Windfall.....

I was so lucky.  A friend called me and said that her husband didn't have time to make jam with their grapes this year, would I like them?

 

SURE!

 

I had no clue how to make jam, or jelly.  But, I thought, I am not going to refuse free fresh fruit!

 

 

 

 

I had never even had Concord grapes before.  Just Welsh's concord grape juice.  BOY! Is there a difference in taste.

 

 

 

 So, I brought home a whole cooler FULL of grapes.  Pounds and pounds of grapes.  That smelled heavenly, by the way. 

 

I went to my preserving books and they all said SUGAR!  Some were 5 cups of grapes, to 5 1/2 cups of sugar.

 

I don't know about where you live, but sugar here anymore is becoming expensive AND they've reduced the package size, but not the price.

 

Then, I went to allrecipes.com, one of my favorite places and found a recipe for Concord Grape pie.

 

 

 

Yes, I said pie.  Interesting.

 

So, I began to "pop" the flesh out of the skins.  What an interesting thing.  The skins just pop right off, very easily.  Too bad apples weren't so easy.  Or tomatoes for that matter.

 

Anyway, I popped the flesh into a measuring cup and the skins went into a bowl.  I needed to save those to add back in to the pie.

 

 

 

 

Then you put the flesh into a pan and you slow heat them and mash them a bit as you go to release the juice.  You bring them to an easy boil and the flesh just kind of melts and then the pits fall to the bottom.

 

 

 

Next, you strain everything.  I used my strainer and a potato masher to get as much of the juice and pulp as I could.

 

And, because I want to keep your interest, please wait for the next post to see the out come!

The weather has gotten to me!

Sorry I have been away from here for a bit.

The winter cold will do that to me at times.  I just seem to want to hunker down near the wood stove and knit.

Please check back later in the week, the posts will be regular again.

Wishing for spring ( as a new snow fall descends....)

Don't have one? Borrow it.

I don't have my own sewing machine,

anymore.

There, I said it.  I don't tell many people this story, but I'll share it with you.

My parents gave me a lovely Singer sewing machine when we were first married.

One year my brother made for me a lovely sewing cabinet that you could store your machine in and that opened out to work on when you sewed.  It was lovely.

I'm not much of a sewer, but I did curtain hems and made some pants for our little boy, when he was our "little" boy. 

It moved with us to the mid west and I am not sure that I sewed at all when we lived there.  But I did use the cabinet as a buffet table on several occasions.

When we were moving back east, our home is smaller here.  SO, I had to purge an awful lot of stuff.  We had too much to begin with, and we just had to purge.  I had decisions to make on some things that were very difficult and I agonized over them.  Sometimes, I still do.

About two weeks before we were to leave my very, very dear friend and neighbor and I were having a visit with one another when she mentioned that her sewing machine had broken beyond repair after many years of service and she couldn't afford to get a new one right now.  She sewed a lot, for crafts and for her grandchildren.  Plus, her daughter used it to sew.

So, after nearly no thought at all, I knew I could give her my sewing machine and cabinet and that it would be well used and loved forever.  And I made her promise, should she ever not want either anymore she had to ask her daughter if she would like them and if not, she would need to contact me so that I could help her decide what was to be done with them.

She didn't want to accept my gift.  She felt it was too much.  But she accepted because, I like to think, she knew that I wanted her to always remember me.  She had helped me through some of the most difficult situations in my life and this was just a small token of my appreciation for all she had done for me over 10 years of being neighbors.

Now, onto the borrow it.

It's been seven years since we've moved and I finally have a few jobs that I could use a sewing machine for.  I have my mothers 1955 Singer, but it needs a good going over and I haven't found anyone yet to do this job with confidence.

So, I don't want or even need to buy one.  I have my mothers.  So I asked a few of my girlfriends and one of them has graciously loaned me a spare of hers.  It's a Singer, so it wasn't hard to learn how to use and it works very nicely.

Next time you "need" something for a job to do, don't just go out and buy one, ask some friends,  ask some family.  Perhaps they have one you can borrow, or buy from them. 

Most of us have too much "stuff".  And most of us don't know what to do with all the "stuff" so it just kind of sits there, waiting, taking up space and making us feel guilty.