How To Make Vanilla

is simple but you need to plan ahead. My neighbor and I made big batches because we wanted to give these to a lot of people but you can scale your recipe down.

Vanilla Beans are very expensive to buy individually at a regular grocery store. We bought our beans in bulk from Beanilla.com.

At first we were only going to buy 16 vanilla beans and then we ended up buy 1 1/2 pounds because it was less expensive. There are so many kinds of Vanilla Beans. We decided on a combination of Tahitian and India Vanilla beans.

Scrape out the seeds and paste (called the caviar).

Our hands smelled so good after we did the scraping of the vanilla. I smelled like vanilla for a couple of days!! We called the kitchen the vanilla factory.

Put the paste into the vodka. Put the whole bean into the jar. If you use the vodka bottle the beans will displace some of the vodka and you will then have a bonus jar so save some of the beans or get some extra beans for the bonus jar.

Let the Vanilla bottles sit in a dark closet for about 2 to 3 months giving the bottles a little shake every week.

Do Any Of The Following:

• Strain the vanilla with a coffee filter
• Keep the vanilla bean and paste in the vanilla
• Get a professional strainer just for making vanilla
• You can keep your original beans in the jar and add vodka and refresh with some more beans and you will have an "Evergreen Vanilla Jar"

This is so easy to make and people treasure these homemade gifts. It's not too late even if you don't have two months.... make them and tell them what date they can start using the vanilla.

Hey let me know if you made some vanilla. Happy cooking!

A weight loss tip using vanilla is if you take a whiff of vanilla before a meal you won't eat as much because you will feel more satisfied.

We figured that each bottle costs about $8.00 each. The expensive things in the whole project were the glass amber bottles. If anyone finds them for less than $2.50 each let us know for next year. This time we bought them at Beanilla.