Vanilla Rum/ Vanilla Extract

This week I infused some rum with vanilla beans. I did this for two reasons with the first being to make some rum that is infused with vanilla. The second is to have a supply of homemade vanilla extract for baking cookies. Infusions are really easy to do so long as you are being smart and planning ahead before you need the infusion. basically you need at least a weeks time for the infusion with longer periods of time causing more intense flavors.

Vanilla White Rum

great for a added flavor to your mixed drinks especially things like rum and coke.

Ingredients:
12 oz. White rum
1 Vanilla bean
some patience

Instructions:
Cut vanilla bean down the center and peal back the bean exposing the insides (for the first timers it looks like fine black dirt).
Place the bean in a glass bottle that is larger than 12 oz. and can seal.
Pour white rum in the bottle and seal.
Store in a cool dark place.
Shake rum everyday for a week or until the rum has reached desired infusion level.
Strain to remove bean and seeds from rum.

Suggestions:
Try it with cinnamon sticks, coffee beans, cocoa beans (for a chocolate flavor), nutmeg. or whatever spices you want to combine with rum. You can even make your own spiced rum.
Try using other types of rum.

Day 1 the bean is cut down the center, halved, and in the rum.

After the first day before shaking.

Day 3 the dark eye is just a trick of the light

Strained with vanilla extract to continue its journey

Trying it out on the rocks

White Rum Vanilla Extract

great for adding different flavors in cookies and other baked goods

Ingredients:
12 oz. 70 proof White rum
1 Vanilla bean
a lot of patience

Instructions:
Cut vanilla bean down the center and peal back the bean exposing the insides (for the first timers it looks like fine black dirt).
Place the bean in a glass bottle that is larger than 12 oz. and can seal.
Pour white rum in the bottle and seal.
Store in a cool dark place.
Shake rum everyday for a week.
continue to store in a cool dark place shaking once per week for 6 months.

Strain to remove bean and seeds from extract.

Suggestions:

You can try Adding a cinnamon stick, nutmeg, or other spices to add additional flavors if you have a specific recipe in mind otherwise it would be a good idea to just have it as is to keep it as versatile as possible.

Special Notes:

This style of vanilla extract can have a higher alcohol concentration (~70 proof) than store bought vanilla extract (unless it says pure which needs to be 70 proof by law)

also with the extended period of time infusing flavor I would highly recommend not drinking this and instead only use it for baking.

Day 1

Day 2

Day 4 the seeds have escaped the pod

Separated out

In a cupboard for the long haul

Dill Bread

This week I made a bread. It is a lighter bread and is an ideal table bread to have for a single meal. This is in comparison to some other breads that are more suited for sandwiches. I created this recipe because I have recently bought about 2 lbs of Havarti cheese with dill and wanted a bread that also had dill in it. While designing this recipe I thought of what I would ideally pair this bread with besides the cheese that inspired it. Now when I think of dill I usually think of either pickles or salmon. so naturally I would like to try this bread with both of those as a kind of sandwich or spread for tea time. I will include these pairings in the suggestions for changing the recipe section.

Hello, is it me you are looking for?

Dill Bread

The purpose of this bread is to be both filling and refreshing ideal for summer or spring tea time.

Ingredients (makes 2 loafs):
1 tablespoon white sugar
1 cup warm water ( about 110°F)
.25 oz dry active yeast (equal to 1 packet or 2 1/4 tsp)
1 teaspoon table salt
2 tablespoon olive oil + 1 tablespoon for coating
1 Tablespoon dill
1/4 teaspoon Black pepper
1 clove garlic minced
1/4 cup onion minced
3 cups bread flour
1/4 cup flax seeds

Instructions:
Combine warm water with white sugar in a large mixing bowl
Add yeast and allow mixture to proof (will appear bubbly when proofed -about 10 minutes)
Mix in salt, 2 TBSP olive oil, dill, black pepper, onion, and garlic.
Mix in 2 cups of flour
Slowly incorporate the remaining cup of flour mixing until a cohesive dough has formed.
knead the dough for 5-10 minutes forming a ball
pour remaining 1 TBSP olive oil on top of dough and turn to coat the dough
cover the ball with a damp paper towel and let rise for 1 hour or until doubled in size.
punch down knead for a few minutes and divide in half. form two balls and place on a greased half sheet pan. (or place in a greased loaf pan)
Allow dough to rise 1 hour.
Preheat oven to 375° F
Bake on the middle rack for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown (it is done when it makes a hollow sound when you knock on it)

Suggestions:
Serve with cheese (I used Havarti with dill), salmon cooked with Dijon mustard and dill, tomatoes, and pickles.
It is completely okay to remove the onion or garlic if you don't like them.
you could additionally add in chia seeds for another health boost.

This is at the adding 2 cups of flour part

Kneaded and oiled up now to cover and have some rest

Ready to rest

Cue Batman music

... you know because bread rises and there was a Batman movie with rises in the title...
no... just me? ... maybe my dad?

Ready to bake

I call this the Cool rack

Bonus Round with Pictures!

Cheesy-Dill Bread

Ingredients:
1 loaf Dill bread (see above)
2-4 oz. Cheese slices or shredded (I used Havarti with dill)
2 Tablespoon olive oil
cherry tomatoes to taste

Instructions:
allow the Dill bread to cool slightly while keeping the oven heated to 375° F
Cut a 1 inch Crosshatch pattern into the top of the loaf of bread leaving the bottom of the loaf intact
place cheese in between the sections made and place remaining cheese on top of the center of the loaf.
Bake until the cheese has melted.
Remove from oven garnish with olive oil and serve with cherry tomatoes.

Suggestions:
serve with salmon baked with Dijon mustard and dill.
garnish with fresh dill and parsley
serve with a Dijon mustard dipping sauce made with a 3:3:1 part ratio of mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, and honey. add salt and pepper to taste.

Remember me?

Okay this is starting to get cheesy

Ta Da cheesy bread minus the salmon I desire

Soy Pops MK-1

First before I talk about this post I feel the need to apologize for last week's post not going live. I thought that it would given that I scheduled it for 12 pm CST. I had written the post earlier in the week and later on reviewed it to make sure that it made at least some sense during which I saved the post as a draft so that it would be easy to access. Anyway I forgot to publish the post from its draft form so it did not post even though it says that it was posted at that time. Again apologies.

Now on to this weeks post and additional news. This week I have been rather busy with various things including working and being social with people. So I wanted to do something that was quick this week. Also, at least in the upper Midwestern states, there is a cold front coming this week. I thought that this is basically the last chance for me to do a post about something cold and feel that it is somewhat fitting to the season. finally I had just gotten the molds the previous week so I wanted to try those out to see how well they worked [you know if they would break or not {they did not}]. This week I decided to do Soy Pops. The idea behind this was to have a cream pop like treat that was healthier than eating ice cream. With the recipe that I made I will provide suggestions for changing the recipe. 

New kitchen stuff!

Soy Pops MK-1

The purpose of this is to have a homemade healthy sweet treat that is similar to a cream ice pop.

Ingredients(makes 6 servings):

1 cup soy milk

1/2 tsp coco powder

2 tsp brown sugar (for a molasses flavor alternatively you could substitute buckwheat honey or molasses instead)

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions:

blend ingredients in a bowl or shake in a jar/bottle [I shook them in a bottle because it looks better for the blog. If you are using either buckwheat honey or molasses instead of brown sugar I would recommend blending it]

pour into molds

place in freezer and wait until a hard freeze has occurred (I just waited a day before having mine)

Suggestions:

add peanut butter and blend the ingredients

For a coffee flavor add up to a 1/2 cup of coffee to the ingredients

if you like things that are sweeter add more sugar

Ingredients used other brands are available.

This is buckwheat honey sorry for the potato-ish quality of the picture

Ingredients in a bottle

Mixture poured into the molds

Ready for the big chill

BAM! SOY POP!

Carbohydrates in a normal healthy diet

In more recent years carbohydrates have been somewhat demonized in diets and society. Now most diet plans simply call for a cutting of the amount of carbohydrates in a persons diet in an enough to loss weight however there are other diets that try to minimize the amount of carbohydrates to be as close to zero as possible. Most of these diets express that one should eat a high amount of protein while controlling carbohydrates. These diets range from Atkins (a) to South Beach (b) to a multitude of variations [Google "low carb diets"]. The purpose of this post is to explain that while reducing certain food items in one’s diet is an intelligent and safe approach to weight loss; cutting out all types of carbohydrates and cutting out carbohydrates to an extreme extent can be dangerous unless certain precautions are not taken [e.g. scurvy or vitamin deficiencies]. So let’s begin.

Carbohydrates large role in a “typical” diet.

The estimated calorie requirement for a male aged 19-30 years old ranges from 2400 calories to 3000 calories depending on the males activity level. For females in this same age group the recommended caloric intake is 2000 calories to 2400 calories (c). According to the Institute of Medicine’s 2002 report adults should get 45 to 65 percent of their calories from carbohydrates, 20 to 35 percent from fat, and 10 to 35 percent from protein (d). There are 4 calories per gram of carbohydrate, 4 calories per gram of protein, and 9 calories per gram of fat (e). So using this information we can estimate that a male aged 19-30 should have between 270 grams [45% of 2400 calories= 1080 calories divided by 4 calories per gram of carbohydrate= 270] to 487.5 grams of carbohydrates [65% of 3000 = 1950 calories divided by 4 calories per gram of carbohydrate = 487.5 grams].For females in the 19-30 age group these numbers range from 225 grams to 390 grams. Now this is all well and good but what is the point of this? Well the point is that there is a large amount of calories coming from carbohydrates in the estimated calorie requirements in a typical diet.

Weight lose

A safe method for weight loss is generally viewed as about a pound or two per week. To lose a pound a week one needs to burn 3500 calories more than calories consumed (f). This can be done by cutting calories, increasing exercise, or a combination of the two. So if one burns 500 more calories per day more than they consume they should lose about a pound each week while they have body fat. Now with 1080 calories to 1950 calories coming from a carbohydrates in a “typical” diet for males one can see how cutting carbohydrates is a reasonable option for weight lose.

The source matters

While I agree with the idea of cutting some of one’s calories from one’s diet as a method of weight lose I must stress a point which is that not all calories are equal. Now what do I mean by this? What I mean is that foods have value beyond just calories in that they also contain nutrients [read vitamins and minerals] that help one’s body function properly. So a tablespoon [about 12 grams] of granulated sugar [white sugar] is about 48 calories (g), whereas 12 grams of raw broccoli is 4 calories (h) [30.9 calories/91 grams equals 0.340 multiplied by 12 grams is 4.08 calories]. Within the 12 grams of sugar basically one gets the 48 calories and not much else, whereas with Broccoli one has the benefits of vitamins A and C with a little bit of calcium and iron.

Balance is key

Now by no means am I telling you to lose weight with broccoli. I am not even telling you to lose weight as that decision should be made by you, and should be for improving your health. Please do not go and only eat broccoli or any other food exclusively. I imagine that anyone that does that seriously hates her/himself and wishes to punish him/herself in a cruel and unusual manner. The key here is balance in one’s diet. It is perfectly acceptable for an average person of average health to have sugar, to have cookies, to have love as some would say. Essentially I am saying is it is okay to have high-calorie high-carbohydrates foods so long as it is in moderation. [note: eating four dozen chocolate chip cookies in a sitting is not moderation despite my desire for this to be true].

A final word about this

If you are a person looking to lose weight. I highly recommend that you see a nutritionist to help design a weight-loss plan that is:

1. Enjoyable [if you enjoy something you are more likely to do it making it easier for you to keep to your diet]
2. Sane [no “I’m just going to eat this one food for 3 months”]
3. Plausible [if you know that you are going to need to eat a specific food at least once in a while or end up doing unspeakable things {e.g. breaking into a chocolate factory and swimming in liquid chocolate, trying to have coffee through an IV, etc.} work it into your diet, but please don’t reward yourself with food it seems sad]
4. Healthy [eat food that is good for you. As the saying goes “Good in, good out”]

A good nutritionist will be able to tailor make a diet plan with you, to fit you and your lifestyle including determining a more precise amount of calories you should have in a day, suggestions of exercises, and ways to alter foods to make them more healthy.

(i)

References

(a)<http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/weight-loss/in-depth/atkins-diet/art-20048485>

(b)<http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/weight-loss/in-depth/south-beach-diet/art-20048491>
(c)<http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/estimated-calorie-requirement>
(d)<http://www.iom.edu/Reports/2002/Dietary-Reference-Intakes-for-Energy-Carbohydrate-Fiber-Fat-Fatty-Acids-Cholesterol-Protein-and-Amino-Acids.aspx>
(e)<http://www.caloriesperhour.com/tutorial_gram.php>
(f)<http://health.howstuffworks.com/wellness/diet-fitness/weight-loss/cutting-calories-safely.htm>
(g)<http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/many-calories-one-tablespoon-sugar-2094.html>
(h)<http://calorielab.com/foods/broccoli/143>
(i)<http://38.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_loss0pvaXE1qewacoo1_r1_500.jpg>