Homemade Concord Grape Jelly - New Recipe

Our friend Sharla let us come pick some of her concord grapes. One year we made grape juice from concord grapes, but I wanted to try to make some concord grape jelly. The problem was I couldn't find a satisfying recipe on the Internet. Many of them advised squeezing the grapes out of their skins. I tried that for about 14 grapes and decided that was not going to work. Then I thought of a brilliant plan. Why not just blend the grapes? We removed them from the stems and put them int he blender.

They look kind of gross right out of the blender (about 5 seconds was all that was needed). They didn't really smell like grape juice. So it was time to put them in a pot on the stove.

After about 10 minutes of simmering, the grape mixture smelled wonderful! Now it was time to get the pulp and seeds out.

Some recipes said putting it in a big cheesecloth overnight would work. But I didn't want to wait that long. So I put a couple big spoonfuls into my trusty sieve and pressed it through. I also tried borrowing a juicer to see if this whole process could be sped up, but the juicer got so little juice out of the grapes that I went back to this process.

Now I had nice, pure grape juice. To make the jelly, I just needed a couple ingredients. I used Ball Low-No Sugar Pectin and some sugar. Specifically, about 4 cups juice, 2 cups sugar (much less than most jelly recipes, which have more sugar than juice), and 3 Tablespoons pectin.

I realize now I didn't quite get photos of all the steps, I guess my hands were too busy! Bring juice and sugar to boil, then add pectin, stir constantly as it comes to a full boil again, then pour into prepared jars (I like to sanitize them in the dishwasher, so then they are hot and ready to go with minimal work).

After the jelly is in the jars, it's time to can it. This summer I purchased a steam canner, and I absolutely love it. It's so much faster and easier to clean up than a water bath canner. Even the kids made apricot jam using it earlier in the summer--I wouldn't have let them get close to the big water bath canner and all that boiling water.

The end result is some delicious jelly! Here are just a few of the jars.

Basic Recipe:

Grape Concord Jelly
Makes about 5 or 6 8-ounce jars.

Ingredients
About 1 colander (12 cups) of concord grapes
2 cups sugar
3 Tbsp. Ball no or low-sugar pectin

Instructions
1. Prepare canning jars, rings, lids. (I sanitize them in dishwasher and start it before I start making the jelly.)
2. Rinse grapes, then remove from stems.
3. Blend grapes for a few seconds in a blender.
4. Put grape mixture into medium pot on stove over medium heat for 10-15 minutes.
5. Strain grape mixture through sieve/chessecloth to get grape juice.
6. Put 4 cups grape juice and 2 cups sugar in pot on stove. Heat over medium heat.
7. When it comes to a roiling boil, add 3 Tablespoons Ball No-sugar/low sugar pectin. Stir for about a minute or so, until it comes to boil again.
8.  Ladle jelly into prepared jars (funnel recommended), leaving 1/4 room headspace. Apply lid and ring.
9. Can according to instructions. (For steam canner, I put water in bottom, put jars on metal riser, put on lid and then turn on. When the indicator on the top gets into the green zone, I set the timer for 20 minutes based on our elevation. When the time is done, I take the lid off and let everything cool.)
10. Enjoy!

Making Apple Cider

 My husband wanted to make apple cider this year, so he started gathering apples from various apple trees in the valley. We had read that cider is best when it's made from at least three varieties of apples.

We had never made cider before, so it was a bit of an experiment. We started by washing the apples and cutting the worms out of them (apparently that's not a necessary step, but some of the apples were very wormy, so it made us feel better!)

Then it was time to put the apples through the meat grinder to make an apple mush.


The next part was to put them into the cider press, and waalaa (you've got to say this word out loud, I have no idea how to spell it!), apple cider comes out the bottom!).

It turned out to be easier than we thought, although maybe that's because we were all working on it together. Having an outdoor workspace was great--it made cleanup so much easier.

The kids love cutting, so they also got a chance.

We froze some apple cider, canned some, and also carbonated some and capped the bottles with a special capper.

I think this is something we'll make an annual tradition.

What are your favorite fall traditions?

A Visit to Rock Corral Recreation Area, Milford, Utah

The kids and I wanted to go to Cedar City, so we left the afternoon before so we could go camp someplace interesting. I wasn't exactly sure where we were going to camp, but as we approached Milford with the beautiful sunlight on the granite rock of the Mineral Mountain Range, I decided that would be the place.

I had been wanting to check out The Rock Corral Recreation Area for many years, but had always just gone by this sign along Utah Highway 21 on the south side of Milford.

It was a Friday night, so we were expecting to see lots of people up there. But it turned out we didn't see anyone else! We found a nice place to camp that even included a bathroom.


The moon was rising early, so I tried to get a photo of an awesome tree in the camping area with some of the stars showing.

The next morning I woke up early and wandered around. Even though I was in flip flops, I couldn't resist scampering to the top of a ridge for this view.

We left our camping area and headed to the day-use area.

We found more amazing rocks--and no one else!

The end of the road has a nice picnic shelter. 

We took a social trail from there and went by some maple trees.


And some oaks! We don't have oaks by us, so I'm always excited to see them.


We wandered for a bit, admiring the rugged scenery.


Then we headed out and actually saw one other person! We also took a short walk out a ridge, and down in the ravine next to a spring saw a deer.


We also stumbled across a Utah Life Elevated Geocache.


There are lots of opportunities for rock climbing and rock hounding in the Mineral Mountains. We didn't come prepared, so we headed on to Cedar City, taking the scenic way across the mountains. Some cows joined us on the road.


We didn't know where we would end up, but eventually we got to a tiny town with some interesting ruins.

Our morning explorations got us to Cedar City about lunch time, where we ate at the Hong Kong Buffet, which has really good sushi. Yum, yum.

Our next stop was to the Mastermind Room Escape. Desert Boy had gone for his birthday with my husband and Desert Girl, and with some hints, they had made it out of the Ski Lodge in 65 minutes. I had made a snafu ordering the tickets, so had the ones that I had gotten on Groupon that were only valid during the open hours (meaning you might be paired with another group). The snafu meant that I had the opportunity to go too, so we signed up for the Detective's Room.


While waiting, we worked on some other puzzles.

Well, I'd like to say we were awesome detectives and got out in 39 minutes, but we didn't. We didn't get out at all. But it was fun (for the first half hour) and then a little frustrating (when we couldn't figure out clues).  Overall it was a good experience, and we learned some things about ourselves (like we need to be a lot more thorough searching).

On the way home, I snapped a photo of this wildfire that had burned right across the highway near Minersville. The retardant drops were really obvious.

It was a fun short trip, and I always enjoy checking out new things!

Fruitcakes

 Desert Girl turned six last month, and to celebrate we had a couple little parties. We had talked about cakes beforehand and Desert Girl wanted to have a fruitcake. We were in the city the day before her party, so she got to pick out the fruits she wanted, which made her very happy. Then she helped decorate the cake.

The weather was atrocious, with a big blizzard, but some of her friends managed to make it over. They had fun drawing pictures with her new art set.

I can't remember exactly what they were doing here, maybe dancing? Then it was time for cake. Most of the kids enjoyed the fruitcake, although at least one wasn't too impressed.

The next night we had a little party for family and tried making some fruit cupcakes along with some banana chocolate chip muffins. With the increased rates of obesity and diabetes in the country, I want the kids to see that they can still have a great time without consuming so much sugar.

Desert Girl looked forward to her treats.

Some of her cousins and other family were able to come over and celebrate, which made her very happy. It's not easy having a winter birthday, but this time it felt a little more summery!

Try-A-New-Recipe-Every-Week Challenge: February

 In February we continued our new recipe-every-week challenge, and we tried five new recipes (one was to make up for January, when we just got three in.

Here are the results:
1. Best Whole Chicken in a Slow Cooker, recipe from 100 Days of Real Food (we used the cookbook version).
VERDICT: **** (4 asterisks out of a possible 5). This was super easy to make and tasted great, but just a little on the dry side.

2. Tarragon Oven Fries, from The Smitten Kitchen cookbook (similar to the Baked Pommes Frittes on her website)
VERDICT: **** These fries tasted great (I added sweet potatoes because I love them). However, you have to boil them and then bake them, and I've gotten nearly the same taste skipping the boiling step, which adds a good 15 minutes. Just looking at the photo makes me want some more!

3. Paula Deen's Spinach and Strawberry Salad I found a good deal on strawberries and wanted to use them in a salad. This recipe looked good, and it sure was!
VERDICT: ***** Delicious! And quick to make. (I substituted some mixed lettuce for some of the spinach called for and didn't have poppy seeds, so I guess I will just have to make it again.)

4. Cube steak and gravy, recipe from Food.com. We have several packages of cube steak in the freezer, and I wasn't quite sure how to make it, so gave this recipe a try. I didn't manage to get a photo (I know, blogging failure!). But click on the link and you'll see. It's not a particularly pretty presentation, a steak covered with brown gravy. But looks aren't everything when it comes to food!
VERDICT: **** My husband wolfed this down. I thought there was a little too much flour taste to the steak, so I would like to tweek the coating mixture next time.

And the bonus recipe to make up for January:
5. Easy key lime pie. This is an original recipe, invented by Desert Boy. We love key lime pie (thanks, Kristin!). We recently got some Chobani Greek yogurt, key lime flavor. I wasn't sure what we would do with it, and someone said to mix it up with cool whip and put it in a graham cracker crust. I mentioned that to Desert Boy, and he asked if we had graham crackers. He then proceeded to put the yogurt right on the graham crackers. Presto, a super easy key lime pie!
VERDICT: ** I much prefer the real key lime pie. But this one made the kids happy, so I was happy too.

We also tried the Southwest Chicken Breasts recipe from last month in the crock pot (thanks, Janille!), and it turned out super. We'll be doing that again.

Have you tried any new recipes lately? I'd love to get some inspiration for March!

Why We Ate Our Rooster

 So last year we decided we would try to have chickens. We got baby chicks twice, but lost them all due to disease, dogs, and skunks. Fortunately, we were able to buy a grand champion rooster at the county fair, and the nice lady offered a couple hens.

The hens took awhile to lay, but finally we were getting two eggs a day. The rooster was doing a nice job protecting them. But then the rooster started chasing me. I looked up on the Internet what to do and started chasing it back. Then it started chasing the kids occasionally, and even my husband. Even when we hit it with the pool noodle, it would still come after us. (I really wish I could have gotten some video footage of that, because although I was fearing many bruises, I was laughing at the comical situation of a flailing pool noodle trying to make this rooster start behaving.)

It got to the point that the kids wouldn't go out in the yard alone, and I even had to alter what I was doing at times. Finally I told my husband that we either needed to fence in the rooster or kill it. We decided to kill it. (I had read on the Internet that in suburbia, people will take problem chickens to the animal shelter. I can't imagine that happening out here!)

We didn't want to waste a good chicken. After all, we hadn't gotten anything out of the previous nine, so it was time to get something out of chicken number ten. We researched how to kill and butcher a chicken, and it didn't take too long. After letting it tenderize in the refrigerator for a couple days, it went into the crockpot.

The kids were a little unsure about eating the rooster (which we fortunately never named), but we thought it was an important lesson for them, as before long they will be raising and selling animals for 4-H.

The rooster tasted great, and we got several meals out of it.

How are the hens doing? They seem fine. One didn't lay an egg one day, but now they're back to regular production. And so far they've managed to stay alive. We can even walk by them and not fear for our shins.