Are you a sexy mom?

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I tend to say, err…  scream, “Oh God!” during intimate times with my honey.  It’s hard to explain what is going on inside my head during those moments because I’m…  well…  I’m enjoying the moment.  One day he asked me about my enthusiastic outburst and I had to stop and try to put a whole cosmos of feeling into mere words.  But to put it simply, it’s like a little prayer to God inside me that is bursting to come out.  It’s like saying, “Thank you God for this opportunity to be the woman you made me with the man that you gave me.”

Vanilla Extract and High Fructose Corn Syrup

At my last trip to the grocery store, I began my holiday preparations by checking out the baking goods.  Now, I know it’s a bit early for most people to begin thinking about Christmas, but I so enjoy cooking.

We almost have ALL high fructose corn syrup out of our diet.  I still buy bread because I haven’t gotten around to setting aside an entire day for bread baking.  But I thought I was doing really well on the HFCS elimination until I checked out the label on the vanilla bottles.  YIKES!  There it was, plain as day.  Granted, the amount of HFCS that we would injest from a teaspoon of vanilla mixed into a whole batch of brownies would be miniscule.  But that is not the point.  This just really brings home how pervasive HFCS really is.

So, I left the bottle of pure vanilla extract on the shelf and went home to do some investigating.  I found out just how easy it was to make my own vanilla extract.  I also discovered why vanilla extract costs so much!  Did you know that “Vanilla is an orchid that only grows within 20 degrees of the equator, it only blooms after 3 years, the flowers must be hand pollinated, the beans remain on the vine for 9 months, and then are soaked in the sun for weeks or months. Making extract from the beans adds months to the process.”

The recipe is really simple.  Vanilla beans and liquor.  Split the beans.  Put it all in a glass jar and let it soak for about 2 months.  Store in a cool dark place and shake it occasionally.  Vodka, rum, and brandy seem to be the most recommended.  I found the recipe here with a lot of great follow up comments.