Neverending Vanilla Extract (Make Your Own!)
Here’s how to make your own vanilla extract. All you need is a nice bottle, your favorite vodka, and a few vanilla beans. You just can’t beat the flavor—and a bottle makes a great gift for anyone who likes to bake.
Hey, You: Save the Mint! And Make It Schnappy!
This week, I started to think about one of my dreaded end-of-summer chores: cleaning up the garden. Aside from all the weeding, pruning, and plucking, I needed to figure out what I’m doing with all my mint. Our front garden is positively overrun with a few different kinds—from traditional peppermint, to run-of-the-mill spearmint and the [...]
Peach Ratafia
First off, what the heck is a ratafia? (The short answer is “a really, really yummy drink,” but that probably doesn’t help much.) Merriam Webster defines a ratafia as “a liqueur made from an infusion of macerated fruit or fruit juice in a liquor (as brandy) and often flavored with almonds.” Now, this recipe doesn’t [...]
Best Vanilla Extract
It’s hard to find a good vanilla extract that has strong, true flavor—and doesn’t cost a million bucks. Vanilla is the most expensive spice in the world after saffron, mainly due to how manually intensive production is. The plants are pollinated by hand, and take about five years from the time they are planted before [...]
