09/21/11

I finally did it.

I made jelly from "scratch."  

The jalapeno jelly wasn't from "scratch" because you could use white wine vinegar. 

With this jelly... I got to pick the fruit, cook it and then process it for jelly.

Here is the rest of the story:

I went over to one of my best friends' house and picked her muscadine grapes.  I love that they are purple.  :)

I brought them home and the next day I cooked them to get that wonderful juice.  The aroma in my kitchen was delightful!

I then got to use this sieve to press the grapes and get more juice from them.

(I remembered using this when I was growing up when Mom made tomato juice... good memories.)  Mom is letting me have this one because she has two.  Oh the joys!  :)

What was left of the grapes was an ugly mess...

But the juice... oh, the juice... it was ready to be stored for a week to let the sediment separate from the juice better. 

This past Saturday I was able to get the juice out of the fridge and strain it twice through cheesecloth to get any remaining sediment out of the juice.  You definitely want it clear!  I was able to make four batches of grape jelly...

...and we had it for breakfast the next morning.

Oh. My. Word.

This is some good stuff! 

(and I am not sure why there is so much space between this and the picture.... it will not be fixed!)

And....
I am such a sweet teacher that I took biscuits to school today and let all of my students enjoy the treat of some muscadine grape jelly with their biscuit. 

Don't you wish YOU could be one of my students now??