Is confession good for the soul?

[Pampy Profile]

I certainly hope so! I need to confess that I've just spent nearly £40 (and that's with a 10% discount) on 1 litre of variously flavoured vinegars.
Anybody else need to confess anything?

[jeral Profile]

No need to confess about that Pampy. It's spending a lot on things that go off quite soon if you don't use them - and then not using them, oops, i.e. admitting you (or me in this case) got carried away in the heat of a spending moment.

So what flavours did you buy? It'd be a crime to have to confess to if you don't tell us

I bought some mini doughnuts yesterday. More a crime of stupidity though as I was charged more at the checkout than the shelf price so I told them. Only 10p and I was in a rush so left it at that. Realised after I got home that the pack only held eight now, was ten for £1, so have gone up from 10p each to 12.5p and now 13.75p as charged, so up by 37.5%! Inflation with a vengeance.

[Gillthepainter Profile Website]

Quality vinegars are worth it, honest.
I was almost tempted to buy Jamie Oi-lover raspberry vinegar yesterday, at not far off £7.
Until I remembered I'd bought it before when the lid leaked on the way home, and it wasn't too good. So I've got my eyes open now for another brand.

I do like flavoured vinegars - particularly sherry flavoured.

Donuts? I wondered who bought them, as they are so popular now, jeral.

Confession?
You sure I'll feel better?
I bought 2 boxes of breakfast chocolate flavoured Nature Valley bars on Sunday.
And I've eaten all but one (that last one isn't going to last long in the cupboard).

[jeral Profile]

...[clip]...
I do like flavoured vinegars - particularly sherry flavoured.
...

Anna Olsen's on TV at lunchtimes and she visited a place (whatever a winery is called for vinegar making) and she and her hosts drank small samples of the specialist vinegars on offer so she could choose the best one for a salad she was making.

It hadn't occurred to me that there were vinegar connoisseurs, even though it's obvious that there must be since specialist ones are about flavour, not just the pungency of ascetic acid. Mind you on that basis the vinegar is the star, so not just something you'd whisk a tsp of mustard in.

Clearly I need to learn more about vinegar...

[jeral Profile]

Gillthepainter, I buy the mini doughnuts once in a blue moon so it isn't my custom that keeps them on the shelves. It's the idea of doughnuts that I love, Homer style Mmm donuts. Unfortunately most bakery items incl. cakes and tart crusts have that mouthburn of bicarb to me, hence being a blue moon event. Probably as well or I could easily live on apple ones

[Joanbunting Profile]

I make my own vinegars and flavour them so would be happy to sell them to you lot for £7.00 a bottle!

My most recent extravagance was a tin (200g) if three types of African pepper corns €9.00. They smell and taste utterly wonderful and you don't need to grind as many as usual.

Oh and y the way, I make doughnuts too

[Stokey Sue Profile]

Not a fan of flavoured vinegars
I like sherry vinegar, good aged balsamic, white balsamic, and various wine and cider vinegars

But then I am not a fan of acetic acid

I do find though that I can tell the difference if I buy the little bottles of varietal (single wine grape) vinegars such as chardonnay or cabernet sauvignon

[Sakkarin Profile]

FORTY SQUID!?!

I thought that was a bit harsh till I saw this triple pack of proper balsamic for nearly two hundred quid...

https://www.parmashop.com/english/balsa ... age-g.html

[Petronius Profile]

My soul is irredeemable, but I did spend £12.80 for a free range farm chicken and then undercooked it. Had a couple of slices and threw the rest away.

[Pampy Profile]

I bought 200ml each of lemon, blackcurrant, damson, bramble and 100ml each of tayberry and raspberry. I've already got some raspberry but I use it a lot for salad dressing made with pomegranate molasses and Greek evoo. I've ordered them in nice bottles (ying&yang and fila) so that's added to the cost a bit (but not too much).
This is where I got them from https://www.demijohn.co.uk/
I do eat quite a lot of salad and decided to try to match the dressing to the main ingredients, rather than only use balsamic (eg lemon with salmon).
They can all also be used drizzled over ice cream as well as using them to cook with.

[Gillthepainter Profile Website]

Splutter! That's a price Sakkarin.

Champagne vinegar is rather good too, Sue.
My recipe for red cabbage asks specifically for Sauvignon vinegar, which works nicely.

Dennis, bad luck, we've all done it.

Not heard of tayberry vinegar before. That would be the first one I'd try.
If I had any.

Joan, I thought about making the vinegars, but I do not have the space sadly.
My friend uses her garage for all sorts of concoctions.

[Sakkarin Profile]

Splutter! That's a price...

The real thing is £2.50 a teaspoonful on Pampy's site. That's how much I've paid for a whole bottleful of the pretend stuff. The bottom line is that I have absolutely no idea what real balsamic vinegar tastes like, and at £7.50 a tablespoonful I wonder if I ever will!

[Stokey Sue Profile]

You can buy real as opposed to concocted Aceto Balsamico di Modena without paying for 25 years aging in a 600 year old castello. Saw it on Italy Unpacked - Emilio Romagna on Monday, will still be on iPlayer; that's also the one that goes into "Bolognese", interesting

Here's a list of recommendations, some (Aldi of course) are actually cheaper than the concocted muck. I've had the Waitrose one, nice

http://www.independent.co.uk/extras/indybest/food-drink/best-balsamic-vinegars-10364530.html

[WhitefieldFoodie Profile]

What a good thread. I will most likely post on here after every unsupervised visit to the supermarket or Bury Market...

At the weekend I went to Waitrose, for some reason and brought some Fax Caviar for £19.99 just because I was doing some sushi and wanted it to top some Gunkan I originally planned to buy lumpfish "caviar" or salmon "Caviar", but no. James had to spend 20 quid just to see what the faux stuff was like.

[Alexandria Profile]

Revealing my passions !

I am in Portugal and purchased some Portugese Verdeho Green White Wines to ship to the office (so my secretary could sign for the shipment ) and lots of bio marmelades and honey ..

Also splurged on some stunner Winter sweaters too ..


I am sure to do more damage before I leave Lisbon early Sunday morning after breakfast ..

[Stokey Sue Profile]

Can I go off into a bit of etymology?

It seems only in British English that caviar or kaviar means specifically (and I think legally) processed sturgeon roe

In most of Europe it just means [processed] fish egg roe, something to bear in mind when reading labels and recipes.

I really like the softer texture of keta salmon caviar, and of course lumpfish roe (which seems to have returned after disappearing) is of essential for Russian eggs

How was the faux caviar James?

Alexandria, I am kicking myself for not buying one of the hand knitted wool jackets I saw in Eger Hungary, thought I'd see them everywhere but, no only Eger

[WhitefieldFoodie Profile]

Sue - It was salty and fishy so perfect for my Gunkan's. But I don't think it was worth 6x more than lumpfish "caviar", or Salmon "caviar".

[Alexandria Profile]

Stokey Sue,

Too bad, you did not buy one of those Hungarian Sweaters ..

I had purchased a boiled sheep´s wool Austrian sweater two years ago and I still have it, looks Brand new .. It is amazingly warm .. Probably warmer than any coat I have ever had ..

It also wears amazingly well ..


I love sweaters ( wool 100% ) ..

[Alexandria Profile]

I am terrbily dangerous in Wine Shops and Extra Virgin Olive Oil retailers ..

[Gillthepainter Profile Website]

Ditto to the ev olive oil, Alexandria.

The best I've bought is Montes de Toledo. Toletum. (there are probably far better ones out there).
I simply haven't seen it in the shops ever since, even in Spain. But would buy it again like a shot.

By the way, we drive to and around Spain every year,
and I come back with my yearly stash of ev olive oil stuffed anywhere I can in the car.