Baked Apples!

I threw this together the other day, because I wanted something like apple pie but didn't want to make a whole pie. And I am currently eating more for breakfast since they were so tasty.

Ingredients:

2 apples, cut in half with seeds cut out

chopped pecans

raisins

cinnamon/nutmeg/cloves

brown sugar

coconut oil (or Earth Balance)

Just mix all the dry ingredients together in whatever proportions you will enjoy. Scoop the mixture into the hollowed-out apples halves. Top with a small dollop of coconut oil or Earth balance. Bake at 350 degrees (in a pan with a little bit of water) for about 30 minutes until the apples get soft.

Yum!

♥

Vanilla Extract

In preparation for holiday gift-giving, I have started making a huge amount of vanilla extract! It's really the easiest thing in the world to make...and it's something that just about everyone uses at one point  or another.
It only requires 2 ingredients: vodka and whole vanilla beans, plus about a month of wait time.

I bought a 1-liter bottle of vodka and 6 vanilla beans.

Cut the vanilla beans into pieces and split them open to expose the seeds (I'm assuming they're seeds?) and drop them into the bottle of vodka. Then just let that bottle sit in a cupboard for at least a month, giving it a gentle shake every once in a while..

I'm going to strain out the seeds and bean bits before putting it in smaller bottles for gifts.

Super easy!!

♥