Just Juice

This post is about muscadine juice, but I thought we would start with........

 the latest picture of Olive because

that's just what grandmother's do, right?!

 Anyway, the muscadines are beginning to ripen and we picked some scuppernongs last week. We have made wine and jelly in past years and it's a lot of work. This year I was just not in the mood for doing either, and retired people have the luxury of doing things only if they are in the mood to do them!!

My Master Gardening friends told me that I should just put up the juice now and then I can do whatever I want to with it later, so that's what I did.

 Washed grapes are chopped up a bit in the food processor.

 Most websites I read recommended adding sugar to the chopped grapes, but muscadines are so sweet already that I decided to skip this step. The chopped grapes are covered with water before putting on the stove, but remember that the more water you add the more diluted our juice will be.

 Then the grapes are boiled to release the juices. 

 The juice is strained from the mash.

At the second straining, through cheese cloth, the juice's signature pink color is revealed.

I froze the juice in 1/2 cup and 1 cup amounts so it will be easy to thaw for recipes. I used 1 cup of juice for delicious muscadine glazed pork chops for supper. I have found recipes for muscadine vinaigrette, muscadine glazed cheesecake, muscadine sorbet, and muscadine syrup to flavor tea or lemonade.

This treatment of our grapes has been really easy and leaves us with more options for its use. In a few weeks our old timey "black" variety of grapes should be ripe and it will be time to juice again!

Love ya'll, 

Shelli 

You don't have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces

 — just good from fresh ingredients.

 ~Julia Child

My mom said the two most important kitchen utensils are attached to your arms... you cannot mix up meatballs with a wooden spoon, get in there, get your fingers dirty!

 ~Rachael Ray

Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all.

 ~Harriet Van Horne, "Not for Jiffy Cooks," Vogue magazine, 1956