Today I ventured on a new culinary adventure - making muscadine jelly. Until recently, I had never even heard of a muscadine, forget about cooking with it. A colleague of mine, Chip, brought them to work. I guess they grow on his property and he had enough to go around. As soon as I saw the big container of beautiful muscadine grapes, I knew I had to make a phone call. I immediately called my mum and asked her if she was ready for a new food project. She (as always) was. Now let me tell you something about my mum....she is the best cook, baker, cake decorator, cooking question answerer I know. My husband thought I was a good cook until my parents moved from Taunton, MA to Baton Rouge, LA to be closer to my children and me. After he had her cooking, mine will forever be considered mediocre at best....okay back to the muscadine grapes....I brought them home and we made jelly this evening.
We started by washing those beautiful grapes and mashing them...we joked about using our feet to do this but instead stuck with the potato masher. We all took turns - my three year old, my mum, and me. Next we put the grapes on to boil so the juices could be released....then the real fun began. Did I mention that my mum is a MacGyver in the kitchen? We had purchased cheesecloth to strain the grapes and thought that we could put the cheesecloth in a colander on top of a bowl to drain. It didn't work. There was no place for the juice to go. So my mum had to "rig" something that ended up working light a charm. All you need is some cheesecloth, a rubber band and a cabinet. We let them drain until we had about 5 cups of juice. From there, we added the Pectin and brought the juice back to a
boil. We added the pectin and let it boil for a bit before we added the sugar. We let all that boil....the thing about jelly...when it is hot you have no idea how to tell the thickness of it and we all know there is nothing worse than runny jelly...My mum, once again, saved the day. She told me to stick a spoon in ice water until it got cold. Then you quickly dry it off and dip it into the hot jelly. Let it cool to room temperature and test the texture. If it is not the texture you are looking for (ours wasn't the first time), add some more pectin and boil again for one minute. All in all, it took about two hours and we ended up with 7 jars of jelly! We chose not to can the jelly. Instead, we put it in Bell's new jars that are plastic....we figured it wouldn't last long enough once we started eating it!
I am so excited about the finished project! I just wish it made more.....as always, this culinary adventure was a success and a great excuse to spend time with my mum!
I can't wait to find out what foodie experiences await me for tomorrow!
boil. We added the pectin and let it boil for a bit before we added the sugar. We let all that boil....the thing about jelly...when it is hot you have no idea how to tell the thickness of it and we all know there is nothing worse than runny jelly...My mum, once again, saved the day. She told me to stick a spoon in ice water until it got cold. Then you quickly dry it off and dip it into the hot jelly. Let it cool to room temperature and test the texture. If it is not the texture you are looking for (ours wasn't the first time), add some more pectin and boil again for one minute. All in all, it took about two hours and we ended up with 7 jars of jelly! We chose not to can the jelly. Instead, we put it in Bell's new jars that are plastic....we figured it wouldn't last long enough once we started eating it!
This makes me hungry! The Needy Foodie needs to make a culinary trek to Tennessee.
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