Herbed Bath Salts

Spiced bath salts

     Hello again! I'm going to share another project I worked on during my crafter's break. The last few months for me (as well as for a lot of you, I'm sure) have been somewhat chaotic in my life. I am in the middle of switching jobs and wanted to give a token of my thanks to the lovely ladies I have been working with since I got to Texas.

     Since I work at a spice store (and I love a good bath soak), I got interested in making bath salts for my coworkers. I had all the spices I needed for this project on hand already, but I did need to pick up a few extra things at the store- unscented Epsom salts and powdered milk aren't things I normally keep on hand in my pantry/house. However, they were fairly inexpensive and added a little bit of extra spa-luxury to the bath tea's I made. Spring break might be over, but you can still relax and enjoy!
 
Materials:

• Epsom salts (1/2 c.)
• salt (1/2 c.)
• powdered milk (1.5 c)
• baking soda (1/8 c)
• corn starch (2 tbs)
• spices (cracked rosemary and lavender (1/8 c. each); cinnamon (1 Tbl.) and vanilla bean)
• muslin/silk draw string bags 
• glass or plastic containers (optional)

Crockpot Chicken Stock

     This week is spring break in Texas (also known as SpRrianNnnNnngggG BreEaaakkKkkk for those still in college).  I am not going anywhere exciting this year, so instead I am going to try and have a "crafter's-break" instead; do a craft once a day or so and hopefully document it here. Please chime in if you have any good ideas for quick crafts that I can try!

      I see food as craft, so for today's post, I made chicken stock. Luckily, it was very hands off after the initial chopping of the vegetables and putting them in the crockpot, so I had time to make baklava, fix lunch, clean, and do some laundry while I was waiting for the stock to be done.

     To make a stock, you need only four simple categories of ingredients: a carcass, vegetables, herbs, and water. There are some traditional ingredients (carrots, onions, celery), but I often use whatever I have on hand (in this case, fennel stalks, asparagus ends, and braising green stems). Each stock turns out tasting a bit differently this way, which I like.
     After the stock was finished, I let it cool then poured it into muffin pans and popped them in the freezer for perfectly portioned (2/3 c.) chicken stock popsicles to use in future recipes.

Quick Tip- Sauce Portioning

Whether it is from homemade sauce or jars of store-bought sauce, I always have leftovers. Since they don't last that long, even in the fridge, I always freeze my sauces. But it can be messy to get sauce into sandwich bags, so I use this trick that I borrowed from my days working at a Bakery and filling bags with icing - shout out to Bobbicakes!

1. Place a sandwich bag inside of a wide-mouth mug or cup. Make sure that the top of the bag folds over to the outside of the cup. 
2. Place a funnel inside the cup and pour in the sauce (if you are super confident about pouring, you can skip the funnel part.) If any lumps stop up the funnel, shake it gently from side to side until the clog clears.
3. Once all the sauce is poured into the bag, zip the bag closed. Then remove the bag from the cup. Mess free sauce portioning!

A Pumpkin Pake

Pumpkin Cuppake with a little bit of whipped cream on the side, sprinkled with a bit of cinnamon

      Well, technically, they are pumpkin cuppakes- cupcakes wrapped in little pieces of pie dough instead of the usual paper wrapper. Fair warning, this recipe makes for one heck of an awesome carb-filled biteful.
    For those of you who remember my first foray into baking a pake- it was a blueberry pie with a sour cream cake, aka a blueberry pake- I did it for the sake of Drop Dead Diva. They now have a recipe on their site for those wishing to make a pake, but all the ingredients are canned or come from a box (lame!) So, I set out to make another wonderful pake, this time with fall flavors in mind. My dad and mom came to visit last weekend, so I made these treats in my dad's honor since he loves pumpkin pie. And as much as I rag on the Lifetime recipe for not being "from scratch." I am not a total glutton for punishment, so I did use store bought pie dough and store bought canned pumpkin (if you want to make your own, feel free- I've done it in the past and it is delicious, if time consuming.)

A Sour Attempt At Pickling

     Puns aside though, this was a colossal disaster: please in no way follow any of my instructions to make this or your hopes for pickles will turn into salty seas of sadness.
    My brother subscribes to get a farmer's basket every other month with various vegetables (I call it Hippy Harvest); a few weeks ago we got a few pickling cucumbers from the farmer's basket. Now, I love pickles. LOVE THEM. I used to be the kid who would buy a cup of frozen pickle juice for 50 cents while at the skating rink- Or, if I was feeling incredibly wasteful with my allowance, I would get an entire giant pickle. And while I can't quite stomach that much acid at a time any more, there is nothing I like better than sneaking a little crunchy pickle snack into my day.
    So, I thought, I should make my own pickles! What a grand adventure it will be- battling all the possibly dangerous bacteria floating around in home canned pickles (well, so say the critics). And of course, should I go with the classic kosher pickle recipe, using lacto-fermentation (mostly salt) or the modern stand-by (mostly vinegar.) Since I have had so many vinegar pickles, I decided to go with salted pickles. The theory is that as the brine increases in it's fermenting, the salty cucumbers will excrete salt in the form of a sour, tanginess. Or something more scientific than that. So the longer you leave the good bacteria to do it's thing, the more sour your pickles become. And they continue to ferment until they are eaten and "go bad."
     But for some reason, I didn't actually try to follow the recipe that the video pickle-guys used. Instead, I used a recipe from a random cookbook. And while I am sure the recipe was great, I apparently can't convert a recipe for one large crock into the three jars I ended up using. Instead of splitting the mixture between the three jars adn then adding water (as the directions for the crock recipe said to), I added all the salt mixture to one jar and then made a new batch. the amount of salt I used was a bit extreme (1/3 cup for the big jar and another 1/3 cup split between the smaller jars); this is expesially ridiculous when you look at the measurements from the first video (1 tablespoon per jar.) Yikes! As soon as I tried them, I winced in salt-shock and I was still tasting salt in my mouth hours after I tested them. I should have just put the slices over my eyes and called it quits for the day.

     I found a couple of really good videos explaining the process, which I will post below:

How to Make Dill Pickles with Lacto-Fermentation 

How to Make Fermented Dill Pickles 

Avacado Ice Cream?

     Ok, when I saw this recipe on Alton Brown's website and had to try it. After all, I absolutely love avacados- a well made guac is where it's at, but avacados are at their finest plain with just a bit of salt.  The texture thing can be a big issue for some people, but it doesn't bother me at all. And they have a good amount of fat (one day it's "good" and the next its back on the "no no" list), which makes them a perfect ingredient for ice cream.
     Yes, ice cream!

Getting ready to use my Kitchen Aid ice cream attachment; reading the instructions and assembling

   

A Blueberry Pake

   In the last month or so, I finally decided to move to Houston, TX (shout out to my brother Chris!) So I have been thoroughly busy deciding what to take instead of making anything new. However, I had the day off on the fourth of July and I wanted to bake! I wanted something "American" - and I had a lot of blueberries just waiting to go bad before I could eat them all- so I immediately thought of making blueberry pie. I mentioned this idea to my boyfriend, who said, "oh I hate pie, I like cake better" and that blueberry pie dream was killed. Of course, I never really love fruit pies myself and I know how much work they take (hello lattice crust: my worst nightmare), so I wasn't entirely mad at my BF for pointing his preference out.

But what else could I make?
Of course, of course! A Pake!

    If anyone else out there is addicted to Drop Dead Diva, they will immediately know what I am talking about since Stacy's Pakery has been in the plot-line for the show for a while now.  For all those others though, a pake is a pie recipe mixed with a cake recipe. If you search for "pake" on google, you will get a fully made pie inside of a cake (aka too much work). Instead, my pake has a pie crust and the bottom half is fruit filling; the top half is a sour cream cake. Goodbye need for a lattice top.

Cupcakes- Trublood Themed

Finished: glass shard cupcakes

The Ingredients:

• Cupcakes (any flavor you want; I used chocolate and vanilla)
• Frosting (any kind you want; I used cream cheese)
• Filling
• Pudding (any flavor you want; I used vanilla)
• Whipped cream
• Toppings
• Glass Shards 
• 3/4 cup of white sugar
• 1/4 cup of water
• Maraschino cherry syrup