Condiments

Basic recipe came from Bon Appetite. But we had some rhubarb and frozen mango, so those went in, too.  total fruit weight was 2 lbs, as per the recipe.  Didn't like the idea of coming across a whole clove in the final product, so that was ground up.  Red pepper toned down as one of us can't handle heat.  Used cosmic crisp apples, not Grannys. 

When I don't know what else to do with an abundance of asparagus, it gets pickled.  Surprised at how much I like those since I'm generally not a big asparagus fan.  The recipe that started us pickling asparagus is from Love and Lemons.  

But things have deviated from that quite a bit.  

Addictive recipe from Cookie and Kate that includes a lot of eggplant and Mediterranean flavors. Sort of like Ratatouille, but with eggplant instead of zucchini. The Mrs likes it much better than Ratatouille, but she's partial to eggplant.  Might even think of it as chunky Mediterranean salsa equivalent.  Maybe.

Candying ginger is one way to preserve what remains of the root after the required amount has been used for a recipe. If it just sits around, by the time it's needed again it will have shriveled and/or molded.  On the other hand, if there is evidence of eyes that might sprout, it might be better to encourage them to do so and try to plant and grow some ginger.  That's often successful and returns bountiful harvests.

When the basil plants get tall, it's time to make pesto (or dry it, but that's another story).  These plants started out as living basil in the grocery store several months ago.  The grocery store can be the source of many growable items (that's also another story).  These have been growing inside hydroponically all winter. The plan was to start these from cuttings taken from the basil growing in the yard last season but the cold killed those plants before they could be taken. So the grocery store became the source.

These pickles have become necessary additions for Taco Tuesday.  They really elevate most any taco.  Also referred to as Escabeche. Too good to make only one pint.  Cut veggies are packed into a quart Mason jar.  The pickling solution in the recipe seems to be plenty to cover all the veggies in a quart if the veggies are moderately packed in.  It doesn't need to be increased to handle that quart volume.

Easy to make fresh mayo and not have to worry about how long that opened jar has been in the frig.  From seriouseats.com, comes together quickly - once pasteurized eggs are ready (do note that USDA has not recommended the popular sous vide pasteurization method that's readily found out on the Internet).