Wild Grape Jelly in the wake of Irene devestation

Irene overstayed her welcome in Brandon, and all of Vermont, for that matter.  We have towns that are cut off from the rest of the world, overwhelming infrastructure damage, loss of life and a frightening uncertainty that will linger for some time.  BUT Vermonters have a spirit that defies all of this and in Brandon people were mobilized by morning to help clear out flooded shops, remove debris, and assess the damage.  Facebook and twitter posts offered places to stay, shower, eat or plug into wi-fi.  And the response to photos like the one below that shows our pizza place floating into the street was simply that we'll all get it back in business as soon as we all collectively can.

This morning we woke to the most glorious weather: crisp and cool, and so sunny that I actually broke down and bought sunglasses at the drugstore.  I think it was Vermont's way of saying to Irene to not let the door hit her in her nasty ass.

So I went for a walk in the sunshine with my family down our practically unscathed dirt road.  We talked to neighbors that passed and shared news of the storm and stopped in at Gramma's because (of course) my 5 year old had to go to the bathroom.  That's when we noticed the bunches and bunches of wild grapes we had been watching all summer at Gramma's house had finally turned purple!

We picked as many grapes as we could in the two minutes or so that our busy kids would allow, brought them home, searched a few recipes online, and made some delicious Wild Grape Jelly.

Here's what I did (because I think it's absolutely scrumptious!)

I picked them all off the stem, cleaned them and put them in a pot with about a cup of water.  I mashed them with a spoon and a potato masher and heated them (just to encourage them to get mushy and let the juice out), then strained them in a metal mesh strainer.

I ended up with about two cups of juice (and the recipe I found called for 5 cups of juice, so I had to adjust a few things).  I put the juice back in my pot, heated it back up and added a little less than 2 cups of sugar and a little more water because the flavor was pretty intense (remember I'm not a real recipe follower--guidelines, I say...)  Kenny and I tasted the juice at this point and the flavor was great but, as Kenny said, it had all the flavor and the tartness that makes these grapes special, but it lacked a fruity finish (he doesn't usually speak like this, but he takes his food very seriously.) 

So I wondered (aloud) what could I add to give it a fruity finish.  I went to the kitchen garden and grabbed a big bunch of mint (I'd say a packed cup) that I chopped, threw into about a cup of water in a small sauce pan and added about a tablespoon of my raw honey (with a majorly flowery/fuity finish). 

I pounded the mint down with a wooden spoon to draw the flavor out of it and heated on the stove.  I added this to the grape juice and it was perfect!  I simmered the mixture 5-10 minutes (we were getting close to bedtime for the kids so it was becoming chaotic), added almost one package of pectin (left about 1/4 of it, since I had so little juice to start with), brought it to a hard boil for 30 seconds, jarred it, and processed my jars in a hot water bath for 5 minutes.

I don't know if the jelly will set perfectly, but I like to experiment with fruits and things each year and sometimes we have perfect jelly and sometimes we have syrup.  We will eat it and enjoy it either way.  If you want a more certain recipe, look online and use my ideas of adding mint and honey to make it yummier!

So here's the rundown:

1 1/2-2 lbs Wild Grapes

1 1/2-2 cups water

2 cups sugar

1 (packed) cup fresh mint

1 cup water

1 tablespoon honey

3/4 package pectin (maybe more; we'll know more tomorrow!)

Other thoughts:  We're going to make a batch to go with lamb (we have a ram going "to market" next week) that has cumin rather than mint for the flowery finish.  I think that will be tasty too!  And, of course, since I've allowed mint to take over my kitchen garden, I'm going to do a nice big batch of mint jelly!