Modena-Home of Balsamic Vingear!

Hello. I went to Modena, Italy this year and it was great! Modena is where they have been making balsamic vinegar for generations.

Now, in Modena there is a special tradition. When people get married, they take with them 5 barrels of vinegar from the family attic. The barrels age with them through the years. Then when they have kids and the kids get married, the kids take 5 barrels with them, using some of the aged family vinegar to start new barrels. They add young vinegar to it and then they let it age with them. And so on and so forth.

We visited a balsamic vinegar farm. The lady showed us all these barrels which contained aged vinegar. Normally balsamic vinegar is aged for 12 or 25 years. The difference is that the longer it ages, the sweeter it tastes. Also the type of wood of the barrels like cherry wood or oak would make the vinegar taste different because the smell of the wood seeps into the vinegar. We can easily tell which vinegar has been aged a long time and which has been only aged a few months. The one that is aged for a few months taste liquidy. The one aged for years tastes more syrupy and tastes better! Much better!

Rumbling for Apple Crumble

Hello! Today we are making apple crumble. Here are the ingredients:

300 grams of flour

175 grams of brown sugar

200 grams of butter

5 apples

pinch of cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

2. Peel the apples and cut out the middle core and seeds. Cut all the apples into medium cubes.

3. Place all cubes into a cake mold.

4. In a separate bowl, pour the flour and brown sugar.

5. Cut the butter into really small cubes.

6. Put your hands into the bowl. Rub the ingredients back and forth with your hands or spoon. Rub the mixture together, but don't mix. It is a crumble and has to remain "crumbly".

7. Make sure all the klumpy parts are like sand.

8. Pour this batter into the cake mold over the apples.

9. Then place in the oven and wait for 20 minutes.

10. Take out and enjoy! You and your family can yell "my tummy's rumbling for a crumble!"

Chocolate Mousse Vamoose!

Hi. Have you ever made chocolate mousse? If you follow this recipe, you will have!

Here are the ingredients:

6 eggs

1 orange

1 tablet of dark chocolate

1. Separate the egg yolks from the whites.

2. Mix egg whites until fluffy and stiff with electric mixer. Put aside.

3. Now we mix the yolks with a fork. Put aside.

4. In a bowl, grate the orange to have orange zest.

5. In a casserole, cook chocolate and orange zest at low heat until chocolate melts.

7. Cut the orange in half. Squeeze one half into juice. Add juice to chocolate.

8. Pour egg yolks into chocolate. Stir until we don't see yellow.

9. Then slowly add a little bit of egg whites.

10. Fold gently and keep adding egg whites until done.

11. Then either you can put in individual little molds or one big cake mold. (I recommend little molds. They're cute.)

12. Then put your molds or mold in the fridge for 2 hours.

13. Then take out and eat. Enjoy! You and your family can now yell "we have to finish the mouse before it goes vamoose!"