Homemade Vanilla Extract

What you need:

• 1 small-ish bottle (or however much vanilla extract you want to make).
• Enough vodka to fill the bottle(s).
• About 2 vanilla beans per dl of vodka.

How you do it:

• Take a smallish bottle and fill it with vodka. 
• Split the vanilla beans and chop to smaller pieces if needed. Add them to the bottle.
• Put the bottle away somewhere and forget about it, the longer the better, at least a couple of months. (I forgot about mine for more than 6 months.)
• When you find it again you have vanilla extract! Enjoy!

What you can further do:

• Strain the vanilla extract to get rid of the vanilla bean remnants.
• Add sugar syrup or glucose syrup, or some other syrup you like, or honey, according to taste. Shake well, until the syrup dissolves.
• Pour into a bottle and let rest in a dark and cool place for at least a month.
• Now you have vanilla extract liqueur! About the yummiest stuff on the planet, if you like vanilla!

Jam Recipes

Amanda wanted to see recipes for a couple of my preserves, so I'll share them with all of you!

Apple jam.

Apple Jam

• 1,5 kg apples (peeled, core removed, chopped)
• 4 dl water
• 800 g jam sugar (sugar with added pectine)
• cinnamon (whole or powdered, or both)
• ginger (fresh or powdered)

1. Boil chopped apple in the water, under lid, for about 15-20 minutes. Stir often.
2. Add the sugar as well as cinnamon and ginger (according to taste).
3. Boil about 5 minutes. 
4. Stir until mushy.
5. Pour into clean, hot jars and put the lids on immediately.

Beetroot Marmelade

• 800 g beetroot (peeled, grated)
• 200 g onion (chopped)
• 1,5 dl balsamic vinegar (or according to taste)
• 4-5 dl jam sugar
• salt
• pepper
• cinnamon
• clove
• nutmeg
• vanilla sugar

1. Let the grated beets and the chopped onion simmer in salted water until they are soft, about 1 hour. Remove the water and press out all of the water from the beets and onions. 
2. Blend betts and onions with vinegar, sugar and spices (powdered, according to taste) and bring to a boil. Let simmer for 15-20 minutes. 
3. Por into clean, hot jars. The liquid should cover the beets.

As it is the first time I'm making these recipes I have no idea how long they will keep. Hopefully until the next years harvest... *fingers crossed*

Pickles, Jams and Jellies

It's that time of the year again and for the first time in seven (!) years I am in a position to actually take full advantage of what nature gives! For seven years I have spent early autumn away at school, far from the harvest and without space for preserves. So this year I went a bit nuts, eagerly cheered on by my father (who loves eating what I make) and my aunt (who is happy to have someone to go all preserve-geeky with). Here at my home I have all the necessities! A root cellar, a vegetable garden, a greenhouse and forests where I can pick berries. So during the last few weeks I have been quite busy with gathering the harvest and making pickles, jam, jelly, relish, cordial, you name it.

This is a subject that is rather off topic on this blog. But since I already wrote a post about my herbal tea I thought that a picture heavy post about all my preserves would be of interest to some of you. So here goes...

All the types of preserve. From left to right, top row: lingonberry jam, cranberry jam, beetroot marmelade, cucumber relish. Bottom row: apple jam, rowan berry jelly, pickled green tomatoes, pickled beetroot.

Pickled green tomatoes, cucumber relish and pickled beetroots.

Lingonberry jam, beetroot marmelade and cranberry jam.

Isn't the rowan berry jelly the prettiest preserve ever!?

Here are the preserves in my root cellar.

Another view of my root cellar.

In this shadowed corner are my bottles of cordial.

Paavo was very curious about the root cellar, he doesn't get to be there often. ;)

Paavo and some cordial, aronia berry cordial on the left and red currant cordial on the right.

If you are curious about any of the recipes just ask and I'll provide (...in metric at least). I have added my own little twist to all of the recipes so I do feel comfortable with sharing them, I just can't be bothered to write them all out right now. My favorite of these preserves is the beetroot marmelade. That was an experiment that failed at first, but on the second go the outcome was delicious! It is sweet, spicy and with a tangy twist of balsamic vinegar. I have yet to taste the pickled green tomatoes and the rowan berry jelly, but I am intensely curious about both!

What are your favorite preserves? Do you make jams or preserves? What kinds do you make or what kinds would you like to make?

Lastly, a picture of Paavo being cute.