diff --git a/ansible/vagrant.yml b/ansible/vagrant.yml
index 05657fa..7dcb4f8 100644
--- a/ansible/vagrant.yml
+++ b/ansible/vagrant.yml
@@ -31,11 +31,16 @@
         ansible-playbook -i hosts site.yml --skip-tags "x11" -c local
         chdir=~/batcave
 
-    - name: create python environment
+    - name: create python environment and install packages
       pip:
-        requirements=/vagrant/requirements.txt
+        name={{ item }}
         virtualenv=~/env
         virtualenv_command="virtualenv -p /usr/bin/python3"
+      with_items:
+        - pelican
+        - markdown
+        - ipython[notebook]==2.4.1
+        - cookiecutter
 
     - name: clone pelican-plugins
       git:
diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
deleted file mode 100644
index 4e74eba..0000000
--- a/requirements.txt
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,22 +0,0 @@
-Jinja2==2.8
-Markdown==2.6.2
-MarkupSafe==0.23
-PyYAML==3.11
-Pygments==2.0.2
-Unidecode==0.04.18
-binaryornot==0.4.0
-blinker==1.4
-chardet==2.3.0
-click==3.3
-cookiecutter==1.0.0
-docutils==0.12
-feedgenerator==1.7
-ipython==2.4.1
-mock==1.3.0
-pbr==1.5.0
-pelican==3.6.3
-python-dateutil==2.4.2
-pytz==2015.4
-pyzmq==14.7.0
-six==1.9.0
-tornado==4.2.1