16 May 08

Just finished a busy time in the kitchen. Made some icebox cookie dough (with lemon!), some udon noodles from a new recipe, and wine. Sort of ghetto wine, actually.

The recipes are from Instructables, a cool website with lots of offbeat how-tos, from How to Make an Easy Inverted Planter to Making realistic Steampunk Airship Goggles. I’ve spent a serious amount of time browsing it in the past couple of days.

The wine recipe is suspiciously simple. As I fiddled in the kitchen tonight, I refined it thusly:

Wine

1. Thoroughly clean a wine bottle. I washed it out with soap, then filled it with piping hot water and let it stand for a few minutes, then wrapped the top with aluminum foil while continuing with preparations.
2. Put a funnel on the bottle, and pour in 1 and 1/8 teaspoons yeast, and 1/2 a teaspoon of Early Grey tea (for tannins, ya know).
3. Put the bottle and funnel on a scale, and pour 260 grams of grape juice (or 1 cup) into the bottle. Swirl gently but firmly to mix everything.
4. Add 485 grams of water, or until it reaches the neck (not into the neck).
5. Lid with a balloon, and put it in a dark, cool place for 3-7 days, until it stops bubbling.
6. Take another (thoroughly cleaned) bottle and top it with a funnel, and lay a coffee filter onto the funnel. Pour the wine through the filter into the second bottle, and cork it. Enjoy at your leisure.

That’s it. I’m going to bed. My fingers feel like thick Viennese sausages, unable to type a single coherent sentence.