mint & vanilla extract

i visited home a couple weekends ago, as previously mentioned. and visiting home always has some perks:

-sleeping in my old room…it still feels like my room with the same green walls, old quotes painted on the ceiling, and some trinkets and pictures, but the furniture is updated and more ‘guest room’ friendly. in other words- an awesome king size bed. somehow, with being the only ones without kids at the holidays, wil and i luck out by still getting my room, and we love the king bed!

-homemade ice cream…mom always has a batch of homemade ice cream in the deep freeze out in the garage. if my dad didn’t have a crazy metabolism (that i was lucky to get in my genes), he’d weigh so much more from homemade ice cream every night. vanilla is her standard, but ever so often there will be a fruit, coffee, or mint chip in the mix.

-free food…every college student enjoys going home to get free homecooked meals, but when i say free food, it usually means free groceries. i always walk away with fresh herbs cut from her pots, some meats she bought and froze way long ago to even remember, and some produce here and there if they plan to leave for a trip after my visit.

this past visit, those benefits became a beautiful collision. i followed mom around the house while she updated me on things she bought, plants she’s growing, etc, while i carried in hand a bowl of mint chip ice cream on the ‘tour’. i had to stop and tell her just how good this batch of mint chip was. i couldn’t figure out why that would be funny, but she immediately started laughing at the compliment.

to make a long story short…she harvested a ton of mint at our family cabin, stuffed it into a couple jars with vodka and let it sit in the sun for a month. but by the time it was done ‘fermenting’ into extract, she thought it seemed weird and threw a good portion of it out, leaving herself just one bottle for the heck of it. while making  this recent batch of mint ice cream, she ran out of the store bought mint extract, and warily used her homemade version instead. well, she laughed because it ended up being the best batch of mint chip ice cream…my dad had already separately raved about it a few days before i was ever there.

so how did i luck out? i got this fabulous idea from mom, and then i got to ransack her planter of fresh mint to go home and make my own. i’m not as ambitious of an ice cream maker as my mom, so i did a small batch. but i think it could also be fun for mixed drinks or chocolate desserts. and while doing our usual mom-daughter routine for the latest fashion deals at ross the next day, we came across a vanilla extract set…bottle and beans ready, so we just had to get that too. i might need to do a results post on both extracts in a month or so!

mint extract
she initially googled and came across this quick how-to

ratio: 1 pound of peppermint or spearmint leaves to 1 quart sized jar filled with a decent vodka. my jar was about 12 fluid ounces (1.5 cups), and i had about 3 or 4 ounces of mint (one big bunch). i’m guessing/hopeful it’s one of those things that’s pretty forgiving; it might not go ‘wrong’, but maybe just be weaker or take longer to achieve the right flavor.

wash & dry mint. pull leaves off stem, crush and bruise- i just gave them some good squeezes and slight wringing, and my hands smelled heavenly! stuff leaves into jar, pour vodka over leaves to fill.

place in sun for 3-4 weeks. strain with a new cheese cloth into desired jar or bottle.

vanilla extract
2-3 beans, sliced in half lengthwise
12ish ounces vodka

store in dark cool space for 4-6 weeks

you can choose to leave beans in jar, begin to use, and then continually ‘top off’ with vodka, or you could pull the beans out and make vanilla infused sugar by placing them submerged in a container of sugar for a month or two! no need to strain, but be sure to shake the bottle before use to distribute the vanilla that settles to the bottom.