Cluster by cluster, I hand crushed each grape.
Every year I make grape jelly, and every year I am amazed at how messy the process is. But, like having a baby, the pain of labour seems to evaporate within minutes of seeing your newborn and well, I won't say making jam rivals childbirth in the pain department but it was equally messy.
The crushing of the grapes took a a little over an hour. About 40 quarts or so was a lot of squeezing. A potato masher might have helped but I'd given that to Shane for his potatoes a while back so it was hands or feet and I didn't think people would be that interested in sampling my wares if they knew I'd been dancing on the grapes. That's a whole other kind of jam.....
I'm not a messy kind of person, but I'll bet the farm that Ivana Trump couldn't make jelly without creating disaster in the kitchen. I think the process helped me to gain insight to how a killer might feel, a conscientious one that cleans up after himself to hide the evidence. He accidentally or purposely bludgeons someone with a blunt object and then looks around at the spray on the walls and thinks oh shit. Imagine their angst having to clean it up, the frustration of it all. Yup, good fodder for my novel...there's always a silver lining! My kitchen sink and stove area looked like a CSI crime scene complete with various splatters, drips and fine mist but luckily I didn't need bleach to clean up the mess. It was everywhere, little splatters found their way around nooks and crannies. Down over the cupboard fronts, all over the floor and a few on the ceiling. Of course they stained the white paint so I had to get serious and apply a bit of abrasive cleaner to rub it out. Luckily most of the spilled juice responded well to hot soapy water as the sticky goo came off readily. My thoughts as I dragged by tired body up the stairs? Being a purist sucks....I felt my ancestors pain as I flopped into bed with my clothes on.
It was over everywhere, including me. Pouring the now cooked grapes with the lumpy skins acted like a bottle of spilled milk. I looked around and sighed more than once and maybe there was a four letter word or two but I knew I had to stay up until I was finished as I didn't want to have to clean up and start this again the next day. I was angry with myself though. I started too late at night and once I realized it was more than a chore to squeeze the juice from the cooked mash the hands on the clock were pointing to ridiculous hours. Someone needs to invent a gadget to extract the juice easily, a press or something, preferably electric and quick. I couldn't face the same mess in the morning so I soldiered on finally going against the instructions and squeezed the gauze balloons to speed the extraction along. I was even using my flour sifter as it worked fairly well but it sure made a mess, dipping it into the pot and turning the crank. The liquid was hot so my hands took a beating. And the stains! My god, it's been five days now, so that's five showers, several dips in the dishpan, and all the various hand washing one does in a day and they still look like crap. Staining around the fingernails is the worst, but my hands have an overall greyish appearance, like a cadaver after a few days in the sun.
The crushing of the grapes took a a little over an hour. About 40 quarts or so was a lot of squeezing. A potato masher might have helped but I'd given that to Shane for his potatoes a while back so it was hands or feet and I didn't think people would be that interested in sampling my wares if they knew I'd been dancing on the grapes. That's a whole other kind of jam.....
I'm not a messy kind of person, but I'll bet the farm that Ivana Trump couldn't make jelly without creating disaster in the kitchen. I think the process helped me to gain insight to how a killer might feel, a conscientious one that cleans up after himself to hide the evidence. He accidentally or purposely bludgeons someone with a blunt object and then looks around at the spray on the walls and thinks oh shit. Imagine their angst having to clean it up, the frustration of it all. Yup, good fodder for my novel...there's always a silver lining! My kitchen sink and stove area looked like a CSI crime scene complete with various splatters, drips and fine mist but luckily I didn't need bleach to clean up the mess. It was everywhere, little splatters found their way around nooks and crannies. Down over the cupboard fronts, all over the floor and a few on the ceiling. Of course they stained the white paint so I had to get serious and apply a bit of abrasive cleaner to rub it out. Luckily most of the spilled juice responded well to hot soapy water as the sticky goo came off readily. My thoughts as I dragged by tired body up the stairs? Being a purist sucks....I felt my ancestors pain as I flopped into bed with my clothes on.
It was over everywhere, including me. Pouring the now cooked grapes with the lumpy skins acted like a bottle of spilled milk. I looked around and sighed more than once and maybe there was a four letter word or two but I knew I had to stay up until I was finished as I didn't want to have to clean up and start this again the next day. I was angry with myself though. I started too late at night and once I realized it was more than a chore to squeeze the juice from the cooked mash the hands on the clock were pointing to ridiculous hours. Someone needs to invent a gadget to extract the juice easily, a press or something, preferably electric and quick. I couldn't face the same mess in the morning so I soldiered on finally going against the instructions and squeezed the gauze balloons to speed the extraction along. I was even using my flour sifter as it worked fairly well but it sure made a mess, dipping it into the pot and turning the crank. The liquid was hot so my hands took a beating. And the stains! My god, it's been five days now, so that's five showers, several dips in the dishpan, and all the various hand washing one does in a day and they still look like crap. Staining around the fingernails is the worst, but my hands have an overall greyish appearance, like a cadaver after a few days in the sun.
Tried using the flour sifter with marginal results and a whole lot of mess.
Dumping the seeds and pulp on the pulled stalks.
Pouring the mash into the strainer I placed the pot in the sink to avoid this mess on my kitchen island. The only smart thing I did all evening!
More evidence of my blundering!
So by the time I cleaned up and got to bed it was 3:30. I was exhausted and was asleep before my head hit the pillow....I think I found a cure for insomnia...make jam! I got up the next morning knowing that step two, the cooking of the juice with pectin and sugar and bottling was ahead of me and it was met with a groan. I had a bit over 10 quarts of liquid which meant somewhere over 40, 250 ml bottles, which in the end worked into 52. I stocked up on pectin, 8 packages and bought 5 bags of sugar. I now know that one bag of sugar yields about nine cups. The recipe called for 5 cups of juice to 7 cups of sugar. I would have dearly loved to decrease the sweetness but then the jelly won't set, the pectin and sugar act together as unit, too little sugar and you pour the jelly on the toast.
I needed recruits, I couldn't face the daunting chore alone. After working all day, I was so exhausted my legs felt like rubber with shoots of pain riding up and down the back of my knees and it was imperative to be in bed at a decent hour so I would be functional the next day. So when Charlene came into the shop to drop off some of the floor frames her hubby makes, I begged, I mean asked if she was busy that evening and she said she'd come over after dinner. I called Mary and she was free and she dropped by with a few neat gadgets, a magnet to retrieve the metal caps from the boiling water. In previous years, I remember scalding a few fingers so that puppy is a must have. She also had this lovely little enameled cup that sits in the mouth of the jar when you pour in the hot jelly, another necessary piece of equipment instead of the plastic funnel I've used in the past that took up too much space in the jars so you had to top them up after removing it. It's true, many hands make light work!
In three and a half hours we had 52 jars of the best darn grape jelly ever made! The flavour is incredible! It isn't just perfect for toast, you can use this jelly with crackers and cheeses for an hors d'œuvre. The colour is extreme, so rich and dark. I wish you could scratch and sniff to smell the aroma of this fragrant juice.
I was tired and was on my way up to bed when my son called that there was smoke in his apartment and the smell of something burning. Now wide awake and deeply worried, there would be no sleep for me as I sped down the road to check out the problem. The fire department was called but this is a blog for another day!
I needed recruits, I couldn't face the daunting chore alone. After working all day, I was so exhausted my legs felt like rubber with shoots of pain riding up and down the back of my knees and it was imperative to be in bed at a decent hour so I would be functional the next day. So when Charlene came into the shop to drop off some of the floor frames her hubby makes, I begged, I mean asked if she was busy that evening and she said she'd come over after dinner. I called Mary and she was free and she dropped by with a few neat gadgets, a magnet to retrieve the metal caps from the boiling water. In previous years, I remember scalding a few fingers so that puppy is a must have. She also had this lovely little enameled cup that sits in the mouth of the jar when you pour in the hot jelly, another necessary piece of equipment instead of the plastic funnel I've used in the past that took up too much space in the jars so you had to top them up after removing it. It's true, many hands make light work!
In three and a half hours we had 52 jars of the best darn grape jelly ever made! The flavour is incredible! It isn't just perfect for toast, you can use this jelly with crackers and cheeses for an hors d'œuvre. The colour is extreme, so rich and dark. I wish you could scratch and sniff to smell the aroma of this fragrant juice.
I was tired and was on my way up to bed when my son called that there was smoke in his apartment and the smell of something burning. Now wide awake and deeply worried, there would be no sleep for me as I sped down the road to check out the problem. The fire department was called but this is a blog for another day!
This is the juice extracted from the cooked mash. I could have had more but my patience ran out and I did a half arsed job of squeezing the bags of gauze.
Sweet Mary drinking another form of grapes!
Two pots of juice with pectin and sugar waiting for the boil. Note the gleaming stove top!
Mary and Charlene filling the bottles with processed pot number one. The little enameled cup was perfect for pouring.
The enameled cup to insert in the bottle top for pouring in the liquid jelly.
Our yield, done in three and a half hours. It would have taken me into the week hours of the morning to do all this work. Thanks guys! Henri to the left on the floor wondering what the heck we were doing!
RSS Feed
