Lately, I’ve been coming across recipes that call for steeping items over a period of time, so savor the spirit of slow with me!  I started homebrewing recently, and while I don’t know that I’d describe the brewing process with “steeping” at any point, essentially that’s what I did with the last batch to infuse some cherry flavor during the fermentation process.  As long as we’re on the subject of alcohol, let’s start with a primer on extracts.  Those tiny bottles in the stores aren’t the cheapest item on the shelves, so let’s see how to make our own vanilla extract:

I’ve got a batch processing in a small canning jar, and it has gone along nicely.  It is handy to know that it is essentially an endless/bottomless recipe, too!  I was also referred to a similar recipe by a friend and found it again in a vanilla cookbook at a resale store (it also mentioned vanilla sugar!)

For more adult beverages, we can make coffee liqueur or orangecello.

Another intriguing idea was to infuse honey using lemon verbena leaves to impart the lemon flavor (pouring the honey over the leaves in a small canning jar).

Steep it good!