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Wednesday, June 27, 2018

In preparation for the 4th of July -- making a batch of homemade rosemary mustard

For dinner on the 4th we're doing sausage, veggie, and potato kabobs. As a condiment, I've made some rosemary mustard using: ground mustard seed (the powder-kind of mustard), salt, water, rosemary from our garden, a spoonful of honey for sweetness, and vinegar. It's mellowing in the fridge for the next few days (the flavors mingle, the mixture thickens, and the heat reduces with time).

Homemade gourmet mustard is so easy to make, yet so economical. On Amazon, herb mustards range in price from $3.50 to $5.00 for a 6 to 8-oz jar. Yet it can be made at home for a fraction of those pricey jars.

By buying ground mustard in a 10-oz canister from Cash & Carry, for $3.49 (pricing similar to Costco), my cost for an 10-oz batch was about $1.15. Alternatively, I could have saved even more, by buying ground mustard from bulk bins at WinCo, at about $2.49/lb, yielding a cost of just under $1.00 for a 10-oz batch. If I had needed to order ground mustard online, I found it selling for just under $6.00 in a 1-lb bag, which would have brought my cost up to about $1.20 per 10-oz batch. Any of these scenarios is at most about 1/5 of the cost of buying commercial gourmet mustard.

Gourmet mustard is a great way to use up those odd bits of liquid leftovers, such as the last of a bottle of white wine, champagne, beer/ale, apple juice, or sparkling cider, by substituting this leftover liquid for all or part of the water called for in a mustard recipe.

The actual preparation for homemade mustard is under 20 minutes, including a 10-minute waiting period before adding the vinegar, and chopping herbs. Bonus -- it keeps in the fridge for several months.


A little jar of homemade mustard makes a lovely little gift, as well. The varieties are endless, by changing up the liquids and mixing in chopped solid additions, such as cranberries, herbs/spices, jalapenos, or horseradish; varying the sweet/hot ratio by adding honey, agave, or maple syrup, and timing the addition of vinegar to adjust the heat; and/or altering the texture by using some whole mustard seeds in addition to the ground mustard.

So, our full menu for the 4th of July looks like this:

  • using our fire ring for roasting, we will each assemble our own kabobs on our home-fashioned, marshmallow/hotdog-roasting, long-handled skewers (as seen in this post). We'll be choosing from chunks of 3 kinds of smoked sausage (turkey, beef, pork), small, pre-cooked potatoes, zucchini chunks, green pepper pieces, pineapple chunks, and cherry tomatoes.
  • condiments for the kabobs: homemade rosemary mustard, barbecue sauce
  • rolls from the freezer, leftover from our reception in early June
  • green salad of lettuce and kale from the garden
  • this creamy rhubarb gelled salad using rhubarb from the garden
  • red, white, and blue mini cupcakes from the freezer, leftover from the reception
  • s'mores, of course

6 comments:

  1. Sounds like a great cookout. Homemade mustards do sound like good gift ideas! I can tell time is getting away from me--when I first looked at your post, I thought, why is she posting about 4th of July? Then I remembered it's next week. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Kris,
      I've had similar moments this year. I feel like June passed by in a blur.
      Next week, right! Hard to believe.
      Have a lovely evening, Kris!

      Delete
  2. Looks and sounds like a lovely celebration. You could add some mayo/yogurt to the rosemary mustard to make a nice salad dressing out of any possible leftovers. Would be great over a green salad.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's a wonderful idea, Carol. I will definitely try something along those lines. Thank you!

      Delete
  3. Very good idea, Lili! I'm going to have to try this as our family loves mustards of all kinds, much more so than ketchup. Have a Happy 4th! Melissa

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Melissa,
      We're a house of mixed mustard and ketchup lovers. Homemade mustard always seems to be a hit here. Can't wait for our cook-out.
      Have a happy 4th of July!

      Delete

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