Kyoho Grapes

I went to the farmers market today to pick up some fresh herbs for a lamb skewer recipe I found on Tasting Table. While I was there, I decided to peruse the fruit stalls. I stumbled upon some Kyoho grapes, which I've never heard of before. So, I decided to taste some (the best part of a farmers market!). They basically taste like Concord grapes, but are bigger and fleshier. Sweet, yet tart at the same time. Sold me!

Now, I can not think of what to do with them besides eat them alone (no problem) or with some Humbolt Fog cheese I still have. Any ideas on a sauce or condiment...anything!?

Fresh Sweet Sriracha (Rooster sauce)

Typically sriracha (or as I called it rooster sauce) is a fermented sauce. But, you can still take the basic recipe and serve it fresh. It won't have the same taste as the fermented version, however it is still very good and can be enjoyed immediately!I made mine pretty sweet, which I think made it better as a sauce than a dip.

I got the base for this recipe from Viet World Kitchen blog.Think I might her fermented version soon.

3/4 lb fresno peppers split lengthwise and chopped (trim the top of the stem off)
4 cloves of garlic
1 1/4 teaspoon salt
2.5 ounces brown sugar or Vietnamese palm sugar (less if you don't want it sweet)
1/4 cup distilled white vinegar
1/2 cup water

Combine all the ingredients in a sauce pan and simmer for 5-10 minutes. Cool down and blend. Push mixture through a strainer and store in the refrigerator.

Homemade Yogurt

Once you really think about it yogurt is kind of disgusting. Especially after working in a lab. Essentially you take bacteria from an already started yogurt culture (either store bought or from a previous homemade batch) and give it some food (milk) and let them go crazy, feed, and multiple. The result is delicious yogurt! But all I can think about is how I basically just made a homemade culture of bacteria is a makeshift incubator. Mmm.

To achieve the texture and taste of yogurt bacteria have to ferment lactose (a sugar found in milk) in the milk into a byproduct called lactic acid in order to produce energy for themselves. This byproduct of their metabolism in turn can interact with other milk proteins and actually curdle them (being that lactic acid is, well, an acid) giving yogurt it's delicious texture and taste.

Making homemade yogurt is easy and once you have a batch going you can continually renew it each week.

32 oz. fresh milk (not non-fat - I used 2%)
1/4-1/2 (one small container) of store bought or homemade yogurt
*Note: make sure if you're using store bought that it says "contains live cultures"

Heat the milk to 170 F (to kill anything nasty in it). Make sure it does not pass this point so use a thermometer and monitor it carefully. Once it reaches this temperature remove it from heat and cool it down to ~105-115 F. Mix in your yogurt starter. You must be sure to let the milk cool to this point otherwise you'll kill the bacteria you're carefully adding in. From here you can do a couple of things. One, you could fill a small ice chest with water no hotter than 115 F and place the yogurt in a separate container within the ice chest. Secondly, you could try the oven method of heating it to 175 F, turning it off, and placing the yogurt in a container inside the over. Either way, you want to let the yogurt sit for 4-8 hours depending on the consistency and sourness you like your yogurt at. The long you let it sit the more lactic acid will build up and the sourer your yogurt will be.

This is plain yogurt so you could mix in fresh fruit, sugar, agave nectar, honey, or my favorite: rhubarb strawberry compote.

Rhubarb strawberry compote

Tart and sweet this compote won't last long in your fridge. It can basically be put on anything from a scone to ice cream to just plain out of the jar! It's especially good with homemade yogurt.

5 stalks or 1 pound of rhubarb cute into 1/2" thick pieces
10-15 strawberries cored and roughly chopped
1/4-1/2 cup of sugar (depending on how tart/sweet you like it)
Optional: splash of apple juice, orange juice, and orange zest

Combine all ingredients into a sauce pan over medium heat. Once at a boil lower heat and let simmer for 10-15 minutes or until the rhubarb is soft and beginning to break down. Store in the fridge. I wouldn't keep this over a week unlike jam since it has a relatively low sugar content, but it won't matter because it is too delicious to resist!

Ginger Ale

I recently talked about making ginger beer at home, which led to some confusion. A beer (including ginger beer) is going to be made using yeast to ferment the sugars you give it to produce alcohol (very little) and carbonation. The ginger beer is flavored by minced or juiced ginger that is mixed in at the beginning of the fermentation process. A ginger ale on the other hand is not going to use fermentation to create the carbonation (thus is completely non-alcoholic), but is carbonated by adding soda water or injecting CO2 into the liquid. The ale is typically flavored with a ginger simple syrup, which is mixed with the carbonated water (however you choose to carbonate it).

For this recipe I decided to mix my ginger simply syrup with soda water since I don't have a nifty carbonator. You can vary the amount of ginger depending on your tastes and how sweet you want your ginger ale to be (i.e. if you want a spicy end product and you use a relatively little amount of ginger in the simple syrup your drink will be quite sweet).

1 3-8" stalk of fresh ginger cut into 1/4" thick rounds (more = spicier and more ginger flavor)
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
Soda water

Combine ginger, sugar, and water in a small sauce pan and heat over medium heat stirring occasionally until the sugar dissolves. Let the simple syrup simmer for 5-10 minutes. You can then combine the ginger simply syrup with the soda water to taste.

Feel free to experiment with flavors and add in other herbs to your ginger simple syrup. Lavender? Rosemary?

Challenge: Reusing fresh herbs

I can't count how many times I've bought a fresh bunch of parsley or cilantro, used a tablespoon, and had to throw out the rest because I couldn't find another use for it. Over the July 4th weekend we had an excess of mint leaves sitting around in a cup of water after using them for a dinner earlier that week. Having 8 culinary minded people at the house allowed for the mint to be quickly used up in a new dishes and cocktails that it was never intended for. Now, I may only cook for myself, but I'd like to think I can use up a bunch of mint in a week for something that it wasn't intended for. Tonight I bought fresh basil and Italian parsley for my dinner and used ~2 tablespoons each leaving me basically what I had started with. That is why I am issuing this challenge to myself: use up at least one of the bunches before it goes bad (and not just for sprinkling on the dinner it was intended for!).

I feel like I waste so much good eats with every dinner that has fresh herbs that I throw out. Hopefully this will teach me some inventiveness (and save some money!).