Stay out of the vanilla extract!

We ran out of vanilla extract again, and while I bought another bottle to get us through, I also decided to start our own here to be used when that runs out. A bottle of cheap vodka, a couple of packs of extract-grade vanilla beans and we're good to go.

It's only been working or soaking or whatever you'd call it for a few days, but it already smells like vanilla extract and it's hard to keep from opening the bottle and sniffing! Or worse.

Sprouted wheat berries in homemade bread

On a whim (or maybe a desperate desire to see something growing), I got my sprouting jar out and sprouted about a cup and a half of wheat berries over the course of a couple of days. I'm letting a small portion of them continue to grow in a windowsill so that we have wheat grass for salads, but the rest went into bread dough for 3 loaves of bread today. I just sliced myself a sample and oooooh my is it good! The wheat sprouts still add some texture but they're not tooth-crackingly hard, and the bread is nice and chewy (not sure if it's because of the sprouts or the fact that I used apple sauce for the sweetening and part of the liquid). I just started soaking some flax seed to try sprouting that, too.

P.S. Mrs. Mac, there, now there's a picture. :)

Turkey Revenge

I was amazed at my friend Cathy's feats of thrift with a turkey that she made 10 meals/uses of (read about it here), and when I received a Braised Balsamic Chicken Breast recipe as my daily recipe from AllRecipes.com, I decided today was the day to thaw a turkey and see what I could do. Mine was just a 12-pounder (or so). And it was frozen solid, and when I pulled it out of the deep freeze, the bag it was in broke and dropped it down onto my bare foot. Duh. That's what I get for walking around barefoot in February. Anyway it didn't even hurt for about 15 minutes and then WOW.

I thawed Mister Turkey in a stock pot filled with warm salt water. I don't know if that's an approved method but it works well and I like the combining of steps, a quick thaw and a brine soak. I just finished boning out the turkey and put the bones in a stock pot with more water, carrots, onions and celery, plus a bay leaf and salt and pepper, and it's cooking away there. Tonight I plan to use one of the breast halves to make the Balsamic Chicken Breast recipe (turkey breast makes a great chicken breast substitute, just slice it up in chicken-breast-sized pieces), and tomorrow I'll make Cathy's Sticky Chicken Wings recipe, only I'll use the boned leg meat, and the other chicken breast I'll season and bake to make sandwich meat. The stuff on the stove now will be soup for another meal. I won't get anywhere near 10 meals out of this bird, but should get at least 4 or 5, counting leftovers (chicken fried rice is a great way to use up a little bit of leftover chicken or turkey meat).

• Braised Balsamic Turkey Breast
• Sticky Turkey
• Turkey sandwiches (2 meals' worth at least)
• Turkey salad
• Turkey Fried Rice
• Turkey Soup

******

Later:

Balsamic Braised Whatever is delicious! Of course I realized I was short on many key ingredients so mine's different. Here is my version:

4 roma tomatoes, chopped

Basil, oregano and marjoram to taste

1/2 c. rice vinegar

1/4 c. sugar

4 turkey breast cutlets

1 onion, sliced thinly

olive oil

salt

pepper

garlic powder

Toss the chopped tomato with the basil, oregano and marjoram. Add the vinegar and sugar; stir. Set aside.

Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a heavy frying pan. Add the onion slices and sautee for a minute or two. Meanwhile, sprinkle the turkey cutlets with salt, pepper and garlic powder. Lay each one on top of the onions in the frying pan. Brown the turkey cutlets on both sides. Then spoon all the tomato mixture on top of them, turn the heat down to low and let the mixture simmer till the turkey meat is no longer pink in the middle.

Serve with rice and orzo, with green beans on the side. Makes 4 servings.