Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Chive Vinegar...

Last year while walking through the library, I saw the prettiest jar of pink.  
It had a label on it as chive vinegar.  
The local gardening club has a group of ladies that keeps a little herbal garden outside the library.  
They harvest and sell the herbs in the library as well as some of their concoctions from the herbs.  
This year I decided to make some of my own chive vinegar for salad dressings and possibly pickles.  
First I waited and waited for the chives to bloom...fully. 
 The lovely little purple flowers, as well as the stems on which they stood came in with me.  
After a good rinse, I cut the flower heads off and plunked them into a quart jar of vinegar.  
Then the stems got finely chopped and added to cottage cheese.  I set the chive vinegar in a dark cupboard and waited...but alas the wait was unnecessary.  
The next morning, the vinegar had a pink tinge. 
My husband must have thought me crazy for being so excited, but rarely in my life do things happen so rapidly.  It has been a week that they have been seeping, and it is such a lovely pink color now.  
This morning I went to the cupboard to give it it's daily shake and from a distance thought that it was molded at the top, but I had nothing to fear.  The white appearance on the top was just vinegar bleached chive flowers floating on the top.  
I thought it was odd if something molded in vinegar.
So below is not so much a recipe, but a method...

Chive flower vinegar
Chive flowers (I used about 1 cup)
Vinegar (I used one quart white)
glass jar and lid.

Wash and place the chive flowers in the vinegar in the jar.  Let it sit in a dark place.  Give a daily shake.  After about a month, strain and put in pretty bottles (or not so pretty...your choice.)  Enjoy on salad or other dishes that need a little chive vinegar flavor!

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