French Vanilla Coffee Creamer

Rick came over one evening and he and Scott polished off the homemade kahlua by using it in their paralyzers. Emil sat on the couch listening to them chat, but didn't want to miss anything and rubbernecked till he fell asleep. Me, I got ready for bed early and climbed under the covers in the dark, lulled into NeverNeverLand by the sound of men's voices in the other room.

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My niece Cara passed on a collection of recipes she found at Deliciously Organic for home-made coffee creamers, which I always call "plastic." Not the home-made ones, of course, but the commercial stuff, International Delight.

I made the following one, using whipping cream for the milk and cream called for, and vanilla extract instead of the bean. Fast, easy, and delicious; no need to strain when you use vanilla extract, unless you do what I did and forget to turn the stove off for the first five minutes of "steeping" :

French Vanilla

1 cup whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
4 tablespoons maple syrup
1 vanilla bean

Whisk together milk, cream and maple syrup in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Cut vanilla bean in half, and scrape out seeds. Add seeds and vanilla bean to milk mixture. Turn off heat, cover the pot and steep for 30 minutes. After mixture has steeped, strain through a fine mesh sieve, pour into a glass bottle and store in the refrigerator. (If you don’t have a vanilla bean on hand, simply replace it with 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract.)