Homemade Vanilla Extract

O.K. I'm about to get super complicated on ya'll right now.  Here we go . . .

Go to Costco and get yourself a pack of these.  You can order on Amazon for cheaper but I'm far to impatient for that.

Open up the package and pull out all of those sticky, heavenly smelling beans.  Take a knife and run it down each bean exposing all those perfect little seeds.

Then take a bottle of Vodka . . . I went for the cheapest stuff I could find at Target . . . empty a little bit of the vodka out of the bottle . . . and then cram all of those suckers in the bottle.  Now here is where it gets really complicated.  Put the lid on and stick it in the back of your panty.  Whew!  That was tough!

 Every so often you can go in and give it a good shake, but don't use it yet.  Give it at least a good 2 months for it to look like this.  Mmm...perfection! 

 Now if you are feeling generous go to Hobby Lobby and buy these little bottles (when they are 50% off of course), and give to friends and family.

 This stuff is AWESOME!! Next I want to try Mexican vanilla beans.  I think it will give it a whole different flavor and I can't wait to try it!  

So to sum it up here's what you need:

1 bottle of vodka

10 vanilla beans

time (a good 2 months or longer)

Tip: If you use vanilla beans in your baking you can take the scraped out beans and toss them in your bottle to intensify the flavor and then continue topping off your bottle with new vodka to keep your supply going.