A trip to Penzeys on Sunday resulted in an abundance of mustard seeds, so it seemed appropriate to make mustard. This was based on a recipe by Emeril, even though I’ve made it before and wasn’t wowed. I thought maybe the sherry would make a difference, but frankly I don’t really taste the sherry over the mustard and I probably wasted what was actually pretty nice sherry. So I think I’ll continue to play around with this recipe – it’s good and it’s mustardy but it’s not amazing – but in the interest of recording what I did this time for myself (and as an excuse to post more kitten pictures), I’ll post it (and also accept suggestions from any veteran mustard makers).

Sherry Mustard

3 Tbsp yellow mustard seeds
3 Tbsp brown mustard seeds
1 shallot, minced
2 Tbsp cream sherry
4 Tbsp (1/4 cup) sherry vinegar
6 Tbsp water
1/2 tsp salt
pinch tarragon
1 tsp brown sugar

Place all ingredients in a jar, close, and shake.

Refrigerate for at least 24 hours.

Put in a blender, coffee/spice grinder, or food processor.

Blend until as smooth or grainy as you like. Add additional water (or other liquid) by the tablespoon if necessary.

I taste-tested it on some Sheese and crackers.

And stored (some of) it in the adorable mustard pot my mom gave me.

I have a couple of mustard pots (courtesy of Mom), but this is the only one that has a built-in spoon in the top. Cute!

Speaking of cute (I think you know where this is going)…

I had the flash on my camera, pointed to bounce off the kitchen ceiling to take pictures of the mustard, when I noticed the kittens being cute in the living room, which was positively flooded with early evening sunlight. So I turned the flash off and tried to get pictures of them, but instead of looking at me, or toys, or chessmen, or each other, they kept staring intently at the ceiling and walls, emitting tiny Tribble noises of excitement. Turns out the sun was reflecting off the flash and sending dots of light dancing all over the walls of the room, driving them mad. Torticia is so intent…

She and Gomez apparently went crazy with the chess set today; chessmen are all over the place.

It’s not too obvious in this smaller version, but in the full-size version of this photo, you can actually see the chessmen reflected in Gomez’s eye.

When going through this set of photos, I almost deleted this one with all the other blurry ones, but then I decided it amuses me, and anyway this is actually what Torticia looks like most of the time as she’s constantly in motion (unless she’s asleep, and when she’s asleep, she’s dead asleep).

These kittens are way too fascinated with this glass coffee table (which actually belongs to Fortinbras). One of them is always trying to play chess from the wrong side of the glass. And here Gomez is trying to get Torticia’s tail…from the wrong side of the glass.