Grapes, Grapes, and Grapes

The one thing about growing your own food that never changes is the unpredictability of each growing season. This year we had excellent early spring gardens--lots of peas, carrots, onions, lettuce, spinach, beets, etc. Then summer arrived, the rain left and the heat settled in for the last half of June and the entire month of July. Summer gardens suffered: a few cucumbers (when last year I was over-run with them), a few squash (ditto), no green beans (bushels of them last year) and struggling tomatoes and peppers. Now summer is weakening; the tomatoes are recovering and beginning to put out some good results and the late-planted beans and squash look promising.

And the grapes: last year we had a plentitude of them and this year? Repeat of last year. I canned juice and made lots of jelly last year. This year I still have a lot of jelly left (grape just isn't a favorite here) and I don't like wine made from Concord grapes, our most prolific variety, so I made juice. Four and a half gallons of concentrate, to be exact. It. is. amazing.

Making grape juice is a simple process, but takes time.

Step one: pick the grapes. Larry took care of this step. The rest was up to me.

So, step two: strip the grapes from the stems and wash them.

Step three: barely cover them with water and bring to a boil; boil for 30 minutes.

Step four: strain through a fine cloth (I have an old curtain that is perfect for the job).

This is where I usually don't do it right, step 5: refrigerate overnight. I usually just plow ahead and can the juice or make the jelly. This time I decided to follow instructions (novel idea, right?). We put two big canners of juice in the freezer overnight because there was no room in the fridge. We had some running to do this morning, so when we took the big pots from the freezer, the juice was just beginning to freeze.

Step 6: strain the juice again. Something happens when it is refrigerated; I'm not sure what, but more sediment strained from the juice, leaving it nice and clear.

Step 7: add sugar and heat to boiling. For my 5 gallons of juice, I added 4 pounds of sugar.

Step 8: ladle into jars, put the lids on and tighten.

Step 9: put in the boiling water bath canner for 15-20 minutes.

Step 10: Done!

Not complicated, but time-consuming and there will be purple juice everywhere. I was zealous about cleaning up quickly as I worked to discourage the fruit flies. It seemed to work. At the end, I had 18 quarts of concentrate from my bushel of grapes. Enough to last us quite well this winter.

 There are more grapes to be harvested. We gave a half bushel to Warren, but there are still plenty for eating and we didn't touch the white grapes yet.

I wonder what next year's garden winners and losers will be. Whatever the weather and seasons bring, the cellar has a head start with at least a one year, and in most cases, two-year supply of the foods we use most. That's a good feeling.


Copyright 2012 Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Throw-Away Soup and Grape Juice

That's soup made from leftovers that might otherwise be thrown away. Today's soup was made from about a cup leftover boiled squash in butter, 4 leftover tomato slices from breakfast, and half of a grilled chicken breast left from dinner. A trip to the garden supplied a handful of royal burgundy beans (purple when raw, green when cooked), a couple stalks of celery, one onion and one big leaf of cabbage from a plant that had been beheaded already. From the cellar I grabbed a handful of potatoes.

All the veggies were cleaned, chopped and put into the pot together. I added a bouquet garni that contained a piece of chive, some winter savory, some parsley and some thyme. I added about 3 cups of water and a chicken bouillion cube and set the soup to cooking. About 20 minutes later it was done and filling the kitchen with lovely smells. I added some salt and pepper and lunch was ready.

It was delicious. A glass of the white grape juice I made yesterday and a thick slice of homemade bread spread with butter and pear conserve finished off the meal.

And to think, most of the ingredients would have ended up in the compost bucket.

I found some good things during my garden visit:

Celery, lilac peppers, a small tomato, some broccoli flowerets, a few cucumbers and the Royal Burgundy beans make a nice still life. The gardens are winding down but there is still plenty to be harvested and still some canning to do.

Today I worked on grapes again. I put up white grape juice yesterday (that's actually a lot darker than the store kind)

and today Larry brought in all of the red grapes and the remainder of the Concords.

I should be a winemaker with all this bounty!

I ended up with 20 quarts of delicious juice and 20 pints of grape jelly (some from the red and purple grapes, and some from the white grapes). We've eaten grapes daily for the past two weeks, too. The grapes don't do so well every year so I am enjoying it.

Grape Jelly: A Photo Essay

From the start: washed and cleaned grapes.

Weighing the grapes

A little helper

bubble, bubble, toil and...

strain the juice! measure,

cook,

and eat!

Finished.

Grapes

The old equipment shed is leaning pretty badly these days, and I think the grapevine is actually responsible for the shed still standing. This vine was growing by the house before we built the log room and deck. We had to move it and it struggled for the first two or three years in its new location.
But not any more. Now it's like the eggplant that ate Chicago, sprawling over the ground and up the building.
It is also full of grapes. Look at them hanging near the building's roof. If we can keep the black rot at bay we will have plenty of grapes for jelly, juice, and maybe even wine--who knows?

These are just concord grapes, not a fancy variety but they are certainly healthy at the moment. For the past few years we've not had many grapes because of the black rot, but perhaps this year we'll get lucky. We also have some Niagara and some Catawba grapes, but they don't yield like the old standard.

Does anyone have a good grape recipe to share? We just might need it this year. Or a recipe using grape leaves? Seems like I made something with them a few years back but now I can't remember what it was.