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Two of my Five a Day ~ Sautéed Grapes & Raspberry Vinegar


~  Menu  ~

St. Agur Cheese with Sautéed Grapes
Nubbly Toast
Secret Red
Vanilla Ice Cream with …
… a Taste of my Raspberry Vinegar

As I mentioned the other day I now have a deadline by which I must have finished the manuscript for my forthcoming book  on leftovers (see below).  I now have the onerous task of testing every recipe and suggestion in the book which is a lot of eating! 

st. agur blue cheese, red wine, sauteed grapes, homemade sourdough
Today, for instance, I played with grapes and in addition to seeing how well they freeze and planning more complicated ideas I tried sautéing a few which I left on the bunch so they’d look pretty in my photo for this very blog post.   I’m thinking all the time, me!

I drizzled the grapes with olive oil, seasoned, as one does, with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper and cooked them in a hot frying pan till they just started to show dark spots, shrivel and smell gorgeous.  They were sweet, hot and bursty in the mouth; perfect with the cold and creamy blue cheese and good bread. These are definitely a keeper.

spoonful of ice cream with raspberry vinegar

Having eaten that I felt the onus was on me to continue my experimentation with a small dessert.  A week or two ago I made a batch of raspberry vinegar and I had heard somewhere that it makes a good sauce for ice cream so tried it.

A bit of a surprise at first but whoever said it was good was right.  Mind you I only tested a spoonful as you can see so might have to try some more later just to make sure.


Raspberry Vinegar

pretty bottle of homemade raspberry vinegar for pinterest
I'm quite proud of this photo
~ please pin for me! 

You need to do a bit of forward planning for this.

1 kg or raspberries (or other berries)
1 ltr white wine vinegar
200g sugar 

~ In a plastic, stainless steel or glass bowl (it MUST be non-reactive) crush together the berries and white wine vinegar. (Or, I’ve just thought, perhaps cider vinegar would be best with blackberries!)
~ Cover the bowl and leave to steep for 3 days.
~ Set a nylon sieve over a bowl and pour the fruit and juices through. Allow to sit without disturbing to allow all the vinegar to drip through.
~ Put the juices in a non-reactive pan and add the sugar. Bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar.
~ Skim, turn down the heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
~ Cool completely then pour into sterile jam jar(s) and store in the fridge for 6 months or more!

This vinegar is delicious and I can think of lots more things to do with it – vinaigrette for instance (lots of homemade vinaigrette ideas here) or maybe add a sprinkling to fruit salads. Anyway it brings a touch of summer to this grim, so far, July!



Rumpot aka Rumtopf


You could halve the vinegar recipe above but if you only have a few leftover raspberries a better idea would be to add them to your Rumpot which no doubt you started a few weeks ago.  If you didn't it’s not too late – see here for how to make  rumpot, a lovely drink made from summer fruits macerated in rum.  


very useful book on making the most of leftovers


News from the Future

My book was published in March, 2013. Originally titled The Leftovers Handbook a second edition is now available and is called Creative Ways to Use Up Leftovers.  In it I give all the information, ideas and recipes I can think of for over 450 possible leftovers. 
   





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