was making these?

You can find the original recipe here on A Cozy  Kitchen.

"It's Getting Weird In Here" or "Getting Handsy With Meat"

I made a meat loaf! Successfully!And it was delicious!
It's like bread, only it's a salty dinner meat thing!

Whatever, I know you know what meat loaf is. I'm just excited.

When I saw this recipe in the newest issue of Food and Wine I knew it was the perfect device for my crossover from baker to cook. It's meat, only loafy. You know, like bread. Work with what you know, to learn about what you don't know. Is that a saying? It needs to be. Anyway the idea worked out marvelously well.

It was quite an experience to create too, I had to get wrist deep in raw meat. Yeah, it got real.

The number one reason I don't cook meaty dinners is because before you cook it, the meat is just sitting there all CSI without the sunglasses, and my mind... it just goes places so very much the opposite of tasty delicious. 

 I know, I'm a lady sometimes. 

 However, when making meat loaf you sort of have to get super cozy with this stuff and squish it all together with your fingers ( a technique I usually enjoy), there isn't really any other way to do it. You either man up or don't make meat loaf. So, I put on my poker face and got my squish on. 

I also made green bean fries, but they weren't very good. Let's not talk about that.

But here's the deal, and what I realize now has been my problem all along. As a cook, you need communicate with  the food you cook, before you cook it so that you know what's going on (and what needs to be adjusted) but since food can't actually listen and answer you, touch and smell is how you swing it.

My problem: cooking is about communication, and I'm a bit of a wallflower.

Let me paint you a picture. Imagine my kitchen is college a party, and I'm new in town, here trying to make friends.

With bread it's simple (and we're total besties at this point). Bread already wants to be my friend, it's all fresh faced and getting born. It's like a drunken birthday girl who wants hugs from everybody and even lets me do a few braids. Bread is pretty easy to figure out, if it's puffed up and smiling I know everything's cool, and if it's flat, droopy (or looks pale) I know something not so great is going down.

Meat though is much more introverted and hard to read (I really like him, but our relationship is weird). He's at the end of his party, he's headed out the door on his way, ( and he looks busy) so I can usually only manage a sort of awkward wave goodbye.You know, from across the room. That he may or may not see. And there of course is the problem, no touch no communication, no tasty biteums.

Don't be like me!

You can't be so timid. You've got to tackle meat guy! (he sounds like a Scorpio so he won't mind) you've got to squeeze him goodbye so he knows you mean it. If he likes you, you'll know it. And if he's got a funky problem, you'll know that too.

 So by this recipe forcing me to get frisky (spending that mandatory squish time, all warm and cozy)  meat and I had a moment. We communicated, and it gave me this feeling of confidence.

Did meat being a guy get awkward there? Sigh. I should have made bread the dude....

Maybe not the most attractive guy, but definitely worth your time

Anyway the end result was amazingly satisfying, when I set it in the oven to bake I felt 90% more confident that it would turn out successfully because I'd had physical contact with what I was making. P.s. It was in a totally PG wholesome way. You know. Just to be clear.

And when it was all baked up and finished it was perfect. Okay maybe it was a kinda ugly because I'm new at this but the difference in taste was remarkable. It even got the double raised eyebrow from my boyfriend. Two eyebrows raised in delighted surprise. And all because I touched the meat. 

...wait! That's not what I meant!

******

Original Recipe for The Amazing Meat Loaf  can be found on the Food & Wine website Here

"I Am an Attractive, Intelligent, Confident Biscuit Woman"

I've been in kind of a funk lately, not the serious kind, just a sort of "Dear Life, I hate your face. Sincerely -Me" type of funk. This feeling comes around every now and then (usually after ladybusiness strikes) and I feel like punching myself in the face because I know there are people in the world with real problems but I still can't seem to get over myself.

The main issue (in my head at least) is the feeling that the life I'm currently living is a waste of my time and that I'm actually meant to go travel the world, swim with the sharks, and have torrid affairs in Versailles*. But really (logically) if this was a regular option wouldn't (you/I/we) be all over it already? 

"Travel the world you say? Nah I think I'll sit this one out"

My usual fix for this ridiculous funk is to sweat it all out in a zumba class, but inconveniently (ironically?) my favorite teacher just stopped teaching and left town to travel the world with her husband.With the sharks. In Versailles.

Yeah, okay maybe not with sharks but still, this is soo not helping my crazy head situation. 

This calls for some carbs.

I'm a weirdo, you know this. But something I've found to be a wonderful stress reliever when my head is all crazy is to somehow get my 'tudy self wrist deep in flour and butter. It's something about the squish and the temperature... and the squish. I don't know. Usually I go for pie dough (it's so buttery) but Joy's recipe for Cheddar Black Pepper Biscuits might just place as my current dough squish favorite. Also, they're delicious, tall and flaky.

The general experience of baking bread whether I'm upset or not lends itself to a peaceful mind, it sort of empties my thoughts into my fingers through the action of kneading the dough. It's like hands-only yoga (or boxing depending on your mood). If I'm in a good mood I get giddy, if I'm in a bad mood it uplifts me, and if I'm in a really bad mood... I make two batches.

Confession: this was a two batch day.

 But guess what? I totally feel better.

P.s. Thanks Joy

Other things currently soothing the savage beast(breast!)

• Little Debbie Apple Flips
• Coldplay songs that came out when I was 12
• The Ugly Betty Mantras
• Weekend Charity Zumbathon Plans

What do you do to get yourself out of a funk?

Original recipe for Joy The Baker's Cheddar Black Pepper Biscuits here

*= with my boyfriend(Hi!)

"LET THERE BE LIBRAS!" or "¡El Bigote!"

I am an embarrassing older sister. When I discovered this recipe for cupcakes with faces on Xiaolu's page, I totally bookmarked it with absolutely permanent plans to make them for my brother on his birthday.

When October 9th rolled around, I whipped out the recipe and baked up a bunch of these little cuties giggling while I put their little eyes together on their little cupcake faces. Yes I giggled, the whole time, like a dork.

I kept picturing my brother's face when he saw them, what he would think about their little mustaches and junior mint eyes.

Why is this embarrassing? Well...

My brother isn't exactly 4 Or 6. Or even 12.

He um... just turned 20...

I know. What's wrong with me?!? My brother though, he expects this from me. It has always been our relationship. We're not the type of siblings who will sit around with beers telling dirty jokes and eating boob shaped cake when we're  40.

Our relationship is this: every year he will get older, every year I will pretend that it isn't happening and make things for him that he and his preschool friends will enjoy, and every year my 6'1", goateed, fully grown brother will smile sweetly and genuinely thank me. Every year. I have no idea how I got lucky enough to get a brother like this. No clue.

Though I'll confess that if I gave me these cupcakes, I'd thank me too.

These cupcakes are AMAZINGLY good. And if it turns out maybe you want to be a grown up and leave off  the tiny faces, they won't turn out any less amazing because what we're dealing with here is chocolate cake, with oreo inside. I didn't really know what I was getting myself into when I baked these (I was mostly in it for the faces), I got a sort of hint they might be good when I smelled them baking, but when I sunk my teeth into that very first warm chocolaty bite, it was so good I had to sit down. True story.


They are love sonnet good. They are break into song good. They are chuck your boyfriend out the window because who needs a man when you've got this cake* kind of good.

... what?

It's a very lucky thing that the recipe only makes 18 cupcakes because they are dangerous. It is also very lucky that 12 of those 18 cupcakes actually made it all the way to my brother's house. Because really, eating all the cupcakes before they got there would be even more embarrassing than just putting eyes on top of them. But only slightly more.

Oreo cupcakes. With or without the eyes, you need these in your life. I won't tell your boyfriend. 
I  promise.

You can find the original recipe here.

* P.s. I totally love my boyfriend (who always reads my blog) just slightly way way more than cupcakes. Duh. (p.p.s.Hi Alan!)