How to look like you've been doing 'stuff'.......

Slaveboy took me to Waitrose earlier today and he thought I bought lemongrass. That would've been great with the Asian fish balls we desperately need to use up. The reality is, I was merely stroking the lemongrass. It reminds me of my old home and the big lemongrass bush (?) my Mum grew. What I did buy was posh crisps on offer and shortbread made by Prince Charles. Snort. I do like other people's biscuits. Slaveboy bought girly pink roll-on deodorant for himself because he doesn't like smelling of man. I suppose he is already man enough. Double snort. Anyway, some of this blog readers might remember that a while back, I made some homemade vanilla extract. If I were tech savvy enough, I would have put a link up of said blog entry but I am sat on the sofa, holding the new baby who is dribbling on my arm and scratching away at me. This is her. Meet Harper.


Yes. Her ears are naturally like that. Back to my Waitrose escapade. I bought vodka. I was running out of vanilla extract and it was time to make some more. Waitrose had some 37.5% ones on offer.


Notice that the bottle on the left is the export variety. I'm hoping the Red Label stuff will be fine. I also bought 4 vanilla pods, they cost me about £10 but the amount of vanilla extract I will end up with actually means that it is cost effective. The vanilla pods I bought claimed to be doubly intense.


I actually got them because I liked the glass vials they came in. What a geek. So basically, I split the pods, bunged them into the new bottle. I also chucked in the old pods from the old bottle and swishes some vodka round just so I can capture the seeds caught at the bottom of the old bottle.


This actually reminds me of the jars of herbal concoctions lining the walls of the Chinese herbalist shop my Dad used to frequent. My Mum used to tut-tut at this. I doubt any of the jars actually had vanilla pods in it.


Just in case you're interested, the old pink lemonade bottle on the left actually contains Vanilla Extract v. 1. It's about six months old and look at the wonderful amber colour it's turned into. Posted using BlogPress from my iPad