Jelly Juggling

I have a small kitchen. There's about enough counter space available to make a cup of coffee. That's it. When I arrived at the house, the thoughtful last owners/occupants left me a few things, one of them being element covers for the stove that look like this:

It's not that I don't like basil, mushrooms, olives or tomatoes; it's just that the covers are not exactly my style. But after a few days with them I discovered their secret: they add a remarkable amount of extra counter space to the kitchen. In fact, they pretty much double it. Now I'm quite enamoured with them.

I have a friend whose father makes jam every year. He's kind of the jam king. I've enjoyed his jams throughout the years, and his zest for making them has always given me the impression that, while it takes some know-how, it's really not so hard to do and may even be fun.

What with my bumper crop of grapes and this idyllic picture of fruit preservation in my head, I set out yesterday to make grape jelly. "It's easy!" boasted the lady on YouTube who makes it from frozen grape juice and posted an impossibly clean rendition of jelly-making - I swear it was doctored! Well "Ha!" to you, lady! Grape jelly making is not for the faint of heart, at least not when your kitchen counter space is limited and you need several large pots to create it.
However, in I plunged, ready to savour the fruits of my labour.

Tip #1: Choose ONE jelly recipe and ONE method of jelly-production. Do not excitedly flit back and forth between recipes on the internet, losing track of which one you are trying to follow. Do not begin to follow the instructions online, only to get side-tracked and turn to the ever-helpful instructions inside the pectin box (they explain how to make 11 types of cooked jam, 12 types of cooked jelly, and 5 types of freezer jam). Stick to basics: ONE recipe, ONE focus point (in one small kitchen). Just trust me on this.

Tip #2: If you are the type of person who is a MacGyver and can rig up gadgets using odds and sods from around the house to solve any challenge, by all means, don't invest in specialized preserving tools. I felt rather decadent when I purchased my jar tongs and jam funnel and jelly bag and lid lifter and bubble-popper/jelly level measurer a few weeks back, but really, they ARE necessary. Gather your tools before you begin, find a place for each, and remember that your canning pot will need to be in use throughout the process, so make sure you have another big pot to cook the jam in. What I did not get was a gadget to hang the jelly bag from and, because I am not a MacGyver, I probably spent about half an hour trying to find a way to suspend said jelly bag so that it could merrily drain juice for two hours. (I'll share the photo a little later).

I'm including the link to the website that I (mostly) followed to create my batch of grape jelly. It's quite helpful: How to Make Homemade Grape Jelly. Still, I'm going to include my photos here so you can see just how much juggling was going on.

First I needed to harvest my grapes. I soon discovered that ten cups amounted to merely a tiny dent from the vineyard. I could barely see that any grapes had been removed from the arbour. I picked a big collander full of them and washed them up (there were a lot of spiders that emerged in the process!).



Once washed and stemmed, they filled a big bowl and looked suspiciously like blueberries.


Once mashed, they released a lot of juice.


Then came the fun boiling part, where I got to watch the true grape colour emerge. I know it sounds silly, but I was so pleased with just how purple grape juice truly is! Here is the pre-sieved mash releasing the colour (sorry it's poorly lit).


Now this is where I encountered my MacGyver moment. I had the jelly bag, but nothing to suspend it from, and I needed to drain the hot grape mash. After first ladling the mixture into the jelly bag, just holding it over a bowl to catch the juice, I finally rigged up a blender and dry and wet measuring cups so that I could drain it further. It was remarkably challenging to find something of the right diameter for suspending the jelly bag and of the right height! FYI, ten cups of grapes ended up yielding almost five cups of drained juice, though you can't see much of it here.


Truth be told, I'm actually going a little out of order here. I sanitized the jam jars before I drained the juice. I didn't have a real canning pot, and instead used my pasta pot which has a collander thing that sits in it. It could only hold five jars at a time, so I had to do the boiling in two batches.


I'm missing photos of the really fun parts that come next because they required that both my hands be fully occupied. I boiled the juice and pectin, again marvelling at the colour, then added the sugar and boiled away. This is where my next tip comes in...

Tip #3: I may have said this earlier, but make sure you have two big pots. You'll need one as your canning pot, but another one to boil the jelly in. I made the mistake of using a smaller pot and needed to decant half the mixture so that there was room to boil it without it boiling over. Actually, it did boil over a bit, and this is where you can imagine a lot of juggling going on! The stove was full, the counters were full, the sink was full. There's a pot full of boiling, syrupy, grape jelly burping away in front of me, and I'm trying to count out one full minute of rolling boil while stirring and blowing on the pot, (neither of which helped), praying that it won't boil over and that lifting it occasionally from the element wouldn't interrupt the jelling process. It was stressful! Then I found myself juggling hot pots as I tried to remove the sterilized jars and ready them for filling. At least the jar tongs really were great! Finally, after two rounds of boiling and filling, I had 7 jars of jelly that were ready for heat processing and one half jar that I decided to throw into the freezer and would be the first jar to taste.

Here are the jars boiling with their lids on. (See glazed purple pot in background and imagine sticky mess to the right).


There was what I believed to be a disconcerting popping noise I could hear as I removed the jars from the water and I wondered if the seals hadn't worked, but it turns out that's what's supposed to happen. Ah, the things you learn! I'm pleased to say that today I have seven jars of sealed jelly (you can test by pressing the lid - you shouldn't be able to pop it down). I haven't tasted it yet, but I'm heading to the market this morning to get some fresh bread so I can try out that half jar.

Will it taste good enough to be worth the day of labour I put in...?

The Dead Duck and Other Dog-Parenting Debacles

The idea of a "favourite toy" only seems to last for a short while with Mika. With each new toy she gets, her attention shifts, and it's hard to tell what will last and what will be abandoned. I've discovered that I'm a bit of a sucker for getting toys for her. It's getting a tad expensive, and I'm now unconvinced that toys designed specifically for dogs are actually safer than what I can drum up on my own, or what nature can provide.
Let's take the Hartz, blue and orange squeaker-duck rope toy, for example. Within minutes of receiving it she had torn a hole in the so-called "for tough-chewers" fabric and was frothing at the mouth with cotton batting. (Yes, I am keeping an eye on that). She loves the rope part, the squeaker, and the fact that she can "kill" it by shaking it by its neck. I removed the remainder of the stuffing from the head after she'd ripped a hole in it, and now it's taken on a droopy-necked look which is rather comical. Eventually she also tore into the body, and now both the squeaker and the stuffing are all gone. What's left is this:

So that was the so-called "safe for dogs" toy. Now on to other amusements. Last Thursday I decided it was time for some garden weeding. (Not my strong point - I avoid garden care for as long as I can before shame strikes, company comes, or someone does me a kind favour). I had also given myself the handy procrastination excuse that I should keep the grass/weeds long to let Mika play in them, to cushion her little feet. I also thought that removing weeds would be a not-so-subtle permission for her to go ahead and dig up whatever she pleased. Indeed, once the weeds were freed from the earth, she went to town! Not only did she grab them and play with them, but she joyfully continued to burrow in the little pits of earth that were left by the fabulous weeder that my friends gave me as a house-warming gift. Here is a photo of just how big and dog-friendly some of those weeds were, and you can see why it was hard for her to resist joining in the weeding party.

So, all that is to say that nature provides her own entertainment, all for free. Mika also enjoys chewing on small rocks. This behaviour has caused me to contemplate my parenting skills (or lack thereof). Am I a neglectful parent for letting her chew things she could swallow? Should I be running out to get her another Kong toy (these, I must say, have held up the best so far) that is likely safer and will make her a smarter, healthier, more well-rounded pup? Am I a better parent for letting her commune with the natural world, and should I renounce those lurid, badly-dyed and easily-destroyed toys that I get so excited about purchasing? Ah, the dilemmas!
After weeding as much as I could of the backyard, I decided to cut the grass. However, my trusty Black & Decker weed whacker only whirred and whirled for about thirty seconds before I determined that it was out of trimmer line. Drats! Days and a trip to Home Depot later, (not to mention some more procrastinating), I was armed with a new spool of trimmer line. Now I only had to follow the instructions to replace it. That should really be easy enough, but I am the kind of person who balks at this type of task. It's the unknown, machine-oriented, and potentially dangerous nature of the beast that sends me into justifications of why I don't really need to cut the grass ever again. (Okay, it's not dangerous unless you do it with the power cord plugged in). Anyhow, the long and the short of it is that with the help of a more machine-oriented and industrious person than myself, the weed whacker has been re-spooled and the lawns are now cut. But more importantly, what that meant was that there was an empty plastic spool, about two inches in diameter, which became the new favourite on Mika's toy list...
Tune in to the next episode of Mika TV for a taste of more dog-toy fun!

Mika TV Episode 3 - Spooldles of Fun

In my last post (sorry, the order is messed up) I mused about the dilemmas of choosing appropriate dog toys and spoke of the B&D trimmer line spool. It's made of very tough, black plastic, can spin like a hockey puck on a smooth floor, and can complete a somewhat demented, drunken 'roll' along its circumference. For these reasons, and likely more, Mika loves it. She barks happily at it, willing it to have life, breath, and a desire to play with her. She can chew it without breaking pieces off (at least not so far), and hopefully it won't damage her teeth. Here is a little video of her and the spool-friend. Enjoy!

Mika TV Episode 2 - Tug of War

Lest you think that she only plays indoors...

Inspiration from Mary Pratt

My favourite painter is Mary Pratt. Here are two of her jelly paintings (yes, paintings, not photographs!) to keep me inspired to make that grape jelly.
The image above was made into a stamp by Canada Post.


Maybe sometime I'll post some of her fish paintings - they are absolutely stunning.

Grapes Galore!

The Vineyard

It's almost harvest time. At least, I think it might be, though I really know nothing about grapes. I have recently decided to make grape jelly and adventured to Canadian Tire to find some supplies. It proved a very fruitful trip!

Tune in next time for the jelly-making extravaganza!

The Garden of Eatin' (formerly Eden)

After the fall...
Puppies are cute, yes, indeed. But they also have very sharp teeth and like to dig holes and put everything in their mouths to figure out the world around them. Thus, my garden is now looking like this:

I was worried she was going to dig up some kind of grave, especially after she unearthed a few pieces of muddy fabric, but instead, she just made herself a nice, cool hole to lie in to escape the heat. Then she began to tear the bark off the older grape vine...

... and to transform once healthy cucumbers
into maimed cucumber carcasses...

Through all of that digging and chewing, she still maintains her complete innocence, even with evidence in paw...

Mika TV

Here's a little video of some typical Mika behaviour. It's not anything fancy or particularly cute, just a slice-of-life of her little daily routines. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do...

Mika Comes Home

There once was a pup from James Bay,
Who was brought to Toronto one day.
Though it's far from the north,
A long trip it was worth,
Now in house and in yard she does play.




As you can see, she likes to chew.

Before the Fall

Here are some photos of the lovely terrain of the yard 'before the fall'. Roses, the occasional weed, plants I can't identify, and a few ants...




Then along came Mika...

404 Not Found or Found?

As a technologically-inclined friend (whose birthday is today) pointed out to me, '404' is the server error code used to indicate that the server could not find what was requested. It also happens to be my house number, and, like my name, it's a palindrome. Very appealing! I do feel it's a bit ironic that my new home, my first house, which I feel is a very good find, has the error code for 'not found'...

Here are some photos of the little home from earlier in the spring/summer:Very mini, yes. Here's the back view before the grape vines bloomed and when the 'fence' was still up...
It didn't take long for the grapes to grow.












Now they are almost ready for harvesting!



There were early days when the backyard looked rather pristine and empty.

Now, early-August, it's a mess of grass, weeds, and vines. Part of that has to do with my own laziness, and part of it has to do with wanting to maintain a soft and jungle-like space for the new pup...