I grew up in a home where every meal was made from scratch. My mom never bought prepared, frozen or canned foods. Every salad was freshly chopped and eaten. Every hot meal was cooked just before it was served. Every cake was baked with fresh ingredients. Even bread was made fresh daily by my dad who owned a bakery. We rarely ate leftover. Freshness and quality ingredients were the norm.
Cooking for my own family is a joy and a pleasure. I love shopping at farmers markets and organic stores for fresh produce, I love creating recipes that my mom made and exploring news cuisines and I love baking healthy desserts. But some staples and condiments were always store bought. I just recently started baking bread after my dad passed away, see my story Bread For My Dad and I have progressed to making chapatis, pitas and wraps with the intention to continue with rolls and bagels. I buy condiments like ketchup, mayonnaise, kimchi, pickles and cheese/yogurt because I never learned to make them, my mom also bought them and they seem too complicated and intimidating to make. But after successfully overcoming my fear of baking bread I am up to the challenge of trying new and exciting recipes. One of them is home-made mayo and OMG it is so easy and so much more delicious and healthy than store bought mayo.
Here is the ingredient list of Hellmann’s Real Mayonnaise:
Soybean oil
Water
Whole eggs and egg yolks
Vinegar
Salt
Sugar
Lemon juice
Calcium disodium edta (preservative)
Natural flavors
This mayo has a very long shelf life before it is opened and very long refrigerator life after.
In my version I replaced the soybean oil with healthier oils, used organic egg yolks and did not add any preservatives. Homemade mayo needs to be refrigerated and used within a week and don’t think that a long shelf life is a good thing, food that does not spoil is full of preservatives and chemicals (the questionable “natural flavors”). So whip up your own mayo, it is quick and easy and you don’t need to make a huge batch, just a few fresh ingredients and a good blender like the Vitamix.
Mayo Recipe
Put 2 organic egg yolks in a blender.
Add the juice of 1 small lemon, or 1/2 large lemon.
Add 1 clove of garlic
Add 1 teaspoon of mustard
Add a pinch of salt and pepper blend.
While your blender is running add 1 cup of oil very slowly in a very thin drizzle. It should take about 2-3 minutes to add the cup of oil. I used 1/2 organic olive oil and 1/2 organic sunflower oil.
And that’s it!
Once your mayo is ready scoop it into a glass jar and cover.
Refrigerate and use within one week.
Once you got the basic recipe you can create different flavors by adding spices like cumin or herbs like parsley. Different oils will also create different flavors so experiment with a few healthy oils to come up with a flavor you like.
You never have to buy store bought mayo again! Next, I am thinking about taking on ketchup!
Please leave a comment, I would love to hear from you.
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