COOKING: Cranberry Rosemary Mustard

Not to toot my own horn (which is the polite thing to say before doing so), but I happen to be quite a condiment connoisseur. I know - brag, brag, brag. I've just always been much more interested in what is ON my food rather than the food itself. I have literally placed a food order by requesting "a lot of sweet and sour sauce - like, more than you think a human could eat" on the side, which, incidentally, resulted in TWO measly containers of my beloved nectar, but that is not the point. The point is that I love a good accent flavor, even elderly-style flavors like piccalilli and other pepper relishes. I have an opinion on pepper relishes! See? Told you I was a condiment connoisseur!

Despite my passion, I've made very few DIY condiments, so I wanted to do so before I rightfully claim my place on top of the sauce throne. There is a sauce throne, right? Don't tell me I've been training for nothing!

WHAT YOU NEED

4 TBS Mustard Seeds

3 TBS Dried Cranberries

1 TBS Fresh Rosemary

Large Splash of Apple Cider Vinegar

HOW TO MAKE IT

Combine all of the dry ingredients in a bowl.

Add just enough apple cider vinegar to cover the dry ingredients by about a 1/4 inch.

Cover the bowl and put that bad boy in the refrigerator for a few days. 

Use the downtime to go on with your non-mustard-related business.

On day 2, a lot of the liquid had been absorbed by the mustard seeds.

I would say 3-5 days of soaking is good. This is what it looked like on day 5:

After you've soaked 'til you can't soak no more, dump the whole thing in a food processor and blend for several minutes, stopping occasionally to scrape the sides of the bowl or just take a break from panicking that your neighbors are angry with you for making such a loud noise.

The noise of my food processor scared the hell out of this adorable squirrel who was on a branch near my window. He was frozen in fear until he started chewing on the tree instead. He later found a small stick and ran away gleefully with it in his mouth. I took this as a 'halfway there, champ'-style pep talk.

When it seems done blending (meaning there are few or no whole mustard seeds left), you're done!

I popped mine in a mason jar and it filled it about halfway. My ingredients are based on the small jar of mustard seeds available in most grocery stores, but you could scale up {4 Parts Mustard Seed, 3 Parts Cranberries, 1 Part Rosemary} to meet your needs.

This mustard has a bit of a kick to it, which I enjoy (again, connoisseur) but might be a lot for some people. It tastes great on sandwiches and pretzels, of both the snack size and soft variety.

Would you ever make your own condiments? Are you more of a plain yellow mustard type? Will you share your best ketchup, BBQ or hot sauce recipes with me?

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