{"id":7362,"date":"2013-09-28T10:42:05","date_gmt":"2013-09-28T14:42:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.heidiannie.com\/?p=7362"},"modified":"2013-09-28T10:56:21","modified_gmt":"2013-09-28T14:56:21","slug":"vanilla-rich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.heidiannie.com\/?p=7362","title":{"rendered":"Vanilla Rich!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have pretty simple \u201chappy\u201d indicators.<\/p>\n

A bowl of lavender, an unread book, a good cup<\/p>\n

of tea, a visit from loved ones, and a handful of<\/p>\n

vanilla beans-\u00a0 add them together and I have had<\/p>\n

a great month!<\/p>\n

Meredith is my vanilla bean supplier.\u00a0 She knows my<\/p>\n

happiness level rises pretty high when I have vanilla<\/p>\n

at hand- and last week I got a shipment of beans-\u00a0 I AM<\/p>\n

SO RICH!!!<\/p>\n

\"002\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Tahitian, Madagascar,Ugandan, Indian, Mexican- so many exotic beans!<\/p>\n

I decided to make some vanilla right away with the Mexican beans- they<\/p>\n

are smoky and spicy with just a hint of cinnamon.<\/p>\n

\"011\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I sealed up the rest of the beans in a glass container- they are vacuum packed-<\/p>\n

and still soft in their packages, but vanilla beans dry out quickly, and keep better<\/p>\n

in glass jars.\u00a0 DON\u2019T buy dried out hard beans at a cooking store.\u00a0 If they aren\u2019t soft<\/p>\n

then the beans are pretty useless as the seeds are dried out and can\u2019t be scraped<\/p>\n

out!<\/p>\n

\"006\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I had a small bottle of vodka- I like Grey Goose for distilling the<\/p>\n

beans- but it is a matter of personal taste.<\/p>\n

\"008\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"009\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"010\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I removed 5 beans from the package and slit them lengthwise to open<\/p>\n

the bean and release the seeds.<\/p>\n

\"012\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Drop them into the vodka and shake gently for a few seconds.<\/p>\n

\"014\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I cut the label from the bean package since I already have a vanilla and<\/p>\n

wanted to keep this one with just the Mexican beans.<\/p>\n

\"016\"<\/a>\"017\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This is my working vanilla- I used Belvedere vodka and it is pretty smooth-<\/p>\n

there are several varieties of beans in this extract- I like it for regular baking.<\/p>\n

This is several years old- look how dark it is!<\/p>\n

\"001\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And here is my latest- still not ready to use- but look how dark it got in<\/p>\n

just a couple of weeks!\u00a0 This is just a small bottle and I added a lot of<\/p>\n

beans for the amount of vodka.<\/p>\n

But I really like making my own extract- it tastes better-there are no artificial<\/p>\n

coloring or flavors- and I get to play with vanilla beans! Plus, and this is a big<\/p>\n

PLUS, it tastes better!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have pretty simple \u201chappy\u201d indicators. A bowl of lavender, an unread book, a good cup of tea, a visit from loved ones, and a handful of vanilla beans-\u00a0 add them together and I have had a great month! Meredith … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,13,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-recipes","category-stepsonthejourney","category-whimsey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heidiannie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heidiannie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heidiannie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heidiannie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heidiannie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7362"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.heidiannie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7362\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7365,"href":"http:\/\/www.heidiannie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7362\/revisions\/7365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heidiannie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heidiannie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heidiannie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}