The Vineyard

The first weekend in October, besides being LDS General Conference weekend (one of my favorite weekends of the whole year) signals grape harvest. This year I had more than enough Concord grapes to juice. My mother had a neighbor invite her to come pick her grapes because as a widow she had more than she could do anything with, so I was invited to come pick what I wanted. Mom and I picked probably 15 gallons of beautiful grapes on a toasty-for-October morning. A few days later, on a completely opposite kind of morning (wear-a-coat-garden-gloves-and-knit-cap-to-stay-warm kind of day) I picked all the grapes I had on my one vine. I got six gallons of grapes myself. Needless to say, I had a LOT of grapes!

I had this idea to try making grape jam by processing the whole grape somehow. Silly me. I didn't look up how to do this until after I had picked the grapes. All of the recipes I found talked about slipping the skins off the grapes and chopping/grinding those while cooking down the whole fruit and mashing them through a strainer to remove the seeds. Are you kidding me? Not with 20 gallons of grapes! I gave up on that idea, although reluctantly because I toyed with the idea of running the steamed grape skins through a food mill.  My Common Sense gave me a needed smack upside the head, however, and reminded me I need to spend my time on other things right now. Maybe next year. I got 34 quarts of grape juice bottled, with probably three or four more quarts waiting to be bottled in the fridge. Those quarts came from letting the grape skins sit overnight and drain.

 Here's the juicing process going on in the kitchen. I got seven quarts of grape juice from my vine and the rest came from my mother's neighbor's grapes. I love that purple/black juice in the bottles. And I have a hard time putting them away because I like having the evidence of my hard work showing itself off every time I walk in the kitchen. Sadly, counter space is limited, so they had to go to food storage sooner than later.

My sister-in-law Lauri loaned me her juicer and Camp Chef (oooh! I loved it! I want one!) to run batches of juice on the front porch. Talk about a slick way to do it. She said the right-side burner didn't work quite as well, which is why I had my juicer going in the kitchen instead of outside.








Here are the leftover grape skins oozing more juice after I dumped them out of the juicer hopper. Once I had finished juicing everything, I divided this grape skin stuff between the two juicers and let them continue to drain overnight. Love this really thick liquid it gave.

I don't bother adding sugar to my juice. We love using it in green smoothies instead of water, and it's great mixed with lemonade. Does anyone remember the Purplesaurus Rex Kool-Aid flavor? My sisters and I loved it when we were kids. It's a combination of grape and lemonade flavors, and we found ways to make our own after the Kool-Aid makers quit making that particular flavor. Combine one quart of unsweetened grape juice with one can of frozen concentrate lemonade made according to can directions for a refreshing, tangy juice.