Now Serving Wild Grape Jelly! Part 1

Okay one thing I said you’d never see me do here is can. I may have to eat those words very soon. But not today because I didn’t official “can”. I almost canned. I thought about canning, but instead I used Sandy at Reluctant Entertainer’s method. The method that her mother used and her grandmother used. I figured no one died from this method so I’ll give it a shot.              (Will someone please pick Lisa from Stop and Smell the Chocolates up off the floor please?) LOL!

First my husband and the boys set out to pick the wild grapes on our property. When we first moved in all the vines were brown so we didn’t really know what kind of goldmine we had here. Yay, for sweet surprises!

I needed at least 5lbs.

In the pot and ready to simmer!

And yes you put the stems and everything in there. Well not everything. You want to pick off the green ones and leaves and such and then give it a good rinsing.

My little guy was hard at work picking off the little green ones.

This is after they’ve simmered and I mashed them with my good ol’ fashion potato masher.

Now to strain that beautiful deep purple concoction! I put it in cheese cloth and then squeezed the daylights out of it. Isn’t is just a pretty color though? You could totally use this for dye.

Look at that beautiful juice. We got more than this but this is the exact measured amount that I needed to make the jelly.

I had to cut this post into two parts because it would have been a REALLY long post, so come back tomorrow to see the process of me making jelly and the recipe.

Have a FABULOUS day!