Herbs and Vinegars, condiments and flavourings

I recently bid for soime jars on ebay which arrived well packed in a little wooden tray.  The jars are for storing my herbs in.  It was a shame to not use it and when I turned it over it had in a previous life been used to package some wine in.  I got to thinking as to what i could use it for.  It suddenly struck me that it would be an ideal container in which to store some of my bought flavoured vinegars and hold them altogether and also be able to put them from shelf to table like that which has made me doubly pleased.  Here they are.

Another batch of things all sorted and ready for the pantry.

Some of the herbs I have dried have been processed. I mean rubbed between the hands with the sage and the thymes an rosemary stripped off of their stems and the stems in my case discarded this time round.  However if I had a fire they would be on that.   I have lemon thyme which will be used as part of a glaze on carrots, ordinary thyme which I also use a lot of, sage which I also use a massive amount of especially as I do an awful lot of my own stuffings and some Rosemary.  I still have marjoram, oregano, parsley, flat leaved parsley to process.   I still have more drying as I tend to use quite a bit of sage and thyme.  And there is nothing like home grown parsley which is then dried as it is full of flavour especially in a home made wine sauce.

The Tarragon vinegar in their new little bottles.  I have six bottles so I have a steady supply for use throughout the year.  They are little square bottles with corks and I have added a square of muslin under the corks to stop anything getting into it.  The vinegars are very good in stir fries (for creating your own sweet and sour sauce) and also for deglazing the meat juices in a pan.  Home made Tarragon vinegar is/was my secret ingredient in a Marie Rose prawn sauce and I think it will be really good on fish and chips.  Tonight I intend to process some Raspberry vinegar.  I have blackberry, blueberry and mixed fruit, and mixed herb vinegars to go, but at this rate I am going to need some more bottles.

The Souper mix is all done and dusted for adding to gravies, sauces and for having as a hot drink on a cold winters day.  I am going to try drying some as well and see what happens, but perhaps not put hardly any salt in, a little bit but the original recipe uses the salt to preserve the veggies.  You do not quite need that with dehydrating.

I also have gravy onions to prepare which are basically like a really thick paste of dried onions (I put them through the processor) once cooked and mince down and then you just add to your gravy mix to give a little more flavour.