Cooking Experiment

So I thought for today's post I would lighten things up a bit and talk about a little cooking experiment I'm doing tonight. The first thing you should know is, I'm a big cooking fanatic. I cook homemade dinners every night and the food network is one of my secret addictions, so this will definitely not be the last time I post something about cooking, but moving on. Tonight I'm going to create an orange infused balsamic vinegar.

Random I know, but there is a story behind it. Over thanksgiving while visiting my girlfriend's parents on Long Island we visited a little store called the Crushed Olive, an artisan market selling infused olive oil and balsamic vinegar. While sampling the variety of infused vinegars (chipotle, pomegranate, espresso just to name a few) I thought to myself, "I could do this, it can't be that hard." And so I set out to make my own infused balsamic vinegar.

After reading a few internet articles I think I'm ready to go at it alone. And below are my steps in my attempt to make orange infused balsamic vinegar.

Ingredients: One bottle of good quality balsamic vinegar, one glass bottle with a cork or rubber stopper to store the infused vinegar, one large pot, a funnel, and the zest from two large oranges.
1. In the large pot, place enough water to cover the glass bottle. Bring the water to a boil. Once the water is boiling, place the glass container in the boiling water for 10 minutes. This will kill any bacteria that could sour the vinegar.
2. While the water is boiling, wash the orange, the stopper and any other tools you may be using like the zester with warm soapy water. Rinse and dry with a clean paper towel, again to remove any bacteria.
3. Take all of the zest off of the two oranges. Use only the bright orange skin. The white fleshy skin below the orange is very bitter and will ruin the flavor.
4. Once the glass container has cooled and dried place the orange zest in the container. Pour the vinegar into the glass container until its about 1/4th inch from the top. Once full, place the stopper in the bottle.
5. Place the bottle in a cool dark place (like a basement) for about two weeks. After two weeks strain the vinegar through cheese cloths into another sanitized glass bottle for your everyday use.
 Those are my steps. We'll see in two weeks if I got things right.