I love the Vine program, especially lately since the newsletters have been much much better targeted to my interests.
If you don't know about Vine, it's a buzz program that Amazon does, people who are a part of it get 4 books or other products a month to review. There are 2 newsletters, the first one, on the 3rd Thursday of the month is a targeted newsletter you can pick 2 items off of, it's targeted by purchases you've made and things you've reviewed. In the last few months, the targeted letters have gotten shorter, but for me at least, they are much better targeted. The second newsletter is the leftovers letter a week later, and you get to pick from whatever is leftover from everyone's newsletters plus things leftover from previous months. You have to review at least 75% of what you get to order more books, and you can't post the reviews in other places.
I'm easy. Even the newsletters that weren't super well targeted had things I was interested in. I like books. I ordered a lot of young adult novels for my kids in those first couple of months, plus business management books for Mike. I read them, reviewed them, then handed them to the family member I thought would enjoy them. The last few months though, I've been getting a lot more of what I love. Cookbooks. Craft books. Happy Shala! The idea that people will send me free books for writing essentially a book report.. YAY! I can do that.
So my books haven't arrived from what I ordered last Thursday of course, but my first choice was easy. Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey Treats for Kids by Jill O'Conner. It's mostly for E of course. Her eyes lit up when she heard the title.
The second book was a harder choice. There was one on Tai Chi that looked interesting, but there was also Cookin' With Coolio: 5 Star Meals at a 1 Star Price. So I finally just asked Mike which he thought I should get. Well.. he dithered. I don't think he wanted really to admit which one he wanted. Finally he said "Cookin' With Coolio, but it's your choice!"
So I ordered it. I'm looking forward to getting it.
( Coolio has a cooking show- youtube vid behind cut )
Looks like a lot of fun. Really truly. Mike had to run out in the company van today, and the radio station was set to what the last person who drove it liked, and on that station there was an interview with Coolio about his new cookbook. So now Mike's even more intrigued. I think he plans to bring the cookbook with him to work after I finish reviewing it to show to a couple of his co-workers.
In other news- car still isn't fixed. Our mechanic had a couple days off, but it should be fixed Wednesday hopefully.
Yesterday I strained the vanilla beans out of my extract, and laid them out to dry. So I'll be mixing them with sugar for E and Splenda in a pretty jar for Lamar. I'll probably recycle an old jar and put a pretty label on it and maybe put some fabric over the top.
If you mixed in the bottle like I did for my vanilla extract, you'll need to shake the bottle occasionally to loosen up the beans to get them all out. I strained into a strainer with a coffee filter in it to make sure I got out all the caviar into a glass measuring cup. I only have about a half cup of extract left because after it went a month, I started using it. It's developed very nicely, but I know for the next batch I do, I'll need to use two bottles of vodka if I want plenty to give away. It's really just that good.

Today's MP3 album of the day deal is Imagine by John Lennon for 2.99. You all know that I'm a John Lennon fan since childhood right?

I wrote a little more about the album and made a box inspired by it that you can find here.

Let's see.. what else? I didn't update yesterday because my modem died. It was showing signs of it before that, but it finally just gave up Wednesday evening. Boo Hiss!

So Mike stopped on his way home from work to pick up a new modem. I'm happy, the new one seems better for the upgraded package speeds we pay for. Here's where it gets well.. hilarious if you were here.
Mike couldn't get it to work right, so he finally called tech support on our landline and they talked him through it, asking him at one point if he had it on a splitter which our last modem did need and this one doesn't. He replied "Yes, I do." and walked over to plug the modem directly in. I watched him walk over thinking "He can't be about to..."
Yes. He did.
I looked at him and said "Honey, the phone won't work if it's unplugged."
He looked down at the cord in his hand, and we both just convulsed in laughter. It took me forever to stop and I'm still giggling actually. He got it all plugged in the right way and called tech support back, and explained what he had done. He also asked them if they kept score of how many people they could get to do that.

But I'm back now. I spent yesterday making up new short bread recipes, chocolate chip shortbread was a huge hit despite the fact it burnt. My oven ran hot and my timer didn't work. So I need to check how hot it's running and all that, and get a new timer. I also did some new computer art, and curled up with some L'Engle. I read some comics. Just had a very nice peaceful day.
Wednesday when we went out for comics, I stopped by the Evil Empire for some ibuprofen since I haven't picked up my prescription from my dad's this week. While I was there in the remnant bin I found some Care Bear fabric, so E and I are going to make some Care Bear X-mas ornaments I think.

Well, everyone knows now that Kindle is available for PC right?

I love my Kindle. I got it right after the coverage went nation-wide because the original coverage wasn't available in Alaska. For me, it's this whole futuristic thing that appeals to me even more than flying cars would. I read a lot of cyberpunk and sci-fi well.. pretty much my whole life. The Kindle, with the ability to follow blogs and newspapers, near instantly download books and all that.. it is the future to me. Well, that and my ipod.

I love to read. I read all the time, and the reason we lived in the same place for 11 years without looking for a bigger house is because my husband flat out refuses to move my books again "anytime soon". Having the Kindle at least slowed down the books coming into the house. I still buy craft books and cookbooks, plus what I get to review. But fiction I buy mostly in Kindle format.

Anyway, all that gushing to say, I have a list of mostly freebies with the exception of a little booklet I wrote about baking bread that has a bunch of public domain cookbooks.

I need to add some of the Storey Country Wisdom Bulletins to the list. They are under 4 dollars each and are short booklets with a ton of information on all sorts of things. I just finished the one on making liqueurs for gifts which was exactly the information I was looking for. I want to make a vanilla cream liqueur for Mike's boss for the holidays, and I need information on how to make it. It didn't have a recipe for exactly what I want to make, but that's fine, I prefer to make things up myself once I understand the process. I'll post the recipe after I make it. I think it will be a good one for in coffee.

E and I are going to also work on dairy based homemade flavored creamers for coffee that won't have corn syrup in them (boo hiss!).

I love my Kindle.
One of the nice things about it is that slowly a lot of the public domain material from places like Project Gutenberg is becoming available in Kindle format so I can hit one click buy for free, and turn on my Kindle, open up the connection, and get it in seconds. The weird part is that a lot of it is not being reviewed. So I went to review a cookbook I downloaded and just started really going through in the last couple of days. The cookbook is The Compleat Cook Expertly Prescribing the Most Ready Wayes, Whether Italian, Spanish or French, for Dressing of Flesh and Fish, Ordering Of Sauces or Making of Pastry which was printed in 1658.(Project Gutenberg link to read online or download) The first reviewer said it was from 1658 and you couldn't make the recipes now. I had to disagree and said this..
Yes, the first reviewer is right, this IS a cookbook from 1658. But I don't see that as being a bad thing at all. A lot of the recipes in it are doable now and adaptable. If you are interested in renaissance era cooking at all, it's an invaluable guide and being in Kindle format makes it easy to bookmark things you want to try out later.
It is NOT a step by step cookbook as we are used to now, so it will take a little bit of research to understand what some of the terms are, as well as a decent knowledge of how to cook to be able to do the recipes in it. It will call for "enough flower to make a past" which means enough flour to make a paste/dough, or for cooking in a "quick" oven which means hot. You don't get exact temperatures or times or even exact measurements for a lot of the recipes.
That said, I read some of the recipes to my husband yesterday and he's looking forward to me trying them.
It also has a couple bread recipes in it, and a lot of bread recipes weren't recorded in the middle ages and during the renaissance because it was generally assumed that people knew how to make bread. Which leads to another thing that people miss in older recipes. We are very used to having instant dry yeast available to us, so when we look at older beer or bread recipes that call for a cup of yeast, it's a bit confusing. Yeast at that point was the sourdough yeast culture, a liquid mix of flour and water that had live yeast growing and active in it.
It's free and it's a nice bit of history.
----
I'll admit, there is something very strange about reading a cookbook that old on something that seems to be science fiction to me still even having one.
You can see all my book reviews here.
Okay..back to beading.

I talk about my vintage craft books a lot, but not so much about my cookbooks. I have the collections of 2 very active cooks. My grandmother and my mother. They range from a copy of the Boston Cooking School Cook Book that's over 100 years old and in a bag to keep the pages together to an awful lot of 60s cookbooks, to church community cookbooks everybody has to have.
All in all, before my collection, I had about 200 cookbooks. I've been adding to that number steadily.
I get some cookbooks to review. I also buy myself vintage cookbooks. Not every single one I see, just the ones that pertain to one of my interests in cooking. So a bread machine cookbook from the 80s or 90s I'll probably pass on, I like doing it by hand. But Pillsbury's Bake Off Breads Cook Book from 1968? Absolutely irresistible. On the cover it declares proudly "Shortcutted favorites... the best of all the Bake Offs streamlined for use with new instant dry yeast"
I'm thrilled with all the new recipes. There is one for bread made with bacon fat instead of whatever fat you usually use and with crumbled bits of bacon in it. There is also a cheese bread that I really like the look of, but I'll have to adjust the recipe somewhat because nobody in my family likes American cheese.
The part that absolutely charmed me is the spreads section. Because they were all pretty much variations on a theme but all presented as individual recipes. You know..
Festive Olive Spread
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 Tbsp milk or cream
2 Tbsp chopped green olives
Beat butter and milk until light and fluffy, stir in olives.

Honey Butter
1/2 butter, softened
1/2 cup honey
blend until light and fluffy

There are cream cheese ideas too, along the same vein. Switch the ingredient to accent, but the basic process is the same for each of them. Maraschino cherries, honey, instant coffee and sugar, orange juice.

Reminded me somewhat of one of William's favorite desserts when he was little. I'd make him chocolate cream cheese or chocolate labneh and serve it as a spread for toast with strawberries or blueberries. I haven't made labneh in a long time. Maybe sometime soon.

Although it's actually more a Punisher icon.
When my son was 5, my mom made him a Captain America costume. I let mom hit my fabric stash and old clothes stash for the fabric for it and loaned her one of my sewing machines to make it. We didn't know it at the time but it was the last costume she was going make him. The following year she was in California helping out Grandma after surgery, and the year after that, she died suddenly.

Now skip forward 13 years, and I spotted a Captain America costume teeshirt at Hot Topic, so I had to get it for him of course. He still has the same shield from the costume mom made him and he said he would use it. Of course, a shield scaled for a 5 yo William would look like, as Mike put it, a dinner plate. So E and I made him a shield yesterday. Dad was impressed, William was happy.
Also yesterday I wrote an article on how to do nice neat loops for eyepins.
AND cute paper snail craft .
Plus I made up some cinnamon-y goodness shortbread.
Cinnamon Vanilla Short Bread
Pre-heat oven to 375°F
1 cup of butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tsp. vanilla
Cream together.
Add in 2 cups of flour. Mix for a few minutes and knead lightly with clean hands.
Pat into an 8" cake pan. Sprinkle top with a mixture of 1 tsp white sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon and pierce with a fork and score lines to cut it apart.
Put it in the oven for 10 minutes, after 10 minutes, turn the heat down to 300°F and bake for 20 minutes more. Take out the oven and cut apart along score lines. Let cool a bit.

Turned out really good. I think I'm going to go have a piece now.

Yesterday I had a really hard day and after we picked comics Mike asked if I wanted to do anything. I said "Yes. Salvation Army." So we went over and they've got some gorgeous end tables from a couple hotels in town, but we weren't looking for tables.
It was good. I found a cook book for E. Grosser Foods by Tina Vilicich-Solomon is out of print, and it's disgusting. Seriously. "Beastly bites that look good but taste bad"
( recipe names cut for squeamish )
Mike found a book about solar heating,a piece of electronics to play with, and 2 button down shirts in good shape that are his size. E found a pair of purple dungarees, and I got a couple skirts and a red hooded cardigan. No luck on craft books for me.

In non-disgusting food projects, check this ice cream recipe out.Mike and I discussed doing it with the kids this weekend. It looks like a lot of fun.
From Don't Eat the Paste-
I was reading KissThisGuy.com this weekend, actually I was singing it to my family, looking up favorite songs. I realized, that would make the BEST party game. Go there, find songs, and make little slips of paper with the misheard lyric, the actual lyric, song and artist. Fold slips in half and put them into a bowl and let your guests take turns taking out slips and singing the misheard lyric. Prizes for the people who guess the most right songs and artists, and for the people who perform the best so the songs are recognized.
*singing to Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody* Scare a Moose, Scare a Moose, Will you do the fan tango?

I really think that comfort cooking is going to be the next big thing. People will still love their gourmet seasonings and all their foodie toys, but there will also be a resurgence in familiar favorites, the sort of foods that your grandmother or mother might have made for family and company.
That's what this cookbook is. Classic homestyle recipes that have stood the test of time. The author wants you to play with them, to find what works for you and your family. Some of the recipes in here I have my own versions of already, but a lot of them, I don't. The recipes are easy and there are a lot of tips for making your time in the kitchen quicker and easier.
Unlike a lot of my cookbooks, this one actually has lots of recipes I can see becoming a part of our regular menu. My husband is patient enough with my experiments in hummus, tofu and white bean chilis and that sort of thing but he really prefers American classic home cooking.
Monkey Bread was one of my mom's standbys, and it was nice to see it in here. My daughter will enjoy making that. My son will love the mushroom bread, and my husband is looking forward to me trying the chicken fried steak recipe because I've never made that for him before.

You can find recipes and more about the cookbook at the author's blog Stir, Laugh, Repeat

-----
If you haven't noticed, what I'm doing with book reviews is posting most of the cookbook or craft related ones here and in my other blog as well as on Amazon. Not all because I'm not supposed to post reviews anywhere but Amazon for ARCs I get from the Vine program, and not all the reviews I write because they aren't all crafty by any stretch. I also don't review everything I read, but I'm trying to at least review 25% of what I read. So far I'm failing miserably. I can tell you what I like about a cookbook or a bead book, but with fiction, it's harder. I'm working on it.

Okay.. 3rd time is the charm right? I keep switching topics for this entry. What do I want to save for posterity on the internets?
E has decided my old favorite of eggs in a basket are a near perfect food. I think having good fresh eggs makes all the difference. What's astounding about this is that E does NOT eat egg whites usually. She likes her eggs scrambled or omelets. She's never eaten a hard-boiled egg in her life.
It started with room service though. The willingness to accept fried eggs. I ordered my breakfast with eggs over medium and Mike had his over easy. E grabbed a piece of buttered toast and popped it in the center of first my eggs, then after that bite, his eggs to get yolk on her toast. I think at that point if she could have gotten just egg yolks cooked to just a bit runny with buttered toast, she would be all over it.
I told her how eggs in the basket were made. Put a pat of butter in a pan, heat it, tear a hole in a piece of bread, and put that in the pan. Crack open an egg and drop it in the hole. Cook a few minutes, flip. Cook a few minutes more. The way my mom and I always made it was with a hole just big enough for the egg yolk so the bread itself gets toasted with buttery-egg whitey goodness.
She said that sounded good, and just loved it. She tore off bits of the bread and dunked it in the slightly runny center. The first time, she left the bit of egg white from the hole in the bread under the yolk on her plate. Last time she grabbed a couple crackers when the bread was gone and put the center on crackers and ate it that way. For that matter, last time I made it, I gave her the choice between a cheese omelet and eggs in a basket, and she chose the egg in a basket.
We are planning to make truffles today. We were going to make them yesterday but I realized I had to clean out the fridge first. We are planning to make vanilla-coffee truffles.
Music- I can't get enough Blackfire today. Blackfire is considered by a lot of people to be NA contemporary, but it's very different from a lot of NA contemporary. It's harder, angrier, political and more than a bit punk. You can download a couple free songs from their site. They are a Navaho family, and an elder member of their family sings traditionally on a lot of their tracks. In fact, the second album, Silence is a Weapon is a two disc set. The second disc is traditional Dine' music. Dine' means Navaho. It's a language that's rooted in Athabaskan, so the songs sound a lot like the songs sung by the few people here who still speak Athabaskan, more complicated though but wonderful to listen to. A lot of NA contemporary is about how we are all one. One reviewed said that Blackfire is angry with a reason. The song Exile always makes me cry angry tears.
I was able to find their first album locally when I got it a few years ago, the second, my husband ordered for me off CD Baby after I had no luck ordering it from a local shop. Also available on all the usual suspects.
Still to do today: Finish the rock I'm crocheting. Write an article linking to various Halloween bead patterns, get comic books, go to the gym.

Did you know that French toast made with fresh organic eggs and homemade double strength vanilla with real butter and maple syrup is one of the best foods in the world? Seriously. Yum yum.
Today we hit the farmer's market for carrots and eggs, after we dropped Wm back off at home, Mike asked if I want to do anything since we were out without kids for the first time in something like forever in an afternoon.
We wound up deciding to go to the day old bakery. There are a couple in town, but my favorite is the one that's harder to find. They don't have as much selection, but the quality is better.
They had sugar free cookies so I got a bunch for Uncle Lamar. Who will be awfully happy.
After that, since we were close to the ASPCA thrift store, we stopped there. I think we found our new cat. She's 6 years old, and the volunteer who seemed to really love all the cats was pretty ambivalent towards her. "She's a little witch. She wants all of your attention and she'll need to be the only cat in a house. She's territorial and not very nice." The whole time she was saying that, Yangme was purring under my hand and going back and forth between Mike and I. Yeah. My kind of cat. I don't want a cat who acts like a dog and behaves. I want the "Cat before a King" type cat. The sort who demands the attention it wants and ignores you the rest of the time. A cat type cat. My favorite cat ever was Tips, and Tips was the stereotypical cat. Mike called her a little.. well.. the word wasn't witch, and there is no good feline equivalent (maybe because to some extent it describes all felines so having a word other than cat just wouldn't work). Tips had personality and was imperious when she could be bothered. We picked out cat food according to her tastes, and she was more a surly teenage roommate than a pet. We are filling out the paperwork tonight.
While we were there, I found a box with at least a couple hundred Workbasket magazines from the 70s, the whole box for 15.00. YES! SCORE! and a 1972 how to make jewelry book I didn't have before. We also found E a suit, her first pinstripe suit. My little girl is growing up. *grins*
I got E a coffee cup and saucer as well. It's very hotel-ish/simple. Just a white cup and saucer, but it looks like an E cup and saucer. Which she proved by washing it immediately and filling it with coffee.
So now I've got a big pot of stew going filled with locally grown yumminess, and books to go through while I try to think of a few good projects for a hippie costume to post on the beadwork site.
Snow is coming soon. It's very nearly halfway down the mountains now. Not going to be another wait until December for snow year. Maybe next week for the first snow that doesn't stick, I'm figuring we have snow that sticks within a couple weeks.

When I was in my early 20s, down the street from my apt was this tiny hole in the wall neighborhood bar. The first time I walked in there out of curiosity, my yards of black lace clothing and teased and sprayed blue-black hair got a couple looks. My age got a bunch more. The average age of the customers was 45. The bartender, Jim, played the saxophone whenever he could get from behind the bar and during the day worked on his small farm outside town. The guitarist who was the regular musician there played a mix of songs everyone knows, and obscure bits of absolute funniest. He learned Punk Rock Girl for me, and it warms your heart to hear that played and sung blue grass style.
Anyway, to get to the point, on holidays, they would have potlucks, and one older lady ALWAYS brought a big old pot of gumbo.
Gumbo, thick and spicy and loaded with different kinds of shellfish and fish. Gumbo that seemed that to have been handed down from her great grandmother, all the flavors were so well combined.
I might have a dinner party with friends to give them turkey and all the trimmings, but I'd eat very little so I could have a spot of that gumbo on a pile of rice because I'm way too wimpy for the amount of heat it had, but I couldn't resist the flavor.
So.. I could be a little biased about New Orleans cooking. It always seemed magical to me. Something to aspire to. A little southern, a little French, a lot of seasoning and a little jazz. That's what it tastes like to me.
All that to say, I picked up a copy of Tom Fitzmorris's New Orleans Food yesterday.
First the quick thing, what I don't like about it is that it's paperback binding, so it won't lay open.
What I do like about it? The author lived in New Orleans all his life except for after Katrina. He's a food writer who really loves his subject.
All those foods you've read about, that you've dreamed about, are in this comprehensive book.
If I were going to do a Julie/Julia thing, this is the book.
Gumbos, bisques, jambalaya, dirty rice, red beans and rice, beignets are all in here. Along with things like deviled eggs with a New Orleans twist, a simple cream cheese recipe, desserts make me feel like I committed the sin of gluttony just reading the recipes and all sorts of main dishes. Over 200 recipes, and so far all of them sound wonderful.
Yes, a lot of the recipes are a bit time consuming and you need some basic kitchen skills like how to make a roux to make them, but many of the recipes are pretty simple too. Also, if you are an experienced cook, there are short cuts you take for quick home cooking, like using good boxed stocks and a food processor to do a lot of the chopping.
If you like seafood, this is also a good cookbook for that, there are a lot of shrimp, scallops, clams, oyster and fish recipes. It's a vital part of cuisine from that part of the country.
Just makes me hungry reading it.
A lot of the reviewers on Amazon from NOLA say that the gumbos are just like Mom or Grandma used to make. What better recommendation is there? If this is a style of cooking you've always want to learn, this is the book that covers all the basics.
Part of the proceeds from sales of the book go to Habitat for Humanity.

E had a very good day today. There was a make it and take it at Michaels I completely forgot to post here yesterday. Sorry! It was an American Girls craft thing in the US, in Canada it was spoon people. For us in the US, there were 3 projects, a paper frame, a paper cupcake tag, and a mini-scrapbook. The scrap book was decorated with fun foam shapes, and E found a star and cut it into a fair approximation of a Starfleet logo for her book, her very own Captain's Log.
After that, we headed to the University Center for lunch and the Farmer's Market. The University Center used to be one of the biggest malls in town, it had a theater and a bead store that got entirely too much of my money, as well a lovely little gift shop that sold individual Godiva chocolates. Now, about half the mall is actually used by a local university, so the University Center is really living up to it's name now.
Up stairs is a restaurant that's been there for 30 years now called The Cauldron, we've been going there with a fair amount of regularity almost the entire time we've been together, so we had lunch there, after which we hit the fabric store in that mall. They teach a lot of sewing and little quilting/patchwork projects there, so instead of remnants, they sell scraps. E bought a bag of scraps. The pieces too small for her to use, she uses to stuff, and the bigger pieces become parts of her projects. Then we went to the farmer's market.
I gave E her choice of carrots since one farmer there had yellow, white, red, orange and purple carrots. E decided on purple carrots. We also got some bright purple cauliflower, some turnips, broccoli, arugula, a little jar of wild rose petal jelly (for me, I love the stuff but I haven't gone out looking for wild roses to harvest petals), a bar of soap made quite proudly with fat from Alaskan cows, lye and water. We also picked up a dozen eggs that are fresh, local, and organic. I'm so having a really good egg tonight for dinner. Yum yum! They will be there every Saturday until October 10th, so next week we will go again.
Last night I didn't want to go to the store, so making do with what was available, I made pizza quesadillas for everyone. They were a hit.

Threadless is having a sale today only, all teeshirts for 9 dollars. So if you really really wanted Friday I'm in Love or the classic unicorns shirt, today is the day.

I found my grandmother's recipe box, and my big project right now is going to be scanning and transcribing the recipes in it for my kids. I won't post all of them. Some are pretty typical fare, but I will post a few, and posted the first one on Don't Eat the Paste yesterday. It's a recipe for a Cranberry Quick Bread. Yum yum!

Nunchaku nearly done. I would have done more yesterday but I got caught up in other things.

Fractal box printable.
Also a new design up for scoring at Naked and Angry. You can use your Threadless log-in to score it. Click here.

Other than that, crocheting, reading, and working with Friendly Plastic. I had a fun creative sort of accident with it today that I'm going to turn into a project later that I think that Melissa will love because it's right up her crafty alley.

Via One Pretty Thing
Midsummer Nights Dream Tutu almost no sew and too cute.
Adorable no bake teacup treats for children.
Sushi Cake with orange gelatin roe. I'm so making a cupcake version of these for Wm's b-day on NYE.
Felt scissor keeper, embroidered and hand stitched.

By request.
Well, at this point you all know I don't measure except for all of you. Like bread recipes! 80% of the time I go into the kitchen and just start baking, the other 20, I try to keep track because I'm trying something new that I plan to blog. (which is also how I crochet.. *laughs*)

I can make it from scratch, but that's a lot of work, so usually, I use the bottles of extract you can buy any good brewing supply house. Our family favorite is Homebrew Birch Root Beer Extract. What we did when we first started making our own root beers at home was buy 3 or 4 bottles of root beer extract at the local brewing place, and then we mixed it with a bit of simple table sugar into sparkling water to taste it and decide which one we liked best. That one won hands down. Your mileage may vary. While you're there, pick up a sanitizer, a one step sanitizer for bottles doesn't cost much, and you know your reused bottles are really clean. Alternately, you can use a bit of bleach and water, then rinse out really well.
You'll need
1 2 liter empty soda bottle
1 Tbs. root beer extract (comes in 2 oz bottles, one bottle is enough for 3 or 4 batches)
1 c. sweetener of choice (maple sugar, birch syrup, sugar, a simple sugar or mix)- or sweeten to taste. Generally we do a cup of sugar and a quarter cup of maple sugar or birch syrup which are both expensive but so yummy!
2 Tbs vanilla
1/4 teaspoon of yeast, you can use a champagne yeast, also from the brewing supply place for a less yeast flavor, but since we buy yeast for bread in bulk, we just use that. It does make the drink yeastier, but we like the flavor.
Most recipes using extract call for making a lot, but we are a family of 4 that doesn't drink much soda, so we scaled the recipe back a lot. Recipes usually call for something like 6 cups of sugar, 4 gallons of water.. uh huh.. no. Plus it calls for boiling the water and sugar to create a simple syrup. My method isn't as fussy and professional. It's quick and easy, and everyone in my family likes it.
Use a funnel to put the sugar in the bottle, sprinkle in the yeast, then add the wet ingredients. Half fill the bottle with water. We have a filter on our sink so we just use filtered water. Shake it up well to dissolve the sugar and yeast. Fill to the neck and shake it well. Put the bottle some place warm for 24 hours.
This is the scary part. The yeast acts on the sugar and ferments causing the carbonation. The carbonation can burst the bottle, it's never happened for me, but I live in Alaska, so warm is about 70 degrees at best usually, so check it!
You check for "doneness" by pushing the side of the bottle with your thumb. When you first fill the bottle, the plastic will give a bit under your thumb, but after the carbonation occurs, there is more pressure and the bottle will be firm and not give. Pop in the fridge to stop fermentation.
This method *does* create a trace amount of alcohol in the finished drink. Not enough to worry about, but.. full disclosure right?

If you want to know about making it completely from scratch, I really love Homemade Root Beer, Soda & Pop, it's got a mix of modern recipes and old recipes carefully transcribed, plus a lot about the history of soda making in the US. Good book.

The kids love it made from extract, and I always give E choices when we do a bottle, "Do you want to try maple syrup in it?" "How much vanilla?" and she has a blast drinking soda she helped make and has ever since we started. Of course, I've noticed since we made the fifth of double strength vanilla, she wants vanilla in everything possible. At least she's not trying to grab the bottle to use as perfume like my best friend is!
For diabetics and other people sugar restricted, this method needs the sugar to cause the carbonation, it's the feeding action of the yeast. I'm going to try seeing how much I can reduce the sugar and still get carbonation, but in the mean time, if you want to make your own root beer, I recommend using the tasting method we used to test the extracts.
Get some sparkling water, and add in splenda or whatever you choose, plus the other flavorings and just make soda in the amounts you'll drink immediately. It might help to keep a mix of splenda/extract/vanilla in the fridge, and just spoon what you want in each glass. A touch of maple extract will give you the maple flavor.
Also, my husband used to be a soda junkie, he gave it up, but he's found a teaspoon of root beer extract in a glass of sparkling water that's icy cold is just fine for him. He likes the flavor.

Well.. not the best actual oatmeal. I used an organic instant oatmeal I keep on hand for quick meals for William. But it was still darn tasty.
( recipe )
New boxes up at Don't Eat the Paste.

Please leave a comment with your blog in the signature. I will reciprocate happily, but I'm going a little screwy looking at old comments and trying to dig up links from that. Of course, it's also kind of fun because I'm remembering moments of silliness.

Let's see.. other than that.. remember back in February, the Felon Omelet? Omelets are get made a lot in our house because it's a favorite "I hate what you made for dinner tonight Mom" meal. In a pinch, we have microwavable omelet pans which E uses to make her own omelet to have instead of whatever the rest of us are having.
"So what kind of omelet is that?" I asked in innocence because it looked different.
"Mustard, ketchup, hot sauce and cheese bunnies."
"Oh." I replied, probably a little faintly. "Is it good?"
"Yes, and you shouldn't ask if you don't want to know."

She's probably right. Just assume it's probably not a combination I'd ever think of, and that I never want to try. That I probably don't want to *smell*. But this is why her personal pizzas are always baked separately from the rest of ours, and if she's making pizza for dinner, we tell her exactly what goes on ours. I'm all for encouraging her creativity as long as I don't have to eat it. She says she doesn't always like what I make either. (like any vegetarian variation of something she's used to having with meat)
So I'm considering pencil boxes. Should I make just a plain box or a two part hexagonal tube?

All that history and habit makes good friends who would be there if you really needed them, but are really best friends from a distance and you never ever talk with them.
*grins* Which is to say.. on some level, my ex-husband and I never stopped being friends. I know if I needed a shoulder to cry on, I could call him and he'd be there. BUT.. really? That would be after I couldn't get an answer trying to call about 20 or 30 other people. I trust him, I care for him, and I'm pretty sure he feels the same for me. But we do best if we don't talk to each other.

------
Vibrators and cooking.. SFW so I'm not cutting it.
Mike and I watch Nova and Nova Science Now pretty regularly, and a recent ep of NSN was about water. Long story short before I get all enthused and into way too much detail.. they were showing in a low tech way how they want a low budget data probe to work using baby powder they were sifting. They used a sieve and a personal massager to sift the fine fall of powder. Combine that with another recent PBS show, This Old House maybe? which showed the making of a concrete counter top that used a vibrating table to level and spread the concrete, and I've decided I need a kitchen vibrator. Really. So Mike and I are working out exactly what I want. It has to be cleanable, and I'll need a way to set it up to level and get air bubbles out cake batter filled pans, and a sieve I can put it in to sift flour.
Of course, Mike finds this all hilarious.

I love him so much. I'm feeling super sappy today because he's working on a big green project and that is all gushy-making and because I realized yesterday, I laugh more now than I ever have before. He brings that to my life, with his wit and view.

Read and reviewed two YA novels last night. You can find those here if you're interested. My favorite was Ash. Just a lovely little fairy tale with an unconventional happily ever after.
Also did some beading, and posted an article up at Beadwork at BellaOnline. If you are all beady, you can find that here.
A couple days ago, made a new set of printable boxes with a ring design. You can find that here.
Umm.. what else?
Well.. the usual. Cooked. Cleaned. Finished a knitting project last night and taught E to knit on dpns.
Made mac and cheese for dinner last night, which is a recipe I'm constantly messing with, trying to adjust it to be just right for everyone's tastes. E is picky about mac and cheese, and I started with something that was very much a box mix type clone, the sort with the soft cheese, not the powdery stuff. That was about 8 years ago. Through the years, I've been changing it just a bit at a time to fit Mike's and my tastes and make it a little more grown up, plus balancing my love for super cheesy with his wanting super saucy and figuring out where it's too much milk and not enough cheese and vice versa. Last night's was just about spot on. Which figures, I didn't measure anything. Sometime in the last year, E started being okay with stir ins like chicken or carrots (as long as they don't get mushy, which means put them in right before I bake it, and bake it only long enough to get the crust crusty). Yum yum!

I keep feeling like there is something I should do. But.. I think I've been fairly productive today, and now I'm going to go have some sort of caloric splurge.

New printable, and a cute picture of E's shadow.

Let's see.. got distracted while working on things I meant to work on and worked on other stuff instead like starting to rework my banner on DETP.

YAY! Mike just called. There is a gold exhibit at the local museum my dad was really kind of interested in but didn't want to spend the money to go to. Mike and I were planning to buy tickets for him and the kids, but someone gave him a couple passes today. She asked him "Will you go?" and Mike said "I'll take 5 passes if I can, and all of us will go." so she gave him 5 passes. I just called Dad and he's happy. I guess this is our summer of gold. The gold exhibit, gold panning.. gold glitter wands.

Once a week or so, I talk the kids through making dinner. Last night it was spaghetti. Not my normal spaghetti which is fairly complex, but a quick version. It turned out very good and the kids were proud of themselves. Tonight we are having leftovers for dinner. The way too peppery chicken I made a few days ago, leftover spaghetti, and probably butternut squash and some sweet potato fries. (The way too peppery chicken was a hit with E and Mike who both said it was perfect. I had to scrape it off.)
I mixed a pepper/salt shaker for Mike and E to use on their food, so instead of the usual 3 shakers, they have one. It's 1:2:7 red pepper, sea salt, black pepper. Yes, they actually do use that much pepper. On darn near everything. For normal people, I'd suggest 2:1:1 no salt seasoning of choice, salt, pepper. Garlic or paprika are good choices. We use a variation of that instead of furikake for stenciling on E's rice since she dislikes nori so intensely.