Let the race to Christmas begin!

Well I have to say I was a little disappointed when I visited a local retailer a few weeks ago (late September) and found Christmas decorations and trees already on display! It's not even Halloween yet! It's no secret to anyone out there in the retail field that preparing for the holiday rush takes months of planning and projecting, but that doesn't mean you need to start displaying Christmas stuff 2 months before the actual holiday! Sheesh!

That being said, here at Make Your Own, we are preparing for Small Business Saturday®. This November 24th is Small Business Saturday®, a day to celebrate and support the local small businesses that boost the economy and invigorate neighborhoods across the country.


Make Your Own is proud to take part in Small Business Saturday®, and we’re encouraging everyone to Shop Small® here on November 24th.

Most importantly, get out there, Shop Small®, and let’s make this November 24th the biggest day of the year for small business.

To learn more click here.


We've also been hard at work preparing, researching and testing new products for some brand new kits that are going to be rolling out just in time for the holidays!

Gather the kids around and create your very own version of a Haunted House with cookies!

The Haunted House Bake Set includes: Metal poly-resin coated forms needed to create the haunted house, cat, ghost, pumpkin and moon cookie cutters, complete baking and assembly instructions, recipes, decorating suggestions and tips. Completed house is 7"W x 5"D x 8"H.

We hope your Fall has been enjoyable and 

your harvest was plentiful! 

Happy Halloween!

Preserving the Harvest

Well the summer seemed to fly by this year in Western New York. The warm, dry months were filled with festivals, food and fun! We sure do need some rain, but our gardens have flourished! In fact, our fresh hops are coming along great!

Our herbs are flourishing as well! We've been picking and harvesting them since June.

The basil turned out amazing this year as well!

Our garden here has done well despite the dry, dry summer! How has your garden done? Are you starting the process of preserving your harvest? We have some tips and tricks for your canning and dehydrating processes!

~When canning, always make sure that your jars and lids are sterilized before using. Take care not to handle the jars or lids with your bare hands as they are HOT! Try the tools that come in the Home Canning Kit for ease of use when canning.
~When filling your canning jar make sure to wipe the rim with a clean cloth to ensure a good seal.
~Use a bubble freer or a small rubber spatula to release air bubbles from your jars after they are filled and before you boil.
~If making jelly or jam and using fruit pectin always make sure to follow the specific directions that come with the box. Each manufacturer has their own set of guidelines that are not interchangeable between pectins!
~Try Victorio ClearJel this year for an extended shelf life and stability in your canned products. (Click the link for more information on ClearJel.)
~Use Canning & Pickling Salt for a clear brine and amazing tasting pickles!
~If dehydrating, make sure slices are uniform and evenly spaced on your racks.
~Look for a dehydrator with a top mount fan as it distributes heat more evenly.
~If you're making jerky, try the LEM Jerky Gun for professional results and uniform jerky.

We hope you've found the above tips to be helpful! Do you have a great recipe that you use when canning or dehydrating? Please share it with us below!

Enjoy the cooler weather and the upcoming Fall months! See you next time!

Cherries, Cherries and More Cherries! (and a recipe)

Fresh cherries are in around Western New York! They have been for a while and we've been eating them like crazy! There's nothing better than fresh cherries grown right in your own backyard! Since there was an overabundance in my refrigerator I started toying with a popsicle idea. The end result was absolutely delicious and you can follow my steps below to make your own!

Cherry Lime - Lemonade Popsicles (DIY)

You will need:
~About 5 cups of cherries, pitted
~1 lime
~About 1 cup of lemonade
~Sweetener (optional)

You will also need a good blender or food processor, 3 oz. plastic cups, craft/popsicle sticks, plastic wrap and scissors.

First, get a bag of cherries and pit them. I have to admit, I strongly dislike pitting the cherries! It feels like it takes forever, but we got a new tool in here at Make Your Own just recently that makes the job much easier! It's called a single cherry and olive pitter. It's a handy little device that you can use to push the pits out of cherries effortlessly. The best part is that it's small, so it's easy to store.

There it is! We have them in the store right at the register so grab one the next time you visit. Or you can buy one here.

When I started doing this, I didn't think to actually count how many cherries I had, but my blender was 3/4's full of pitted cherries.

I would say it was probably about 4 or 5 cups of pitted cherries. In reality you could do as little or as many as your blender/food processor will hold. It's totally up to you.

Once the cherries are pitted you add the zest of one lime and the juice of one lime. Somewhere or at sometime in my life I heard a great tip about juicing lemons and limes and it's stuck with me: before cutting a lemon or lime in half to juice it, roll it on the countertop applying gentle pressure. This loosens the pulp and the juice so it's easier to squeeze.

So zest your entire lime right into the blender or food processor. Then roll your lime a few times on the counter, cut it in half and squeeze, cut side up (so the seeds don't escape into your blender) until the lime has given you all of it's juice.

Next, add about a cup of lemonade into your blender or food processor. (This measurement will vary depending upon how many cherries you use - with 5 cups of cherries I used 1 cup of lemonade.)

If you don't like lemonade you could substitute just about any other type of juice. I have seen Cherry Limeade drink mix at several stores. Or, you could just use water.

Blend your ingredients together until smooth.

At this point, you can add sweetener if you'd like. Agave Nectar adds a subtle sweetness that's very smooth. Honey does the same thing. You could also add Stevia or sugar. It's up to you. I did not add any sweeteners to mine. The cherries were sweet enough on their own!

If you are adding sweetener give the blender or food processor another whirl to incorporate the ingredient. Taste test and add more if necessary. Once you're satisfied with the taste, gather several 3 ounce plastic cups and craft/popsicle sticks. You'll also need some plastic wrap.

Start pouring your mixture from the blender or food processor into the cups. You can fill the cups as much or as little as you'd like. I filled mine until they were almost full.

Next, pull off a small length of plastic wrap and cut it in half so you have two small squares. Take one plastic wrap square and place it over one cup. Smooth down the sides until it's tight and attached to the cup. Continue this process until all cups are covered with plastic wrap.

Take your scissors and holding the cup firmly to stretch the plastic wrap across the top, puncture a small hole in the plastic wrap in the middle. Continue with all cups until each has a small hole in the center of the plastic wrap over the middle of the cup.

Then take your craft/popsicle sticks and again, holding the cup firmly to stretch the plastic wrap across the top of the cup, push your craft stick through the hole you made and press until you hit the bottom of the cup with the stick. Continue this with each cup until you have craft sticks in all of your popsicles.

They should look like this:

Now, it's time to put them in the freezer! To keep them upright you can place them in an empty muffin tin. I didn't have room in my freezer for a muffin tin so I just carefully put them in and made sure they were secure before closing the door.

To be on the safe side, I let them freeze overnight and enjoyed one the next day after lunch! What a refreshing treat! I did have a hard time popping the frozen concoction out of the cup so I just used scissors and cut the side of the cup - it popped right out after that.

I hope you enjoy this recipe! Do you have other ideas for popsicles? Share in the comment section below!

News & Announcements

Make Your Own has finally joined Pinterest! We are thoroughly enjoying pinning DIY crafts and projects along with gardening ideas and recipes! Check out  and follow our boards here.

Another great announcement - you now have the ability via our website to subscribe to our newsletters! Stay up to date with specials, sales and invite only events by signing up here. We will never rent, sell or share your information!

Don't forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter as well!



Hobbies and Holidays

It's hard to believe that Independence Day is almost upon us! Where has the time gone? Soon we'll be talking about Fall and making fruit wines. But let's try to stick to the present rather than worrying about the future.

Will you be participating in the American tradition of grilling this 4th of July?  As of right now, the weather in Western New York is looking a little iffy, but we won't let that stop us.

Now seems to be the perfect time to explore a new hobby, doesn't it? Grilling food is a favorite pastime of Americans, but why not try smoking your meat this summer? I discovered this flavorful spin on grilling a couple of years ago and now, our grill sits in the corner of our garage collecting dust.

There's a popular show on TLC called BBQ Pitmasters that I watch faithfully in the summer months. People all over the United States get together and compete for the grand title and a big cash prize, but that's not why I watch. I watch for the amazing recipes and techniques these people use in smoking.

I think we've smoked just about every cut of meat available in the past two years and each one has turned out amazing with a unique flavor. It can take time to get used to cooking 'low and slow' as the BBQ'ers call it, but the combinations of flavors you can create is just about endless.

One thing we've tried new this year is injecting our meat before smoking it. Holy crow! What a great way to add flavor and tenderness to the meat! We have a great marinade injecting kit available here. I bought this to get us started with injecting and it's worked out great!

If you want to get your toes wet before going out to buy a smoker, you can try the smoker bag, which can be found here. It's a portable and easy way to try out some smoked foods.

We also have cedar grilling planks that work great on the grill and give you a hint of wood flavor. They can be found here.

Do you make your own sausage? If you do, did you know that you can smoke it? It turns out delicious! We have a variety of sausage kits here as well.

There is some great information on BBQ and Grilling here.

Whatever the occasion, we hope you find reason to enjoy the great hobby of grilling and smoking. Stop by and we'll get you going in the right direction! What's on your menu for the 4th of July? Share in the comments below!

Happy 4th of July!!

 

You can now follow us on Pinterest. Check out our boards for great recipes and DIY ideas!

Gardening Tips

Well the summer is officially starting this weekend! Memorial Day has been the official kickoff of summer in the United States for years, but here in Western New York, the entire weekend is about camping, grilling and airing out your house after a long winter! Fortunately, winter this year was not unbearable. We hardly had any snow and we had a stretch of 80 and 90 degree days in March. That's unheard of in Buffalo!

Those early, warm days gave most people a kick start on their gardening. However, we had some nasty nights in April with hard frost that wiped out a lot of fruit crops in the area. Looks like the price of cherries, apples, peaches, etc. will be going up this year.

That being said, have you ever thought about growing your own garden? It's easy, fun and rewarding to pick your own vegetables or fruit to use in dishes that you're preparing! It's also cost effective as the price of a tomato plant is much cheaper than supplying your family or household with tomatoes for a few months!

Last year, I did a little research on companion gardening and decided to give it a shot. I'm no expert gardener by any means - more like a novice, but I like to test new things and I enjoy seeing the results.

For example, did you know that tomatoes grow best when they're planted in the same area every year? I had no idea, but I've always planted my tomatoes in approximately the same area each year. This past year, my tomato plants were almost as tall as my 6 foot stockade fence! Also, did you know that tomatoes love garlic, basil and carrots? They do! I tried the garlic and basil last year and had a family member try the carrots. We got amazing tomatoes that were so flavorful it was ridiculous!

I also tried bumping up my cucumber crop last year. I found that they loved the bean plants and the bean plants loved the cucumbers. I got a huge amount of vegetables from both crops. We are still eating homemade, canned pickles, canned green beans and frozen green beans. Bean plants also love celery.

I've tried a few new combinations this year and hope to have even better results. My tomatoes have garlic and basil growing in between them this year. I've also planted the cucumbers and beans together again, but I planted some new stuff this year that I'm keeping my fingers crossed will work out. If it works - I'll be posting another entry around harvest time with my results!

We have a small garden here at Make Your Own as well!

We grow several herbs and different types of flowers right in front of the store. The herbs we harvest all throughout the summer then we dehydrate them in the store and offer them as free samples to our customers.

This year, we're also going to try our hand at growing hops! Hopefully, we'll be able to offer a couple of varieties of fresh hops to our customers in the Fall. The browned spot in the upper right hand corner of the picture below is where we're going to plant our hops.

Currently, we're amending the soil and getting the plants ready for the ground! Have you ever made beer? Check out all of our beer supplies here and let us help you get started!

Well, that's all I have time for today! I hope you've enjoyed this post about gardening and I'd love to hear any results you've had from companion gardening! Just leave a comment below.



Making Mustard...easier than you think!

Hi to all you DIY'ers out there! Welcome back! I hope you're excited to read about making mustard!

When we first opened this store several years ago, I was on a gourmet food kick. I enjoyed making food that called for gourmet ingredients and a lot of those recipes specified gourmet, grainy mustard. I searched the grocery stores and even went to some specialty food stores, but I was unwilling to pay $5 per ounce for mustard. So, we started researching and testing and the Make Your Own Mustard kit was born. You can find the mustard kit here.

We have included 4 different recipes for making mustard. They include: honey mustard, sweet & spicy beer mustard, tangy horseradish mustard and apple cider maple mustard. Each recipe is easy to make and simply delicious.

However, we did run into a few snags, which prompted us to notate some tips and tricks when it comes to making mustard.

~3 of our recipes call for coarsely ground mustard seed, which we have included in the kit for you, but the seed is not pre-ground. We did not pre-grind the seeds for you because we found that everyone's taste is different. Carol liked her mustard seed a little on the coarse side. Sharon liked hers more fine. I didn't have a preference, but it's up to you how coarse or fine you'd like your mustard seed ground.

We used a spice grinder and a coffee bean grinder to grind our mustard seed, but not everyone has access to those appliances. There are other options, you can use a blender or food processor, but if you don't have either of those appliances, you can place your mustard seed between two pieces of cardboard and smash them with a hammer. It's primitive, but it works!

~After making your mustard and letting it refrigerate for at least 24 hours, if it's too watery for your taste you can add a pinch or two of mustard powder to thicken things up. Make sure to stir well after adding the powder.

~Once your mustard is made and refrigerated, make sure to give it a stir or a shake occasionally to distribute its flavors.

~It's best to let your mustard age in the refrigerator for 2 to 3 weeks before consuming. As long as your mustard is refrigerated it will keep for up to 6 months.

~Our recipes all call for cider vinegar when making mustard, however if you prefer a sweeter tasting mustard you may substitute the cider vinegar for rice vinegar.

Did you know that the mustard plant was one of the first plants grown and cultivated by early farmers? The Romans prepared mustard by mixing crushed seeds with wine creating a paste not much different that the mustard we eat today!

In closing, don't waste your money on the gourmet mustard in the store. Making your own is easy and tastes a million times better than the jars you buy from the store. Plus it's much cheaper! Don't forget to check out our Make Your Own Mustard Kit on our website.

 

Don't forget to follow us on Twitter and Facebook to stay up to date on our specials and news!

Making Your Own Hot Sauce...

Hello everyone! We're back with the much anticipated entry on making hot sauce! It's been a while since we posted and this entry was promised a while ago, but life sure has a way of throwing us curve balls and keeping us busy!

Here, at Make Your Own, we love researching and finding ways to make 'stuff' our own way. The hot sauce recipes we came up with have been tested, re-tested and tested again. We made mistakes and the end product is our Make Your Own Hot Sauce Kit, which can be found by clicking here.

Now, I'm going to hand things off to Carol, our resident hot sauce maker. She has some tips and tricks to making hot sauce and what to avoid!

Hi! I'm Carol, and I've been working at Make Your Own for several years now. Coming up with the hot sauce recipes was a fun time! I spent a lot of time testing the formulas and tweaking the recipes. Below, I've listed some things to keep in mind when making hot sauce.

The directions in the kit instruct you to mix the dry ingredients with the liquid, then heat the mix. The timing on that can only be approximate, because we don't know how much wattage your microwave has. Our ancient one here at the store takes about twice as long as the fastest one available now. (Would you believe almost 4 minutes for a cup of tea? Bless its little heart, slow but sure.) We tested the directions on a 900 watt microwave.

Anyway, the idea is to heat the mix to hot, but not so hot that you couldn't drink it. (Tip: don't consume the 'hot' hot sauce as a drink.)  That's around 125F. After you stir everything up again, heat the mix to ALMOST boiling, around 180F to 200F. Please let it cool down before bottling, if there's a spill, you really don't want almost boiling hot sauce on you or anything else.

If you decide to use fresh hot peppers in your hot sauce, good for you! Please send us pictures of the flames coming out of your ears! We put dried, ground peppers in the kit because we can control the "heat" and it's a lot safer.

           You MUST WEAR RUBBER GLOVES if you are chopping up fresh hot peppers.

We learned the hard way. We also cautioned a friend who is proud of both his garden and his Harley, and still got a phone call that evening, "My hands are BURNING. The emergency room said there wasn't much they could do...HELP!"

A pepper burn is a chemical reaction, an oil that sinks into your skin. When it starts to  "tingle" it's too late. (We tried original Dawn and mechanic's glop degreaser to ease the burn and get rid of the oil, but those only work if the skin isn't tingling yet.). The only thing you can do is soak the skin in cold water until it gets numb, about 10 minutes, take hands out until they start to tingle again, and repeat soaking. This is really annoying to do for 24 to 48 hours and it's hard to get any sleep.

Well, that's about it! The most important thing is to have fun! Doing it yourself can be quite rewarding and homemade hot sauce makes a great gift! Enjoy!

Thanks Carol! I hope you all enjoyed the tips and tricks above for making hot sauce! Our kit comes with everything you need to make 6 different types of hot sauce! You only have to provide measuring cups, mixing bowls and water. Don't forget to check the kit out here.

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Up Next: Making Mustard...