Vinegar Mothers

These are vinegar mothers.   A red one for making red wine vinegar and a white one for making white wine vinegar.

They'll change colors if you add different wine to them.   I keep my separate so the flavor is separate. 

The mother usually floats on top of the vinegar.   It likes warm and dark.    As soon as you move it to the light, it sinks into the vinegar and in a few weeks another layer forms at the surface.

You can see that I've had this vinegar going for a long time.   That's a lot of mothers in there.    Each of them can be taken out and used to start new vinegar.   It doesn't take much mother to get a new batch going.

Some layers are really thin - I generally see thin layers in warm weather.

Some layers are really thick.   I see these during cold weather.

These mothers can be cut into very small pieces and given away to folks who want to make their own vinegar  [homemade is almost always best].

Interested in the details?   Here's how the whole vinegar thing works. 

I took all the extra mothers out of my jar and just left one very thin layer in.   I probably didn't even need to do that.  There are enough acetobacteria floating in the vinegar to start a new one.

I left the other mothers in a bucket to drain.   They're full of good vinegar and I want to keep as much of that as possible. 

Jam Filled Cupcakes

This is another one of those terrific Things To Do With a Jar of Jam that I've been collecting.   [Stay tuned - it'll be a book next year!]

Use jam as a cupcake filling.  It couldn't be easier!

Step 1.  Make cupcakes.   You can use a mix.   It'll take 5 minutes to get them in the oven. 

Step 2.  After they're baked and cooled, use a knife to cut off a bit of the top and scoop out some of the insides.   Kids love doing that.  Save the tops, but let the kids eat the insides.

Step 3.  Open a jar of jam and spoon the jam inside the cupcakes.

Step 4.  Replace the tops and frost.    It's easiest to pipe the frosting on because the loose tops tend to wiggle when you're frosting with a knife.   You don't need a fancy piping unit either.   Just put the frosting in a ziplock or sandwich bag and cut one of the bottom corners off.   Pipe the frosting out of the cut end.  

It's a great way to add some easy zing to plain cupcakes.  Try these combinations:

Chocolate cupcakes:  Cherry Jam, Orange Marmalade, Pear Ginger Jam, Raspberry Jam
Spice Cake cupcakes:  Peach Jam, Pear Jam, Apple Maple Jam, Spiced Pear Jam
Cherry cupcakes:  any kind of Berry Jam
Carrot Cake cupcakes:  Orange Marmalade, Pear Ginger Jam

How to Cut a Mango Neatly

I've cut a lot of mangoes in my time and at first it was a messy, slimy, slippery proposition.

Eew.

Then my friend, Sharon, showed me how to do it neatly and prettily with minimal slime.

Thank you, Sharon!

This is what you do:

First, cut the sides off the mango.

You'll leave the center section with the seed in it.

Now you have three parts.

Hold the mango in your hand and cut down through the flesh to the skin.   Make your cuts 1/2 inch apart.

Now, turn the mango 90 degrees and cut it again.  

Now, turn the skin inside out.   The mango sections will look sort of porcupine-y.

Put your thumb at the base of a section and push it off the skin into a bowl. 

Easy.   

Push the sections all off the skin.  You might have to work a bit to get the tiny ones off the edges.   It's worth the extra effort.

Now all you have left is the center.   Set it on an end and cut the skin off with a knife.

This is the messiest part - but it's fast!  Once the skin is off, you can score the edges and then cut them off near the seed.  

You'll end up with two empty skins, a small section of peel, a large seed and a beautiful bowl full of bite sized mango pieces - perfect for salads or jams.