Salad dressing and vinegar

Let's talk about something fun and delicious:  salad dressing.

And because it's me doing the writing (and because I'm writing during plastic-free July), you know I'm going to blather on about making our own salad dressing (a) cheaply and (b) with less packaging waste.  As a bonus, I'm going to cheer that it's totally easy to make your own vinegar for (nearly) free!

Our own family's basic recipe for a yummy salad dressing has this recipe:

1. One part vinegar
2. Two parts oil
3. other stuff with flavors

Not so hard, is it?   For example, my husband is sensitive to garlic, so for years our Go-To salad dressing has been this honey-mustard vinaigrette:

1. One cup cider vinegar
2. One cup peanut oil and one cup olive oil
3. 1/3 cup honey, a tablespoon of mustard, a handful of chives, and a pinch each of salt, pepper, and lemon juice

Lately, we've gotten adventurous and branched into this Thai dressing:

1. one cup white vinegar
2. two cups olive oil (with a tad of sesame oil if we have it around),
3. soy sauce (a bunch), garlic, honey, ginger

Or this carrot/ginger dressing:

1. one cup white/rice/cider vinegar, depending on what we have
2. two cups olive oil,
3. a cup or more of roasted mashed carrots, minced ginger, salt

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Nowadays,  I manage to get almost all of the above ingredients plastic-free.  The oil was one of the ones that took the most searching, but I finally found a local market (less than two blocks from our new home!!!!) where I can fill my own glass jar with olive oil, and it's very reasonably priced, as well.  That was an awesome find!

The big holdout for me still is plain vinegar -- I just haven't found a source (yet) that doesn't come in plastic; it's a small consolation that at least I'm purchasing what I do get in (a) large, gallon-size jugs that are (b) re/down-cylcable.

However, it turns out that making my own cider vinegar is VERY easy, and cheap.  If you want to play along at home, you need large glass jars (gallon-sized work great, but quart sized jars work, too) and a bunch of apple parings.   

I make my cider vinegar in October, as I'm canning apples.  Basically, I toss the cores and unwanted apple peels into the jars (no rotten apples, though), cover the apples with water and possibly sugar (up to one tablespoon of sugar per cup of water), and wait.  

It's a tiny bit more complicated than that -- the jars need to stay in a "warm, dark place" (in my case, the basement) and be covered with something breathable (a cloth attached with a rubber band).  After two weeks,  I strain out the apple stuff and put the cloth back on.  In another two-to-four weeks or so, it's cider vinegar, so I add a real (airtight) lid.  And, done!   Not bad for something that I make with scraps and water.  

If you want a slightly more detailed version, see many different googly sites, like this one:  https://www.farmersalmanac.com/make-your-own-apple-cider-vinegar-22645