My grandfather has a grape vine in his back yard and every year I collect a bunch of grapes from his vine and make grape jelly for all of my friends. I couldn't stop now even if I wanted to because come mid November I start getting asked, have you made any jelly yet? Well, I harvested the grapes this year, which were a little on the light side because of the drought, and I have been procrastinating on making the jelly because it takes a lot of time and is difficult to do when you have 3 little girls who need your attention and you can't step away from the stove. So I went ahead and made the juice from the grapes so they wouldn't go bad, then stuck the juice in the fridge and sent a message to one of my friends who now lives in Dallas, asking if they would be in town on Thanksgiving because I was making grape jelly.
See, see what I did there? I forced myself into a deadline because now I had promised to have the jelly ready when they got here. Little did I know that 24 hours later, my whole family would be sick. So, while I was still recovering and my husband was looking at me like I was psychotic, I stood in the kitchen over the stove making up a batch of grape jelly. It tastes just as good as it always has. My friends refer to it as grape crack. I have had at least 3 different people tell me they don't like grape jelly (from the store) but they love mine. It has to be the grapes. I discovered that this year.
Remember how I said I made up the juice in advance and the crop was a little light this year? Well, turns out when I went to make the jelly, I was one cup short of the juice I needed so I sent hubby to the store to buy some grapes so I could make up some more juice. While making the juice from the store bought grapes, I realized that, frankly, it smelled like crap. It is no wonder store bought grape jelly doesn't taste very good, the store bought grapes don't taste very good! Thankfully, since it was only one cup of juice, it didn't affect the end result. I followed the instructions from a box of Sure Jell with one tiny exception. When I crush my grapes, I add a cup and a half of water, regardless of how many grapes there are so, in other years with a heavy crop, I end up with a juice that is much more concentrated.
So, here in pictures, are the steps for awesome grape jelly but I warn you, it will only be awesome if you get home grown grapes!
Remember how I said I follow the instructions on the box? Well, I lied. It says to pour boiling water over the lids with the seal and to keep the rest of the jars and lids in warm water until ready to fill. Yeah, bloody waste of time if you ask me. I simply fill my sink with the hottest water coming straight out of the tap and leave all the pieces of the jar in there until time to fill and my jars have always sealed just fine.
Yum! Tasty homemade jelly! It also makes a great gift! I need to grow some strawberries next summer so I can make some strawberry jam. That is my favorite!
No comments:
Post a Comment