Do you use vanilla extract in baking?  I know I use mine a lot for baking, homemade ice cream, and other things.  There are a lot of reasons why I choose to make my own extract for these purposes, which I will share with you.  And then I’ll get to the good part: how to do it!

This one I absolutely HAVE to share with you. I’ve loved cheesy potatoes since I was little. Every time we had a picnic my mom would make a pan of them. The problem? They relied heavily on canned soups. I don’t do canned soups anymore, so cheesy potatoes were out (not to mention for awhile we were dairy-free). Once we re-introduced raw dairy successfully, this was on my radar! My goal was to create a creamy-soup-base-like (is that WORD?) with butter, flour (arrowroot in this case as I didn’t have sprouted flour) and spices, and to mix that with the potatoes so I could pretend there was soup in there. Success! It’s delicious. Play with the types and amounts of cheeses to get the flavor you want. Sour cream (usually not my favorite) is absolutely necessary to this dish!! You could add more butter and bacon if you wanted, dump in some chicken or vegetables to make it a complete meal. Very versatile.