The end is nigh!

[sam_gamgee]

Well, sort of.

I realized today that I'm *finally* very close to finishing the project I've been working on for way too long of cleaning up and out the kitchen pantry, cabinets, fridge, and freezer.

The pantry, fridge, and freezer are currently well-stocked and neat, and (mostly) full of things that will actually get eaten/used in a reasonable amount of time.

There still are a few things that are going to take a while to use, but they're things like herbs, spices, vinegar, etc. where (unless you're cooking for the military or a bunch of high school boys) you don't use much at a time. On the upside, though, I did find a few different recipes for vinaigrettes that look good that I want to try out, now that my granddad's garden's starting to produce. And especially since I have to figure out how to use up apple cider vinegar, basalmic vinegar, white vinegar, and white wine vinegar.

Comments

[justhuman.livejournal.com]

You could think about doing some pickles - seasonal and consume a ton of vinegar. Not just cucumber based one. Green beans, carrots, cauliflower, pepper and a ton of other veg make great pickles.

While canning is an option, it becomes time consuming an a special project. Refrigerator pickles only take the time it takes to heat up some vinegar and sugar and prepping the veg. They last between 1 and 3 months (or longer, if you're not food police paranoid) in the refrigerator. Vinegar, sugar and salt preserve things and make them last a long time.

Easiest thing to do is take the veg you're interested in and google up "picked ___________". They'll be variations of spices and such.

ETA: The vinegars you have are interchangealbe, meaning that they have the same acidity. They don't have the same flavor, but that's part of the fun and you can play with the flavor by changing up the vinegar. White and Apple are naturals for pickles. White wine and Red wine would be interesting variations. Don't use the balsamic for this - it's too sweet, will make everything black and has too distinctive a flavor.

I'd look up balsamic glazes and/or reductions - that's were you can get some bang for your buck. An inexpensive balsamic can be put in a saucepan and reduced in half or down to a third to make a thick drizzle and is used top things.

[sam-gamgee.livejournal.com]

Very true about pickling. And, oddly enough, I don't think of it even though my grammy's been making refrigerator pickles for as long as I can remember.

And I'm intrigued about balsamic vinegar because I've been reading a few recipes that use it as a reduction with fruit and ice cream and I've never thought it would work with sweet things.

Definitely lots of options in a lot of things. Decisions, decisions. :-)