I am more than thrilled to boast that I was able to make it to my wild Concord grape vines this year. The bounty unfortunately was not quite as plentiful as last year. I was working with a very small time frame and I knew the picking was going to be hit miss.
According to my bathroom scale I ended up with a nice 5 pound sack of grapes. The majority of the vines I've grown to love were actually quite barren this year. I'm not sure if this is in regards to weather/rain cycles or if I maybe just missed the peak picking time. Either way grapes are grapes, I'm not complaining.
I'll spare you the details as I posted grape jam instructions last year. I always reference Ball's Complete Book of Home Preserving, the book is very easy to follow, it's an essential read for anyone who really wants to take home preserving to the next step. For the wild grape jam all you need are some canning jars, a box of pectin, sugar, water, grapes of your choice and some patience. I ended up with 17 jars in total from 5 pounds of fruit. This is THE most flavorful grape jam I've ever had. The smell of these grapes in the kitchen was so intense it almost seemed artificial. It's so so good, it even goes on the occasional grilled cheese.
I think I'm in love with home canned goods. I've been pretty busy so I haven't had a chance to preserve as much as I would have liked from this season. If anyone out there wants a jar of jam I'll be more than happy trade it for something delicious you've canned yourself.
6 comments:
I love poison grapes! Hey, I have some spiced tomato jam I could trade you for. There is a slight problem, though, in that I used gelatin instead of pectin (don't ask), and it's way, WAY too thick to even spread. So I top cheese with it instead. It tastes great despite the creepy texture. How tempting an offer is this?
Or. Or I have pickles.
I want that jam.
Tammy,
The gelatinized spiced tomato jam is tempting enough to yes to this offer. I'm sure it tastes great, I'll find a use for it! Send me an email (thesaltedcod@gmail.com) with your info and I'll get a jar of my dee-lish grape jam to you asap.
Trev
That looks wonderful.
And in response to Tammy, tomato jam can me made without any pectin or gelatin (tomatoes are full of pectin). I just made some tomato-onion-thyme jam from an extra 1 lb. tomato that I didn't get to can. It's really good. And would be really good with grilled cheese.
How well do they set with out pectin or gelatin? Do you have to reduce it quite a bit to get a thicker consistency?
looks fantastic! right now concord grapes are strung out along the charles, but I never manage to save any -they're too good straight from the vine!
I didn't get any grapes this year,so no grape jam. I'm in Littleton and could trade peach ginger jam or roasted peach vanilla jam,pickled garlic,or anything else on this years list
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