The World's Best Vanilla Extract #Recipe by @LibbyKlein

Libby Klein: A lot of my recipes include either vanilla beans or vanilla extract. I haven't bought vanilla extract in years. I make my own. I use a lot of vanilla around the holidays, AND this makes a fantastic gift. I've literally had friends come back to me with an empty bottle before Valentine's Day and ask for more. I'll share this with you because it's so easy and only two ingredients. This is a little trick I learned when I took cooking lessons in Paris. (See how I threw that out there?) Any time you have a recipe calling for a split and scraped vanilla bean, don't throw away the husk when you're done. Place the empty husk in a bottle of white rum or vodka. Keep doing this until the clear liquid has turned completely brown and you have to hold it up to the light to see through it. Every time you add a scraped vanilla bean, shake the bottle to release the bean "caviar" from the husk. In a couple of months, you'll have a better vanilla extract than you could ever buy in the store.

The Steps:

Split the Vanilla Bean lengthwise.

Scrape out the beans with the blunt edge.

Add the finished husk to a bottle of white rum or vodka. Wait a couple of months.

Layla Virtue, a blue-haired, 30-something recovering alcoholic and former cop is trying to reinvent herself as a musician—between AA meetings, dodging eccentric neighbors at her trailer park, and reconnecting with her mysterious dad—in this ​unforgettable new mystery brimming with hilarity and heart.

Layla is taking her new life one day at a time from the Lake Pinecrest Trailer Park she now calls home. Being alone is how she likes it. Simple. Uncomplicated. Though try telling that to the group of local ladies who are in relentless pursuit of Layla as their new BFF, determined to make her join them for coffee and donuts.

After her first career ended in a literal explosion, Layla’s trying to eke out a living as a rock musician. It’s not easy competing against garage bands who work for tacos and create their music on a computer, while all she has is an electric guitar and leather-ish pants. But Layla isn’t in a position to turn down any gig. Which is why she’s at an 8-year-old’s birthday party, watching as Chuckles the Clown takes a bow under the balloon animals. No one expects it will be his last . . .

Who would want to kill a clown—and why? Layla and her unshakable posse are suddenly embroiled in the seedy underbelly of the upper-class world of second wives and trust fund kids, determined to uncover what magnetic hold a pudgy, balding clown had over women who seem to have everything they could ever want. Then again, Layla knows full well that people are rarely quite what they seem—herself included . . .

Libby Klein writes ridiculously funny murder mysteries from her Northern Virginia office with a very naughty calico Persian named Miss Eliza Doolittle, and a sweet black Lab named Vader. She can name that tune for 70s and 80s rock in the first few notes, and she's translated her love of classic rock into her Layla Virtue Mysteries. Libby was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that prevents her from eating gluten without exploding. Because bread is one of her love languages, she includes the recipes for gluten free goodies in her Cape May based Poppy McAllister series. Most of her hobbies revolve around travel, and eating, and eating while traveling. She insists she can find her way to any coffee shop anywhere in the world, even while blindfolded. Follow all of her nonsense on her website www.LibbyKleinBooks.com/Newsletter/