Dijon Mustard, Dungog Excursion, Mushrooms

Using a recipe from The Compleat Mustard I compounded a Dijon Mustard minus a few things that weren't in the pantry like Tarragon and Chervil. Its been soaking in Verjuice for about 48 hours. Yesterday it had absorbed all the juice and a little more was stirred into the mix.

Today it went into the Kenwood Chef blender. It's pretty thick and a little more verjuice was added to get the mix rolling nicely. It was left in the blender to soak for another 4 hours absorbing more liquid. A little more was added until the rolling pattern returned. After some minutes the texture became smooth although the mustard seed shells make it look like there are tiny seeds. A taste test proved it to be very smooth except for one small problem. It doesn't taste like Dijon. It does taste like a really good English mustard. The recipe now calls for it to be sieved through progressively fine cloths but I'm not going to bother. It's great the way it is.

Dijon

We went to Dungog this morning to see if the Dump Shop had any scissor jacks. Scissor jacks use a screw thread called Acme (Imperial) or Trapezoidal (metric). Our very small wine press is broken because the threaded screw is damaged again after only a few uses since the previous thread was replaced. The beauty of the Acme thread is it is low torque and should take the higher pressure turning. 

The Dump Shop did not yield a scissor jack but it did supply a large Furi knife and an armful of other treasures which put us out of pocket by $10.

The local church hall was having its weekly op shop and again provided some $3 unused cotton t-shirts and heavy duty $9 work pants for me as I've converted a few to workshop rags of recent.

Jean managed a couple of very nice tops and wait for it ... hipster pants. It took some convincing on my part to get her to buy them. Her two reasons for objecting were firstly hipsters are uncomfortable and feel like they are going to fall down. And secondly there was the mutton done up as lamb comment. My arguments were it was a lovely colour, they fitted perfectly and made her look sexy. And she only had to wear them around the house for me if she was that worried.

Not many 58 year old women have the figure to fit a pair of stove pipe legged hipsters - a by-product of our swimming and eating regime.

A day or so ago I was listening to a podcast on mushrooms.  We've bought mushroom kits in the past which produced very few mushroom compared to the cost. This podcast got me inspired. One of the ingredients needed to start is coffee grounds. Picking the largest and busiest coffee shop in Dungog Chillbillies Jean purchased a coffee and made the request for some used grounds. Eureka! Returning a few minutes later with a 20 litre bucket she collected a goodly amount to start our venture. Next step is to purchase some Oyster mushrooms to start the process.

Coffee Grounds