{"id":4324,"date":"2009-09-01T04:00:22","date_gmt":"2009-09-01T08:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ourgrandmotherskitchens.com\/?p=4324"},"modified":"2009-08-31T20:30:48","modified_gmt":"2009-09-01T00:30:48","slug":"liquid-rubiesliquid-gold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ourgrandmotherskitchens.com\/?p=4324","title":{"rendered":"Liquid Rubies\/Liquid Gold"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Truffle's

Truffle's new "do" makes her feel a little cold (but never nippy!) in September.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
September has arrived.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
A little nip has arrived in the air here in the hilltowns of Western Massachusetts. My dog Truffle got her hair cut last week so she burrows under the covers at night. And I\u2019ve just stopped swimming, although I hope\u00a0my being landlocked\u00a0is only temporary. Surely we\u2019ll have a warm spell before fall arrives officially!<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
The chilly evenings have reminded me, a bit belatedly, that I\u2019d better get to work preserving at least some of summer\u2019s flavors. Somehow I never manage to put up as many pickles and jams as I\u2019d like to these days.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
I refuse to feel guilty about this. I just do what I can when I can.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
So I\u2019m happy that I\u2019ve started \u2026 with a little vinegar.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
I\u2019ll describe what I\u2019ve done below in paragraph form rather than as a recipe because (as you\u2019ll see) the process is very loose.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\"purple<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
My Ruby Vinegar (Cold Method)<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
A couple of weeks ago I harvested some purple basil to make what my friends at Stockbridge Herb Farm<\/a> call \u201cruby red vinegar.\u201d On their advice I went the traditional route with this batch.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
I gently washed 1 handful of purple basil and 1 of green. I let them dry on paper towels. Then I placed them in a clean glass jar with a plastic top and covered them with distilled white vinegar. (I used about a pint of vinegar; feel free to use more leaves and more vinegar if you like.)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
I left the jar to steep in a warm but dark part of the kitchen, shaking it gently a couple of times a day.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
The purple basil started lending color to the vinegar almost immediately. Yesterday the vinegar was a lovely reddish purple and tasted of fresh basil. (One has to monitor the basil; this process can take from 1 to 4 weeks.) So I strained it through cheesecloth and put it in a fresh bottle. It will lend the taste of fresh basil to salads throughout the winter.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

\"lemon<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
My Golden Vinegar (Hot Method)<\/strong><\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

\nYesterday I went out to the herb garden and grabbed some lemon basil. This variety of basil really does smell of citrus.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
As you can see from the picture above, I have let it go to seed a bit–in part because I\u2019m lazy and keep forgetting to nip off the flowers as they form, in part because I love to add the basil flowers to a small bouquet. They\u00a0lend a lovely\u00a0fragrance to their surroundings.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
I put a few flowers in today\u2019s vinegar infusion but tried to rely mostly on stalks of basil that hadn\u2019t yet flowered; their flavor is better. For this concoction I used golden cider vinegar from a local apple producer, Apex Orchards<\/a>.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
I took a shortcut with this batch of basil by heating my vinegar almost to the boiling point before pouring it over the cleaned and dried leaves. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
(Before I added the basil I poured\u00a0hot tap\u00a0water into the bottle and left it there for a minute or two so that\u00a0the bottle\u00a0wasn’t shocked and perhaps broken by the warm vinegar.)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
As with the non-heated vinegar I used a bottle with a plastic top so\u00a0the lid\u00a0wouldn’t react to the vinegar.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
I will\u00a0shake this bottle twice a day for three days. The warm vinegar works faster than vinegar at room temperature so\u00a0my lemon basil\u00a0batch should be ready to strain by the time the three days have elapsed.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Note: If you\u2019re trying this method, be sure NOT to shake\u00a0the bottle right after you add the hot liquid;\u00a0vinegar will spurt out and make a mess!<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
If you don\u2019t have purple or lemon basil, you may use either of these methods with regular basil or indeed with almost any herb. And think about planting more varieties of basil next year.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
I\u2019m looking forward to using either of my vinegars in panzanella<\/a> very soon.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\"red<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 September has arrived. \u00a0 A little nip has arrived in the air here in the hilltowns of Western Massachusetts. My dog Truffle got her hair cut last week so she burrows under the covers at night. And I\u2019ve just stopped swimming, although I hope\u00a0my being landlocked\u00a0is only temporary. Surely we\u2019ll have a warm spell […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[728],"tags":[733,730,734,729,732,731,735,705],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourgrandmotherskitchens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4324"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourgrandmotherskitchens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourgrandmotherskitchens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourgrandmotherskitchens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourgrandmotherskitchens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4324"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/ourgrandmotherskitchens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4340,"href":"https:\/\/ourgrandmotherskitchens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4324\/revisions\/4340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourgrandmotherskitchens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourgrandmotherskitchens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourgrandmotherskitchens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}