Homemade….Vanilla Extract

​We started this in April and this weekend we pooped it open to make pancakes! 

We made homemade butter last weekend and saved the left over buttermilk for pancakes. We have really been on a ‘Home Made’ kick lately, here is a list of things we have made and are making:

Mead, honey wine

Butter

Buttermilk 

Sour Dough (Just started this, more to come on this)

Vanilla Extract 

Coming soon: Pasta

And how to make vanilla extract….take some vanilla beans, add to a large bottle, fill with vodka and then let it sit for about 7 months….BAM vanilla extract!

How to Save Money

​On today’s episode of living during hard times I present to you:

The Costco Tube of MEAT!

This is 10 lbs of 90/10 ground beef! This monstrosity cost about 57$.

We cut it up and separated it into 10 individual one pound sealed bags and froze them. In the end this came to about $5.70 a pound! And I am not sure where other people are around the world but here in my neck of the woods this meat usually runs about $11 a pound. 

And as you can see this is what they are charging at my local food store. I did a search on the average price of ground meat but as well all know the average of the whole does not always reflect the actual price of the local. 

According to the Googles the average price is $8.18 and after going to a few different stores I could not find any for that price. 

And no not looking to go political on this, or point fingers, at the end of the day I have eyes and a calculator. For reference here is the chart that also talks to the rise of the price of beef:

( https://www.macrotrends.net/4486/us-ground-beef-prices )

Prices go up we get frugal!

12 Years in the Making

I have always been a blogging/journaling kind of person. Inconsistent as hell but I still plug along. I started this particular journal in December of 2013, about a month after arriving in California. It really helped with getting my thoughts, frustrations and even some of my mental vomit out of my skull and onto a medium.

I have always loved the old fashion pen and paper kind of journals, at times I feel I have a real problem…I have started more journals than I have finished! The wife gets them from work, if a see a nice leather bound journal I have to physically and emotionally move away from it before I buy, yet another journal!

And yes I am probably going to get the same journal to continue what I have deemed, The Work Journal. To be honest it is one of the few journals I have actually been somewhat consistent with.

Work is s such a huge part of adult life and a place where soo much irritation is generated, it is hard NOT to want to journal about it! I really should go through my journals and thin them out…but they are mines…my precious…why should I give them up!?!?

Garden Sprinkler Adventure

About three weeks ago I notice that one of the hoses in our little backyard garden was leaking.

Nothing crazy, it had just become dry rotted and needed to be changed out. But as I tried to remove the little hose I snapped the spout on the head of the thingie that feed all the other hoses.

So this meant a trip to Home Depot, but to no ones surprise they did not have the one I was looking for. I ended up buying a different one that I thought would work just as fine. I got new hoses, caps and a candy bar….because of course you cannot make it out of Home Depot without buying candy!

I get home change out the head, replace all the houses and turn on the water. Come to find out the head I bought was designed for the slow drip feed type and not the free flowing jet type.

So this now this meant I was going to have to go and search through Amazon to find what I needed, and guess what? They had it, shit….they had several types and styles of the unregulated water flow heads I was looking for! The only draw back was it was going to take three days. So, with order in place I left everything until the new head came in and I got the motivation to start again.

Week three: with new head in hand and a nice cool dry day to motivate me, I was off to the races again!

(This was the mess I left three weeks ago)

This time it was an absolute success, hoses attached water tested and mess cleaned up, we have yet another adventure in home ownership under our belts!

Black Stone Grill

We have had this grill for two years now and it has been one of the best outdoor investments we have ever made.

The unboxing 2023

First time cooking on it

Yes it does require some work to maintain but it really is not that hard. We seasoned it on day one and have re-seasoned it several times since. The first time was because of my fuck up, I tried to cook a very sauce heavy meat concoction with tomatoes and it fucked things all up! And now my son did something similar and had to season it again. If you look on the internet they give you all kinds of over the top ways to do it and all kinds of products you don’t need.

What you need: a hand held torch, tallow, paper towels, squirt bottle and steel wood scrubbing pads.

Step one: Scrub all the entire surface with the steel wool. Put some elbow grease into this and get all food stuffs off.

Step two: Turn heat on and once hot squirt water all over the service.

Step three: Once all the water has evaporated slap some tallow on the service. Use paper towels to coat the entire surface evenly. And then let it cook off. I repeat this process two or three times. For the last coating I will let it cook for about 30 minutes.

I use the hand torch to get the edges nice a hot.

And honestly that is it. No special seasoning things or over the top gadgets. I have taken my grill from rusty to awesome using this.

Before:

After:

I have watched numerous videos on how to season your BlackStone and this is how I do it.

Blogging is my Therapy

Once upon a time I blogged to help with my thoughts. Then it became a place to joke and smoke, I made friends and had fun. But time has flown by since my first poorly written post and my inconsistent attempts at being a blogger.

I even tried creating my own web page, that didn’t last long. I am unfocused and very directionless. I get distracted easily and frustrated even easier.

Why am I here and what do I want from doing this? The answer is, I don’t have an answer. I am just here because, just because.

I used to sit behind a desk with little to do now I accidentally found myself behind a desk having to adult. It isn’t a hard job but it is mentally draining, I still journal to help keep me sane but it has been more pen and paper than online. I love the old style of writing and the art of journaling. That is kind of how and why I stated this journey. What do I want to do with it? To be honest, nothing really it is just something I like doing.

I do wish that I have been more consistent through all these years, but I am not one to dwell on failure. We move on and party on. The party is still raging on, the day to day is mundane and things have slowed down but we still have life in us so we march on!

My grammar, is poor; my blogging, sporadic; my mind, chaotic; but my intent is fun and the reason…more fun. I am almost 50 and my circle of friends has gotten smaller and my level of fucks to give even smaller. If you don’t like what I have to offer, that is ok I am not everyone’s cup of beer but if you do get at least a little something out of this leave a comment and I will comment back.