We rarely use vanilla beans because they are either way too expensive or hard to find. Our local "health food store" sometimes sells them for $7 each. So when we found three of them in a bottle at a discount store we decided to give them a try. It was only $5 so it would not be a big loss if they turned out bad. 
Getting the Vanilla Out The first thing to do it to use a paring knife and split them down the middle and then scrape the seeds out. The top photo shows what the seeds look like. Vanilla Sugar The pods, once scraped are great to use for vanilla sugar. Just place them right inside the sugar. It lasts a long time and adds a lot of flavor to any dessert. Cooking with Vanilla Beans When planning to make a dessert that calls for vanilla, say for ice cream or pastry cream just replace the usual 1 teaspoon of vanilla with the scrapings of half a vanilla bean.
| 
