A Surprise Crop - Part Two by Paula

So we brought the large colander full of small purple grapes into the kitchen after my son Trinley and I had tasted a couple - just about sour turning to sweet - perfect!

I knew that I had to act immediately with the grapes and had to think on my feet.

I knew that as with damsons, one has to cook them up ever so slightly to release all the beautiful rich jewel like colour from the skin as the flesh is somewhat more pale .

So I remembered how my Mum always used to make a lot of apple jelly and she would stew the apples and hang them in a cloth bag over a bucket to strain out the clear juice slowly overnight.

I set about washing them first and removing them from their stalks

After removing them from their stalks and washing them, I put them in a pan and over a low heat started to cook them slowly until they released their jewel like colour and started to break down just enough to start to process them.

I had thought about making jelly as I had mentioned earlier, so I knew I had to extract the juice this way by briefly cooking them.

So I had a muslin cloth that I lined my steel colander with; placed back over the large (clean) pan to catch the juice, and carefully poured in the cooked grapes.

I then left it overnight to drip through…

The next day I had the most amazing suprise waiting for me - fresh deep purpley red grape juice!!! Tangy just how I love it!! I bottled some of it up for us to drink, and I set about working out the ratios of sugar that I would need for delicous grape jelly to spread on toast yum!!