Pure Vanilla Extract - Home Made

1 sterilized pint jar cap and cover.
6-10 good quality vanilla beans (I use 6 Penzeys  Madagascar Vanilla Beans)
1 pint cheap vodka * 80 proof or less

Chop vanilla beans into 1" pieces. Place in sterilized pint sized jar. Fill with vodka. Cover and store in cool dark place. Shake daily for 8 weeks. After 2 months but before 3 months time strain liquid through cheese cloth to remove the vanilla beans themselves. Store at room temperature in a dark cupboard.

*You can also use Bourbon, Rum or Brandy in place of Vodka

Don't toss the beans! Those Vanilla beans can still be put to good use. Let them dry and mix them with a cup or 5 of sugar to make vanilla sugar. The longer it sits the better it tastes.

Pumpkin Puree - From Scratch

Roasting:
Gather and wash sugar pumpkins (the kind for baking, not jack-o-lantern making) These are usually smaller in size and darker in color.

• Preheat oven to 425º F 
  
• Slice off stem, then cut in half.  
• Remove the stringy innards and seeds. (Set aside to roast pumpkin seeds later)
• Lightly coat jelly roll pan (cookie sheet with edges) with spray, coconut oil. (I use a small amount of coconut oil on a paper towel to do this) or parchment paper. **
• Turn pumpkins upside down (flesh down / skin up) on the pan.  
• Place in center of oven to Roast. 
• Pumpkins are done when a knife can be inserted through the thickest part easily. Check after 1 hour. If they are not yet done check in 10 minute increments for another half hour.

Preparing Puree:

• Remove from oven and allow to cool enough to be worked with. 
• At this point the skin will peel off easily.  Remove skin and put soft flesh into a large bowl.
•  Puree with food processor or immersion blender until smooth.  

Use puree immediately or choose to prepare it for storage. I highly recommend an immersion blender for this type of process but if you don't have one a food processor works just as well. You simply have to plan on doing the pureeing in batches rather than everything all at once.

Storage:

• I choose to freeze mine so I place my freezer bag into a cup, folding edges over the side.  
• With a one cup dry measure I place 2 cups of pumpkin puree in each bag.  
• Ziploc all but one corner of the top of the bag. 
• Lay it flat on the table. 
• Press puree evenly in the bag until all air is removed and bag lays flat with puree filling entire bag. 
• Ziploc the corner and place flat into freezer. 

Thaw pumpkin in sieve to drain off excess water from freezing before use.

**Notice I do not add water to the roasting process. This is because most small sugar pumpkins (the best kind for puree) have plenty of water in them already. I find I get a really good consistency using the dry method roasting process and it saves me the step of having to drain the puree'd pumpkin through cheese cloth before storing.

Strawberry Rhubarb Freezer Jam

• 4 cups rhubarb
  
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 - 3 oz package raspberry or strawberry Jell0

Mix rhubarb with sugar and let set for several hours or over night until juices sweat out. Boil mixture slowly, watching it, and stirring it as needed until rhubarb is tender and makes a sauce. Mix Jello into hot rhubarb. Pour into hot dry jelly jars or freezer quarts. Let cool - freeze, refrigerate or process for canning.

Strawberry Butter

This recipe has been totally renovated and worked on until it tasted the way I’d remembered.  I’m finally satisfied what what came from those test recipes.  Super easy to make and can be frozen for later use.  It is hard (it’s butter after all) so it does need to be removed from the refrigerator with enough time to soften before use in spreading and then returned to the refrigerator so the fruit doesn’t spoil.

• 1 pint (about 2 cups) to 1 1/2 pint fresh (or frozen) strawberries – hulled
• 4 sticks room temperature softened butter
• ¾ cup powdered sugar

In food processor chop strawberries mixed with powdered sugar. Slowly add butter cut into 1 or two tablespoon chunks while pulsing the processor stopping often to scrap sides.  Once well mixed and creamy remove from processor into mini sized containers for freezing.

Fresh Tomato Pizza Sauce

• 8-10 large tomatoes (or a mixture of a couple pounds) cored, blanched, skinned and chopped or blended.
• 1 medium head garlic (8-10 cloves) rough chopped.
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 tablespoon chilli powder
• 1 1/2 tablespoon dry Italian seasoning or 1/4 cup of fresh Italian herbs (parsley, basil, sage, oregano)

Boil a large pot of water.
Prepare a large bowl of ice water. Set Aside.
Meanwhile; core your tomatoes and cut an X in the top of each. 
Blanch tomatoes in small batches in boiling water for 1 - 2 minutes until skins begin to wrinkle slightly.
Remove from boiling water with slotted spoon and immediately immerse them into the bowl of ice water.
Drain ice water from cooled tomatoes.  If you need to use a small paring knife to catch the skins but they should peel off easily.  Discard skins reserving the meat and juice of the tomatoes.
Chop or blend tomato meats.
Take a head of garlic and press hard with the palm of your hand until the cloves separate. Hit each clove with the side of a knife just enough to break the skins.  Peel the garlic cloves and rough chop.
Put 1 tablespoon of butter in the bottom of a medium sauce pan. Add garlic and salt.
Saute' on medium until garlic is translucent but not brown (about 2 - 3 minutes).
Add tomatoes, sugar, pepper, chilli powder and spices.
Cook on medium until boiling. Reduce heat to med. low and simmer until the desire thickness is reached stirring occasionally.  This could take an hour or more.  (If you'd like to speed up the process, you can take 1/4 cup of sauce from the pan whisking in 1 tablespoon corn starch before adding it back to the pan of sauce. It should thicken within a few minutes this way).
Save in air tight container in the refrigerator/freezer, or use immediately.

Roasted Tomato Sauce

• 4 lbs. tomatoes, cored and cut in half
• 10 cloves garlic, smashed
• 2 medium yellow onion, quartered
• 3 carrot, unpeeled and chopped into large pieces or 3 beets quartered
• 2 tbsp. olive oil
• 1 tsp. kosher salt
• 1/2 tsp. ground black pepper
• 1/4 tsp. sugar

Preheat oven to 375ºF degrees.
Spray baking sheet with cooking spray.
Lay out the tomato halves (skin-side up), onion, garlic and carrot (or beets). Try to make this only one layer to allow for maximum roasting.
Drizzle olive oil all over.
Sprinkle with salt, pepper and sugar.
Bake for 1 1/2 hour to 2 hours.
Remove from oven (be careful there will still be a lot of juice in the pan).
Using a tongs pluck the skins from the tops of the tomatoes. These should come of quite easily. Discard skins.
Carefully transfer the roasted contents to a food processor, blender, or a large mixing bowl, if using a stick blender, pulse until smooth.
Add salt and pepper, if needed, to taste.
Let cool slightly.
Fill desired sized freezer bags. Freeze flat.
When ready to cook, put into sauce pan, add appropriate spices for whatever is being cooked. Simmer for about 30 minutes. 
Will make approximately 2 1/2 quarts.

Apple Butter

• 20 - 24 apples of mixed variety, peeled, cored and chopped small.
• 1 cup local honey
• 2 tablespoons cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon clove
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/3 cup water or apple cider

Place chopped apples in large crock pot (if you chop them small enough they will all fit. If not don't worry you can add the rest as they cook down).Top with remaining ingredients.
Toss everything together.
Cover and place crock pot on Low.
Cook whisking occasionally for approximately 20 hours.
After 8-10 hours crack lid to allow some moisture to escape.
For the last 4 hours remove cover and whisk aggressively. Leave cover off whisking occasionally until thick and you can see the whisk marks staying in the butter.
Place in freezer containers (I filled 3, 2.1 cup freezer containers), allow to cool before covering and placing in freezer.
Thaw in refrigerator when ready to use.