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. 

Herbal Vinegars

We use herbal vinegars for all sorts of dressings and sauces.   I usually have a half dozen bottles of all sorts hanging around in the pantry.

And then we ran out.   All at once.    They tell me we've been eating a lot of salad lately and when you eat salad, you eat dressing - at least I do - and it's easy to zoom through a lot of vinegar. 

So I sat down and made a bunch more vinegars.

Here's how it works.  Pay attention.  It's really complicated.

Step 1.  Gather your herbs and wash them.
Step 2.  Put the herbs in jar or bottle.
Step 3.  Pour vinegar over them.
Step 4.  Put lids on.

OK.   I totally lied to you about how complicated it is.   It's easy.

Super easy.

Super.  Dooper.  Easy. 

Easy, I tell you. 

Go make some.  

What kind of vinegar?    Any kind of vinegar.   Start with plain white vinegar if you're new to this.  It's cheapest and easiest to find.

What herb combinations?   I know this part can get overwhelming, so here is a list of some of the combinations that I like.

Italian:   thyme, oregano, garlic, rosemary, basil
Provencal:  thyme, sage, rosemary, chive, garlic
Fennel:  fennel, chive
Chive:  chive flowers [It's pink!!]
Basil:  red basil or green basil.  [Red basil makes a glorious pink vinegar!]
Dill-Garlic:  dill leaves and flowers, garlic cloves.   A bit of lemon peel is great in this vinegar, too.

Go make some. 

Homemade Mustard

Making mustard is fun. We make some every year.  And we learn something new every time we do.

It's easy to make and quite honestly the hardest part is finding the mustard powder and mustard seeds to make it with.   I get mine from Penzey's.     Here's a link to their mustard offerings.  While you're there, take a look around at the other fabu things they offer. 

So here's the thing about mustard.   It can get really hot.    I'm not all that big on 'really hot', so I like to dial it down a bit.   Which means you need to know about how mustard chemistry works.  These are the basics:

Mustard gets hotter, the more you expose it to the air.   This means that mustard powder is way hotter than mustard seeds.  

Mustard made with water is hotter than mustard made with vinegar [vinegar is acid].    It's a chemistry thing.  See the very top link for a post with other links to more specific information.

Once the mustard is made, it will tone down if you leave it out of the fridge in the cupboard to meld for a few weeks.  Or months.    We tried it, it works.   We left last year's mustards out for 6 months and it got mellower and mellower without a trace of mold or anything nasty.  

So, if I want milder mustard, I want to do it by grinding seeds in vinegar. 

If I want a hot mustard, then I use mustard powder in water. 

Since I really did want a mild mustard this year, I decided to combine my own white wine vinegar with only mustard seeds and no mustard powder.  I used equal parts mustard and vinegar and I tossed them in the food processor to process, whereupon I watched them go around and around and around without actually becoming anything remotely mustard like.

I fear I wasn't very pleasant about it.   Seriously.   Food processors have one job.   To process food.    Apparently our food processor wasn't aware that mustard seeds and vinegar are food.  Arg.

Since I was doing a small amount, I didn't want to put it in the blender because I would have lost too much to the sides of the canister, but I'm guessing the blender would have worked just fine. 

Nooo, I decided to put it in my mortar and pestle and grind them by hand.   How hard could it be?   Plus, then it would be all Stone Ground.   

I thought I was so cool.

Instead of going around and around, the mustard just went up and down.    So I covered it all with plastic and left it over night.   The next morning, it actually started grinding.   Sort of.    So I ground it for a while, then left it until that night.

Once the seeds started really softening, they started grinding a lot better.   Then the mustard started seriously soaking up the vinegar, so I added another part of vinegar.  

We mortared.  We pestled.   We mortared again.  We pestled again.  Then I wrapped it up and left it overnight.  Again.

The next day it was much much softer but still way too rough.  Grinding with the mortar and pestle was working, but too slowly.   I pulled out the stick blender and used that until I was able to get it ground to a great rough consistency that I really like.  

We tasted it and it is delicious!   Thank heaven.   It still has a good mustard kick, but is much milder than the ones we made last year.

If you try mustard this way, try it in a blender first.   Better yet, soak the seeds in the vinegar for a day before you start grinding at all.  These are the proportions I ended up with to get the consistency I like:

Homemade Mustard [Mild-ish]
www.rurification.com

1/4 cup yellow mustard seeds
1/2 cup white wine vinegar

Grind the mustard seeds with the vinegar until you reach the consistency you like.   Store in fridge to maintain that heat level.  Store in cupboard for a milder mustard [after a few weeks or months.]  Makes  3/4 cup.  

Enjoy!

Fruit Fly Trap

Confession:  We have a lot of bugs.    Partly because we live in the country where there are a lot of bugs.    And partly because sometimes we bring a bit of the country indoors. 

During canning and harvest season we get a lot of fruit flies.  

I've never been a big fan of fruit flies.   Partly because they're annoying.   And partly because in the 9th grade we had to raise them in biology class for a genetics experiment.  It had something to do with red eyes.   I think.   Anyway, the fruit flies often escaped and for several weeks the entire 9th grade area and the cafeteria suffered a pestilence of fruit flies.   Yuck. 

When I started making my own vinegar we got a few more fruit flies.   In the summer, when the vinegar warms up, we get more fruit flies.   When we bring in the latest garden produce and it sits on the counter for a day, we get more fruit flies.    Sometimes we suffer a pestilence of fruit flies.   

Yuck. 

I read somewhere about making a fruit fly trap with vinegar and water and soap.    So I tried it.  

And it works.   It really, really works.   

I have two now.   I keep one by the vinegar and one on the kitchen counter where we do food prep - that's the one in the pic.     If you blow up the pic, you'll see the little drowned fruit flies in the bottom of the jar.    My name is Robin E. and I'm a fly murderer.  


This is what you need to make your own fly execution chamber - just in time for Halloween:

• 8 oz jar  [Can be bigger or smaller.  This is America.  Use whatever jar you want.]
• 1/2 cup of water
• 2-3 Tablespoons cider vinegar 
• A few drops of dish soap

The vinegar draws the flies in.   The soap breaks the surface tension of the water, so when the flies touch the water to investigate, they fall in.   Genius.

It'll stay effective for a long time.   It doesn't smell unless you put in a lot of cider vinegar and you're sensitive to the vinegar smell.  

Oriental Spice Vinegar

This is the time of year to make those fancy complicated vinegars to use all winter.

Confession:  They're not all that fancy.   And they're not all that complicated.  Basically, you put herbs in vinegar.   It's not hard.

I make a lot of different flavors of vinegar every year.   You can, too.   There are only three things you have to think about:

1.  Bottles.    You can put vinegar in anything glass with a lid.   Save old wine bottles, Perrier bottles, those cute blue TyNant bottles, pint or jelly jars, anything....   Replacement corks can be picked up at any good hardware store.   Just take your bottle in there and find the cork you like best.   Or you can use plastic wrap and a rubber band.    I've done it.

2. Vinegar.    If you're just starting out, get plain white vinegar from your favorite grocery store.   It'll be great!   If you're in the mood for fancy, then go for a fancier vinegar:  red wine, white wine, rice, cider.    They all work.    Remember:  If you're not a vinegar connoisseur already, then just get plain white vinegar.  That's what I did for 20 years before making my own vinegar.

3.  Herbs.   Fresh is prettier in the jar, but if you only have dried, then you can use those instead.   In this bottle I used dried peppers and star anise, and fresh ginger.   It's what I had.   This is food - it shouldn't be stressful, it should be delicious.

I'll be posting more vinegars as I do them this year, but here's a good one to start with.   I used this to make the Szechuan pickled beans I did this year - recipe tomorrow.  I also use it in any oriental recipe that calls for vinegar.   Delicious!

Oriental Spice Vinegar

Robin's Oriental Spice Vinegar

• 4-6 long skinny hot peppers
• sliced fresh ginger
• 1-2 star anise broken up
• white vinegar.

Put the herbs and spices in the jar.   Fill it up with vinegar.   That is all.

See!  I told you it was easy.  Wait for a month or so for the fullest flavor.   These will keep for at least a year.  If the herbs get ugly, take them out.    Mostly, I just ignore them.

Note:   If you want to keep your bottle to use again, make sure that your herbs can come out as easily as you put them in.   It's no fun trying to get a big twig of whatever out of the bottle when the vinegar is gone.  

Chive Vinegar

It's chive time.    They're among the first of my herbs to pop up and start blooming.

Everyone knows how to harvest the green leaves.   You chop them up and use them wherever you need a hint of onion flavor.

The flowers have a lovely onion-y flavor, too. 

Plus, they're pink.   Pink things just taste better.  Ask K2.

My favorite thing to do with chive flowers is make chive vinegar.  I use my homemade white wine vinegar.


Isn't it beautiful?

Occasionally, you can catch me just staring at the jar.  It's so pretty.

To make chive vinegar, all you have to do is put the flowers in a jar of vinegar and let it steep in the sun for a week or so.   The vinegar turns a lovely shade of pink.  Eventually, the flowers lose their color and you can strain them out. 

If your chives flower only sporadically during the season, don't worry.  You can add the flowers as you find them.  When you find a flower, pop it into the jar.  Take the old faded ones out when you need to.  

Chive vinegar is my favorite to use in salad dressings.   I try to make as much as I can during the year.

Homemade Vinegar

Red and white wine vinegars

For years I thought about making homemade vinegar, but since we don't drink and are not in the habit of buying alcohol, I never got around to it.  A couple of years ago, when a friend gave us a bottle of red wine, I was thrilled!  It was a sign from the universe that now was the time to try my hand at making designer vinegar.

No, I had no idea what I was doing, but that never stopped me before.   I did a Google search and didn't find a whole lot of information about it on the web [There is a lot more out there now!], so I did a lot of winging it.  This is what I learned: