Vanilla Sugar, and Banana Yum

Vanilla Sugar is a real thing that you can make. 1 1/2 cups white sugar, 1 vanilla bean split on one end and also sliced in half width wise. Scrape the black beans from inside the bean and massage them into the sugar with clean fingers. Then rub sugar into the inside of the bean until you slough out most of the extra beans and oils. Put the beans and sugar in a jar and give it a shake now and then (the bean pods continue to add to the flavor). Use this sugar in whatever way you feel it should be used, like a
Banana Licuado:
1 1/2- 2 bananas, peeled
3/4- 1 1/2 cups milk or more (I use whole, you can use soy or whatever you want)
1- 3 tablespoons vanilla sugar
dash of cinnamon
1-3 ice cubes (optional)

Blend it in a blender or use an immersion blender, whatever you have will work. The recipe will vary based on the ripeness of the bananas and your prefrences, so try it with the minimum amounts of everything and decide how you want to alter it. I like a thinner licuado so I usually use the 1 1/2 bananas and a good bit of milk and vanilla sugar. I use ice in the summer because I like the ice crystals, my husband never uses ice in his personal licuados. It's your choice, but it is a delicious drink either way!

Exposions, Bad Things, and Love

1 Explosion: Tried to roast Chestnuts after slicing Xs onto the flat sides to keep them from exploding. Now I have never roasted a chestnut, but I am pretty sure that mine definitely turned out wrong because they taste like raw, muddy, potatoes. Also, they exploded in the oven, and a few exploded in my kitchen (luckily I was terrified after the oven explosions so I opened the oven door, pulled out the oven rack and ran and hid for half an hour in another room). I am not 100% positive I had the right kind of chestnuts at all. I just need to try some profesionally made and then give this a second, less explosive, try.

1 Bad Thing: I love rustling about the Asian market looking for new foods and old favorites, so an old woman's insistance that candied lotus seeds were AMAZING gave me enough reasn to buy a bag. WHen I opened the bag, the smell was unpleasant, and when I ate the seed it first tasted like sugar and then like a rancid meat. I do not want to insult candied lotus seed lovers, but it was not my cup of tea. Is this how they are supposed to taste?

1 Love: I love making bread and my husband loves eating it, and it is fun. To compinsate for my initial lack of powdered milk, my first bread was a plain white bread that resembled a french bread in flavor. From what I understand, fats are interchangeable with one another and sugars are as well. So, oil became room temperature butter and sugar became honey, and man do I love this bread:
White Bread Love:
1 cup warm water
3 tablespoons room temp butter
3 cups of bread flour
3 tablespoons of honey
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
2 1/4 teaspoons Bread Machine Yeast

Add in the order that your bread machine calls for and bake on white bread, light crust, 1 1/2 pound loaf setting. We eat it hot out of the bread machine with a bit of butter or honey butter or jam or turkey, or whatever sounds good and is laying around. Delicious!