now grapes...

this summer has been a lot of fun with many new experiences in preparing and storing food for the year ahead. so far, we have corn, peaches, chicken, spaghetti sauce...and now, grapes! heidi told me about this and i am game for anything...so, she got us 51 lbs of grapes! (that is a lot) our plan was just to make a little jelly and some juice...which turned out to be over 50 jars of jelly and 37 quarts of juice...but then i tasted it and i am GLAD that we made that much...it is the best i have ever had! i had it for breakfast today on an english muffin and for supper on a pb&j. not sure what the weight watchers points are yet, but it is really good regardless! i was planning to use some for gifts this fall...but we will see how much i have left!

here are the jars that we started out with. adin was so anxious to get them ready that he emptied the whole dishwasher and put everything away just so that he could put them in to wash them. heidi was putting our mill together here.
here is one of our several bowls of washed grapes...ready to go into something.
for the jelly, we cooked them down first. we had as many going as we could!
then heidi would put them in the top of the mill and i would crank them through. the juice and pulp comes out the side and the junk goes out the front...really nice set up! i am using this next week for applesauce too!

while we cooked, we had our own local band playing.

very thankfully, my mom stopped by. i was to run over for a chest x-ray for this delightful cough that has yet to go away...and i didn't want to leave heidi with the kids and the work...so, mom was just coming by to take my spot for a few minutes. well, as they began working on the juice...they realized that we were going to run out of sugar and jars...so, mom went up to her house and got more of both and brought them in. and we needed one more sugar run after that too! here mom and adin are putting grapes and sugar into jars...then we filled them with water and put them in the canner to make the juice.

here is the completed juice. what a fun day and great jelly and juice to have ready this winter. these two things were so easy to do...i am not sure what took me this long to know to do this stuff...but i really feel like a productive person having done all of these projects this summer. be looking for applesauce pitcures next...me and my sister and mom are doing that next week. note- i do have to get a bigger freezer though...and some shelves! but, that is ok...it is fun to do this with friends and family and it is great food to eat!