Last week I celebrated the last of my spring break with a nice bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream.  The weather was beautiful and there was nothing I wanted to do more than sit outside and enjoy the sun- just me and my ice cream. This mint chocolate chip ice cream comes from food blogger David Lebovitz, whose blog I enjoy very much.

I changed David Lebovitz’s recipe a little bit by adding a vanilla bean  and substituting the sugar with vanilla sugar.  Vanilla sugar is very easy to make, and it’s a great way to use up the whole vanilla bean instead of throwing it out after you scrape out the seeds. All you need is a jar, 1 or 2 vanilla beans whole or just the pods, and 2 cups of sugar. Cut the vanilla beans into smaller pieces and throw into the jar with the sugar, close the lid and shake well.  It will take a couple of weeks for the vanilla bean to flavor the sugar, but if you want the process to be faster you can just throw the vanilla beans and sugar in a food processor and process until the vanilla bean is finely ground. And there you go vanilla sugar two ways.

Get the recipe: http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2010/05/mint-chip-ice-cream-recipe-chocolate/