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!

Dehydrating Apples

Yesterday my husband and I dehydrated some apples. Yum! Why, you might ask, do you need to dehydrate food if you live in the desert? Why can't you just put the apples out in the sun and let them dry out by themselves? If you have three to four continuous sunny days in a row over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, it will work. Out here in November, it's freezing at night and our days are getting into the 50s, so we have to figure out something else to do. An oven can work to dry fruit, but isn't very efficient, so we dug out the old electric dehydrator.

The first step to dehydrating is preparing the fruit. I cored these tasty Winesap apples. As you might notice, some of my holes aren't exact circles--my aim was a little bad!

Then you slice the apples and put them on a dehydrator sheet. Note the size of the apples and how they cover the entire sheet.

Then it's time to put the apples in the dehydrator. We set it for 145 degrees for about 16 hours.

Dehydrating is a long process.

Here's what the apples look like when they come out of the dehydrator. They are definitely a lot smaller once they've lost their water.

But the taste is more concentrated, and they are better than candy. That's saying a lot coming from a dedicated sugaraholic. We were all greedily snacking on them as we put them in bags. Yum!

Apple Crisp with a Twist

A few days ago we went over to a neighbor's orchard and picked some delicious Winesap apples. I was so happy to get the apples, because we've had several freezes at night and I had thought the apples were ruined, but in fact they turned out to be just fine. When we got the apples home, my husband dried some apples in the dehydrator and I decided to make an apple crisp.

I like apple crisps because they are easy to make and don't take many ingredients: flour, brown sugar, butter, cinnamon, and oatmeal. Except I was out of oatmeal. I searched all my cupboards but couldn't fine any. There was no way I was going to drive an hour each way to town to get some oatmeal, so I decided I had to be creative or do what I dread: make a pie crust. The creativity won out, and I realized I had some granola cereal. It was made with oats, plus had some extra ingredients that had to be good.

Then I got out my newest gadget. When we picked the apples, the people asked if we had an apple peeler. I told them I had a regular vegetable peeler, and they looked at me like I was crazy. Maybe because I had three boxes of apples and they knew how long it would take to peel them with a vegetable peeler--like until about Christmas. So when I got home I got online and found this cool apple peeler.

It worked like a charm, and it only took a few seconds to peel the apple. Plus Desert Boy was entertained watching the wheels go round and round.

Here are the results of the peeling. I actually peeled 11 apples, but nine made a much more symmetric and pleasing picture. 

The next shortcut step was to slice them. I have never used one of these before; I know, I must be from the Dark Ages or something. Anyway, I found out how much fun it is to slice an apple in one fell swoop and have it fall apart in eight pieces. I felt a bit artistic as I did it, like I was looking at a flower, with the slices falling open like petals.

Then I added cinnamon and sugar. The cinnamon came out a little faster than I expected, but fortunately I like it a lot.

Then it came time to make the topping. When I'm feeling really with it, I make the topping first, but today wasn't one of those days. Please notice that this is an action shot--the mixer is on--I thought it would make the photo more dramatic.

I put the topping on the apples, put it in the oven at 375 degrees, and promptly forgot to set a timer or look at a clock. Apple crisp is one of those dishes that fills the house with a wonderful odor, so it really wasn't far from my mind. Except when I went out to rake leaves.

It all ended well, though, I rescued the apple crisp in time, and was ready to dish it out when I realized I hadn't taken a photo of the finished product (hence the spoon). It turned out delicious. The granola cereal gives it a little extra flavor. I think that I might put a few raisins on top the next time I use plain oatmeal, they add a nice texture and color to the dessert. Speaking of desserts, I have a separate blog called Dessert Survivor.  I don't post on it often, but Dessert Survivor picks up the slack. If you want to see some desserts, head there. 

In real life, the dessert isn't really done when you take it out of the oven. There's always the cleanup!

  If you want to check out this cool apple peeler, click on the photo.

Rhubarb Crumb Bars

Okay, I know you're supposed to start a recipe post with the finished product. But we scarfed it down so fast that I didn't get a chance. In fact, my husband finished the rhubarb crumb bars off at breakfast this morning. He was lucky I was out doing a bird survey or I might have beat him to them. So here's a photo of the rhubarb I'm going to use for the second batch. 

Our wonderful neighbor had given us a bunch of rhubarb and I looked on the internet until I found a recipe that sounded healthy. It's got oatmeal in it, so it's got to be healthy. We'll ignore the butter, sugar, and brown sugar part of it. Besides, rhubarb, always needs a little help, doesn't it? 

Here's the recipe, a tasty dessert (or breakfast) good in or out of the desert:

Ingredients:
Top and bottom "crust"
1/2 cup butter, (melted)
1 cup brown sugar (packed)
1 cup flour
3/4 cup oatmeal (uncooked)

Filling
1 egg (beaten)
1 Tbls butter (softened)
3/4 cup sugar
1-1/2 Tbls flour
1/4 teas nutmeg
2 cups rhubarb (cut into 1/2" pieces)

Directions:
Mix butter, brown sugar, flour, and oatmeal, until crumbly. Press 1/2 into greased 9" square pan. In another bowl, beat egg, mix in butter, sugar, flour, nutmeg and rhubarb. Beat until smooth. Top with other half crumb mixture, press mixture down lightly. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes.

If you happen to have lots of rhubarb and need more ideas of what to do with it, here's a website to the rescue: http://www.rhubarbinfo.com/