Strawberry-Vanilla Jam-boree

Anytime I feel a little bummed or homesick, I like to make PBJ sandwiches. It's my ultimate comfort food, and I think making homemade jam and bread (that experiement will be published later) make it that much more comforting.
I had a HUGE bag of beautiful strawberries and needed to preserve them somehow, since I had eaten my fill. It seemed a shame to freeze them, because I tend to forget about things in the freezer...
So, I decided to make strawberry-vanilla jam for bummer days and not-so-bummer days.

Ingredients and Lab Equipment:
Strawberries
Vanilla
Sugar
Water
Pectin
Heavy Sauce Pan
Jar

Lab Techniques:
I mixed up the calcium powder for the pectin and stored it in a small glass jar. I mashed up the strawberries, which yielded about 4 cups of strawberries and put them in the sauce pan with a little water and added 2 cups of sugar. This is considered a small amount of sugar, but I wanted to retain the natural taste of the berries rather than make something overly sweet and sticky. I added the calcium water and brought the whole mixture to a boil. I reduced the heat, added the pectin and stirred for 2 minutes, until it started to thicken, and removed it from the heat as soon as the 2 minutes were up. I poured the hot jam into a jar and sealed it. I left the jar on the counter overnight to cool before I stuck it in the fridge the next day.

Lab Results:
Very comforting! With the reduced sugar, it wasn't as thick as jam, but the chunks of strawberries tasted like real strawberries instead of candied strawberries. I made so much of it, I won't be making jam again for a couple of months.

Crunchy Granola Bad-ass

I don't deny my hippie status.
Actually, it's more like earth-child/homemaker/overall bad-ass.
Most Bikram Yoga Teachers aren't crunchy granola-heads. Most of my fellow Bikram Yogis and Yoginis love good food. Pure food. Well crafted, simple foods. Myself, included.
And I love granola. Any kind of granola, really. But, I'm finding most days, they're making so many super-fancy granolas, I get overwhelmed when trying to decide on a flavor and spending much longer at Whole Foods than I'd really like to. Plus, a lot of granola is made with a ton of oil.
This prompted today's experiment: Granola

Ingredients and Lab Tools:
Rolled Oats
Brown Sugar
Water
Vanilla
Cinnamon
Raisins
Butter
Baking Pan
Spatula

Lab Techniques:
Pre-heat the oven to 350
I made a thick paste with the brown sugar, water and a little vanilla, then coated the oats with it. I smeared some butter inside the baking pan, so the oats/sugar paste mixture wouldn't stick to it. I spread the oats in the pan evenly, sprinkled it with cinnamon and popped it in the oven. I waited until it started to smell awesome and turned a lovely golden color, then pulled it out and let it cool.
Once it cooled, I scooped the granola out, using the spatula, letting it break up into chunks naturally, then added the raisins and stored it in a glass jar.

Results:
Delicious. My roommate and I have been eating it straight from the jar a lot...

Chai Harder!

I love Chai. I love it hot or cold, anytime of year. I have special "Chai cups"; small tea cups without handles that I got at IKEA for 47 cents. I've got an extra special one from my dear friend, Andrea, that looks like a tiny owl.  Unfortunetly, the Chai tea that you buy at the grocery store and brew yourself, generally sucks. And when I put anything othe than cow milk in it, it get's funky and clumpy.
Boo-urns.
I've started to feel guilty about buying Chai and supporting Starbucks. Plus, I hate using paper cups. Sure, you can get the plastic, insulated ones, but those aren't great either. Anyway, back to the real reason I'm writing this: my Chai Concentrate Experiment.
A lot of the recipes I found online involved mixing the spices with condensed milk. I tried it a couple of times, but the spices sunk to the bottom, the jar got sticky and gross looking and I try to avoid cow milk when possible, since it's not super great for humans. Armed with my knowledge of how to make a simple syrup, I decided to make a concentrate like they have in coffee shops.
I'm fully aware that Chai Concentrate is available for sale at the grocery store, but it's not cheap and again, I'm trying to reduce the amount of waste I create and they come in coated cardboard, which I don't think can be recycled. This homemade concentrate is stored in glass jars! Recyclable and better for you!

Ingredients and Lab Tools:
Black Tea
Water
Sugar
Ground Cardamom
Ground Cinnamon
Ground Cloves
Ground Nutmeg
Glass Mason Jar
Heavy Sauce Pot

Experiment Steps:
I started by making a very strong black tea using several tea bags, letting them seep for about 10 minutes. I used the tea as the water to make the syrup. A simple syrup is 1 part water: 2 parts sugar, so I measured the tea and doubled the number for the sugar. I added the spices (1 part cardamom: 1/2 part rest of spices) to the sugar and added it to the tea. I dissolved the sugar, brought the mixture to a boil, reduced the heat and let the mixture simmer for 3 minutes to make the syrup. I let it cool for a bit, then poured it into glass jars and sealed them for future use.

Results:
The syrup was a little thinner than anticpated, but it actually works quite well. I've tried mixing it in a variety of ways and they all work well. I did it iced, mixing a little syrup with water, so it was like a sweet tea. I tried mixing half concentrate, half coconut milk; awesome. I did it mixed with hot water and a little coconut milk; equally awesome.

Overall Results:
An excellent experiment indeed! Extremely versatile, I can't wait to mix it with vanilla ice cream and try a Chai Milkshake!