Grape expectations

Have you ever done anything completely on a whim?  The other day, I was driving home after visiting family in Wisconsin, and I stopped at Bauder's Market in La Crescent, MN, to buy a bag of apples.  And to my delight, I discovered a table full of Concorde grapes.  Grapes! 

I've been wanting to make homemade grape jelly ever since I started learning more about Iowa's grape industry.  Back in the early 1900s, Iowa was one of the top grape producers in the country.  Every farm had a grapevine in the backyard for making jelly and juice.  Then during World War II, there was a severe blizzard, known as the Armistice Day freeze, that killed off many of the state's grapevines and apple trees.

Today, Iowa's grape industry is making a comeback, as the number of vineyards and wineries is growing every year.  But I still haven't figured out a place where I can buy Concorde grapes, and I don't have enough sun in my shady backyard to grow grapes.

So when I saw these babies at the Minnesota produce market, I wanted to squeal in delight (but I didn't -- I didn't want the other customers to give me strange looks). 

Let me tell you, these grapes smelled so good!  I had no ideas that grapes could smell so fragrant, not at all like the supermarket grapes.  The Concordes actually smelled like grape bubblegum, which is funny, because I never understood why grape bubblegum tastes nothing like real grapes.  Now I know, it actually does!

I've never made jelly before, and I didn't realize it was such a time-consuming effort.  First, I mushed the grapes in my food mill, which helped to separate most of the seeds and grape skins.  Then I strained the remaining pulp from the juice by covering a cotton T-shirt (I didn't have cheesecloth) over a sieve, which I placed over a larger bowl.

After three hours, only half of the juice had dripped through the T-shirt.  My husband attempted to squeeze the juice through the T-shirt by hand, but then he tipped the sieve over, and the unstrained juice got mixed with the strained juice.  I tried not to get mad, but I was pretty upset that 3 hours of waiting was now a waste.  But my husband promised to make it up to me.  He re-strained the juice, and after 3 hours, I finally had a 4-cup batch of clear juice.

I then proceeded to follow the recipe for grape jelly in the Ball Complete Book of Home Canning.  This was by far the easiest part of the process; it took less than an hour.  And the result: a beautiful, flavorful, homemade batch of grape jelly!  Success at last!

This little kitchen adventure was so worth the time and effort.  Everytime I look at these jars, I get such a sense of accomplishment.

I would love to find a place in Iowa that sells Concorde grapes in the fall.  Do any of you know where I can find them?  I would love to make grape jelly again next year.

Odds & ends

Hello everyone!  I've had a busy couple weeks, between traveling to visit family and trying to squeeze every moment out of this Indian summer weather here in central Iowa.  I've got some exciting (or at least exciting to nerdy ol' me) things to share with you all, but I don't have the time or energy to type it all out in a coherrent way.  So if it's OK, I'm just going to share a few odds & ends of random happenings in our household.

One of the great benefits of keeping a blog is that I can go back and see what we were up to a year ago.  I noticed that my hubby had found a giant hen-of-the-woods mushroom last year at this time.  It was so huge, in fact, that he ended up cutting it into pieces and putting it in the freezer.  So all winter, we treated ourselves to mushroom omelets on cold mornings.  These mushrooms are the perfect compliment to eggs.

My husband went back to his favorite mushroom spot.  And he found another mushroom, although not quite as big as the one he found last year.  But there's still enough to freeze for future use. 

Isn't it a beauty?

I've also been making bi-weekly trips to two local apple orchards this fall:  Berry Patch Farm in Nevada and Center Grove Orchard in Cambridge.  I buy the biggest bag of Honeycrisp apples they offer, and I've been eating these like candy.  I also buy a bag of baking apples -- my favorite are Jonathans -- and I've been making cinnamon apple sauce and apple butter on the weekends.  I've decided the apples are my favorite fruit to bake with.  So versatile.

And here's a random shot of my backyard garden, just for my own future reference.  Everything is so green thanks to this cooler fall weather.

OK...so that's all the writing my overwhelmed brain can handle right now.  I'm off to relax for the evening.

Fly-over country

On a recent vacation day from work, I went out for a long, leisurely walk around Ada Hayden park in north Ames.  It was a bit on the chilly side and there was a light sprinkle, so I bundled up in my hooded sweatshirt and hit the trail that curls around the lake.

I adore this place because it's not your typical green lawn/tall oak tree type of park.  They turned the old limestone querry into a restored prairie wetland.

I've had a fascination with prairies ever since my high-school science days, when our instructor made us memorize the names of different prairie flowers common in Iowa.  I've forgotten most of those names, although I'm able to recognize a few of the "easier" prairie plants.

Here's golden rod.

And a milkweed that's home to a fuzzy catepillar, a sure sign of fall in Iowa.

I crossed a bridge.

Then decided to take a left at the fork in the path.

And discovered a flock of migrating birds in the pond.  Pelicans, I think, but I'm not for sure.

They don't call Iowa fly-over country for nothing :)

At the end of a trail, there's a living sculpture -- willow trees that were planted, bent and shaped into a twisting cave.  The trees will continue to grow throughout the years, so the sculpture will always be changing.

I can't believe fall is already here.  I never want this lovely season to end.