Mmmm, vanilla!

I made a sizable dent in my vanilla bean stash yesterday. I made both vanilla sugar and syrup for my coffee addiction:



The sugar could be ready in as little as four days. I give the jar a good shake whenever I'm in the kitchen to disperse the little clumps of beans. I can either leave the pods in or take them out when the sugar is ready.

The recipe said to strain the syrup, and I imagine it meant through a material such as cheesecloth. I opted just to strain it through a metal sieve to get the largest bits out, because I thought I'd like to have some beans floating around.

I also ground up a few scraped pods to either mix in with coffee grounds prior to brewing, or to sprinkle over the foam in my lattes*:



*I have a cappuccino machine, but can't be bothered to use it. I have a BonJour Primo Latte Frother which I use to aerate a bit of skim milk. I then zap the milk for 20 seconds in the microwave, then pour the coffee down the side of it. Looks and tastes just like anything one might get from Starbucks.