Projects For Giving: Prep for Gourmet Mustard, Rosemary Salt, Ginger Honey Tea

Some of you have asked that I tell you what I'm doing for my holiday giving because you'd like to make along with us some of the things we'll be making.  So here's a brief summary of what we're doing.
I'm doing gourmet gift bags, filled with gourmet mustards, rosemary salt, Korean ginger honey tea, a recipe booklet, and other goodies to be determined... We'll be making around 50 of each item. Leftovers can be used by us, or given to people at other occasions such as a hostess gift when invited for dinner, or for no occasion at all, just to say "I love you!"
So we bought things in bulk.  Spices came from the Monterey Bay Spice Company.
We got our honey in 1 gallon containers from Miller's Honey.
You'll need jars.  I purchased my jars from the Specialty Bottle Co.  I used 8 oz jars for the mustard, 12 oz jars for the ginger honey tea, and I used 8 oz rectangular tins with clear hinged lids for the rosemary salt.

Then there's the packaging.  We've stopped using that cheesy, ink-laden holiday paper you can find in every drug store during this season, and opted for more eco friendly Andreas and I will make labels and tags for our items.  Some will be printed, some handwritten, on cardstock and attached with ribbon.  Other packaging will be recycled paper brown kraft wrapping paper, and recycled paper raffia ribbon that we got at Nashville Wraps.  This company carries a vast assortment of eco-friendly packaging and gift products.  I also get my reuseable green grocery bags here, 10 bags for about $6, and that's what i use instead of traditional gift bags. 

Everything you'll need (except for any fresh produce ingredients) can also be purchased in my Amazon Store.  Look for the section in my store that's titled Edible Giving.  I've set that up so that you can do one-stop shopping for everything you'll need.












Gourmet Mustard

Basically what we're doing is soaking mustard seeds for a day or so, then adding mustard paste made with the mustard powder (mustard flour) You'll get further instructions for this next week.  For now just collect your ingredients.
You will need to get some yellow or brown (depending on your preference) organic bulk mustard seeds and organic bulk mustard powder (mustard flour).
You'll also need to purchase whatever spices you want to add to it, and the day before you prepare this mustard, purchase whatever fresh herbs, horseradish, etc.  you'd like to mix in. 
If you want to make champagne mustard, you'll need to get some champagne vinegar.  Otherwise you'll need either cider vinegar, wine vinegar, or plain white vinegar.  About 1/4 cup for every cup of mustard you intend to have as end result.   If you want your mustard to be a brighter yellow you'll need a bit of turmeric as well.

Korean Ginger Honey Tea
You only need three things for this.  You need jars for however many you want to make, enough honey for however many jars you want to make, and the day before you're ready to make these, you'll need a generous amount of whole fresh ginger root.  Pretty darn simple.













Lemon Rosemary Salt

... if you thought things couldn't get any simpler, you'll need two things for this.   Lots of fresh organic rosemary, and sea salt.  You'll need both coarse and fine grain sea salts. 















That's pretty much it!!!
Check back in a few days when I've got all my ingredients ready and I'll have photos and instructions for how to make these gifts!