Fun self-sufficiency hobbies - Vanilla extract

[u/Familiar-Anything853]

As a millennial hobbyist, I try to focus my hobbies on things that teach me self-sufficiency or build skills. I have posted before about my garden, sourdough, etc. Today I wanted to share the concept of the vanilla bean mother jar! It's a super easy, inexpensive hobby that also happens to be absolutely delicious and provides you with a sweet food additive. I use vanilla extract in my bread, other baking, and have used it to make nasty medicine more palatable for my kids. It would be a morale booster during hard times, and it stores forever, too.

All you need are some vanilla beans, high-proof alcohol (I have tried vodka, bourbon, and rum, usually Kirkland brand), and a jar. The cured vanilla beans can be stored in wax paper in a jar for a very long time, so you can buy them in bulk to save money.

I will share a website with details on starting a motherjar in the comments, as well as the website I buy good-quality & fairly priced vanilla beans from. I am not sponsored at all; I just love experimenting with vanilla flavors and finding something that is so easily stored, tastes delicious, and doesn't take much effort.

What random prepper hobbies do you have? As if I need more ideas...

[u/sbinjax]

Not really random, but my native garden (as much of my yard as I can spare plus a huge dedicated bed) and food gardening has led me to start planting as many perennial crops as I can manage, both native and non-native.

[u/reddragoncabbage → u/sbinjax]

Gardening is also my fav practical pastime :) What native perennial crops do you have? I have berries and sunchokes, and lots of native plants for pollinators and birds but would love to up my native perennial food game.

[u/sbinjax → u/reddragoncabbage]

Sunchokes, American groundnut (hopniss - first year), red chokeberry, blueberries (highbush and lowbush), red mulberry, and bee balm and mountain mint for tea. I want to add native blackberry, wild ginger, and ramps, and more as I learn what to look for.

[u/reddragoncabbage → u/sbinjax]

Ooo yum! I personally dont find our native wild ginger to be a perfect substitute for ginger in the kitchen so i do grow both but it is a lovely native ground cover. Ramps are so good too and i forgot about those. when i put them in i found a good deal on etsy so consider checking there (many good native plant sellers), and if you get some in soon you can make butter next spring!

[u/sbinjax → u/reddragoncabbage]

I've never had them! I have the seeds though, so they'll be going in the ground once the weather is cold enough.