Condiment

I started making mayonnaise a few months ago, and as I was gathering information on how to do it, I got a lot of feedback from various people on just how finicky it can be to get it to thicken properly. They would talk about adding the ingredients in the correct order, and then drizzling in the oil slowly. And then other tricks to use if it thickens and then starts to break apart again. I tried this first in my Kitchen Aid stand mixer using the whisk attachment, and it would not turn into mayo at all. Then I tried it in my blender, and it did turn into mayo but took a very long time. Then finally I tried my hand blender and BINGO! As you'll see in this video it is almost instantaneous, and does not matter how you add the ingredients.

In our house growing up there was always a jar of mustard pickles in the fridge, and they were always paired with both baked beans and meat pie, which were both something my mom made regularly. A few years ago I decided to make my own, and I ended up being extremely pleased with the results. The main veggies to put in there are cucumbers, onions and cauliflower, but you can also put in stuff like rutabaga, turnip, radish, and carrots. This time around it is just the latter.

After you cut up your cucumbers and onions you have to salt them and leave them over night, to draw as much moisture as possible out of them. I just put them into a food grade bucket and leave them on the side step since it is cool enough at night this time of year that it is about fridge temperature. Then the next day you squeeze as much moisture as you can out of them - either by hand or with a fruit press like we have - and continue on with your recipe.

We did not make any salsa last summer and so ran out some time ago. When I went looking for my recipe I dug up a list of ingredients but unfortunately had not recorded the procedure before, so I was shooting in the dark a bit here. This time I'm recording it all for posterity though!

Note that due to the lack of vinegar this recipe is not suited to canning by any means other than pressure-canning. The lack of vinegar makes for a nice sweet, fresh flavour that is very similar to the fresh salsas that are so popular these days. This is easy to make, though does take some time to boil down. We cheat and add a bit of corn starch to help thicken it.

This is pretty mild for spiciness.

Roasting red peppers is pretty easy to do if a bit finicky at first. In this video I'm fumbling around with it quite a bit in part because I only do this once a year during harvest time, and this was the first time this year, and in part because silly me chose peppers which were largely inappropriate for roasting. You want to select peppers that are larger, and fairly regularly shaped. This video was taken a few weeks ago when peppers were just in season, and I got so excited that I just picked up a bushel without thinking about it first. Today I picked up about a half bushel of large, nicely formed peppers for my pasta sauce today, and I had them all roasted and peeled in no time at all - less than 2 hours.

This year we were looking for a bit of a change in how to use up Zucchini, and a bit of googling hit upon this recipe for relish. A quick read and it sure sounded yummy - and now that it is in the jars I can verify that indeed it is! It is one of those recipes you have to prepare a day in advance since the veggies soak in brine overnight - somewhat counterintuitively so as to be able to get much of the water out of them. Of course, a fruit press like this one that my wife bought me for Christmas a few years ago helps in that goal too, but you can do it the old fashioned way by squeezing handfuls of the mixture.

For chopping the veggies I used a manual food processor with a crank handle on top. We hadn't used it in years mainly because it had gotten put away somewhere out of view, but when my wife was going to sell it at a yard sale in the spring I set it aside because I knew I'd use it again. It made fairly quick work of the veggies as long as I only about half filled it. The zucchini alone was literally about the size of my leg from the knee down! I did a double batch of this recipe.

We were at Costco yesterday and I was looking at some of the various BBQ sauces they had in stock, trying to decide between Tony Roma's, Bull's Eye Original, and some other "Kansas City Style" that I'd never heard of before. I wrote off the last one pretty easily because I wasn't even aware that Kansas City had its own style of BBQ sauce, but I was familiar with both of the other two and really like them both. Oh decisions, decisions.

Then it struck me - what the heck do I need to buy this stuff for? Surely I can make something every bit as good as these! I took a quick look at the ingredients and agreed with myself that yes, indeed I could do as well! Though I had not the slightest clue at that moment exactly how.

We made our way back home, and around noon my wife got called into work unexpectedly. Shortly after she left I had an epiphany! We had all sorts of pickles of various sorts in the basement - stuff we'd canned up over the last several years. I was betting that some combination of those with a good tomato base would be awesome! Little did I realise at the time just how right I was! The base for most BBQ sauces is sweet on the one hand, and vinegar/sour on the other hand. This is also the base for most home pickles!

Bread and Butter Pickles are a very popular treat to make in many households when fall harvest is upon us, but darnit they can be a real pain to make! Especially the part where you have to squeeze all the water out of the cucumbers that have been sitting on ice - last time we made them was before I had my little fruit press so my hands were pretty numb by the end of it. There is thankfully none of that foolishness with Zucchini Pickles! So much easier to make, and taste just about identical to Bread and Butter. And everyone is always giving away Zucchini in the fall, so even better still!

I love chow! Or "chow chow" as we always called it! So about 12 years ago now I tried to make it, and ended up putting waaaay too much all spice and cloves into it. Wow that was overpowering! And it shied me away from making them for some 10 years. And unfortunately when I did make them 10 years later I'd already forgotten the lesson of the all spice and cloves, so when I made this they were waaaaay too spicy, but have mellowed now with age. Normally when I make something I don't follow a recipe, I take a look at several recipes to figure out the 'essence' of that thing, and then use that knowledge to decide what I want to do for myself.

This is the same approach I used for my Chow back in 2007 when my Aikido Sensei wanted to make a big batch with me to split, so I'll give all the recipes together along with what we finally made.

I am in love with condiments — it’s an illness, really. My fridge is at least 1/3 full of nothing but “stuff to go with other stuff”, and this doesn’t really bother me. The best condiments, however, are those that one makes oneself and here is a recipe for one of my favorites — Green Coconut Chutney!

I’ve made a few variations of this Indian-style chutney, and have enjoyed each and every one. It is a lovely cool counterpart to hot curries, but has enough of a kick on its own to get your engines revving!