Grape Harvest

Two weeks ago, my cousin texted me asking if I wanted to come harvest some of his grapes in his backyard. Of course I said yes. So I showed up with a laundry basket and went to town. Grant wondered around the backyard doing who knows what and eating who knows what while I harvested. Every once in awhile he would wander over, pull a clump of grapes out of the basket and eat them. He was a mess and it was awesome. And only once did he try and climb in the basket to make wine by smashing the grapes with his feet. I was actually surprised by that one.

Anyway, I did what I always do when harvesting fruit. My belly was bigger than my eyes and I FILLED A LAUNDRY BASKET TO THE TOP WITH GRAPES. At first you may think, 'Wow. That's awesome.' But that is a LOT of grapes. Especially when that was a Tuesday and I was going out of town Thursday to do the Subway in Zion National Park. YIKES. That meant I had a LOT of work to do and needless to say I got some grief and eye rolls from the hubby.

We will just say, as we stood by the sink de-vining grapes I realized why wine is so expensive. And I don't even drink wine. After making the most beautiful colored grape puree, I was naive enough to think pushing my "Whole Juice" button on my Blendtec would make grape juice. Nope. It made grape smoothie. Which I did use as a base in smoothies because it made a lot, and devining this many grapes (I know they look like blueberries)

I decided to freeze an additional big bag. And then I was done de-vining. We gave the rest away because I was so done with the grapes. Next I had to figure out how to make grape juice because that was the only reasonable thing I could think to do with this many grapes.

I am grateful for google. It told me what to do. But I copped out and borrowed a juicer from a friend

This juicer was her husband's grandma's. Let's put that in persepective, grandma is still alive and 102. No joke. This thing is OLD and HEAVY but AWESOME. It is really efficient and I can open it while it is still running. Absolutely no safety features whatsoever, which was a breath of fresh air.

So I juiced and juiced and juiced. Every 10 minutes I had to take apart the juicer and scrape the pulp and seeds from the mesh and then I'd juice some more. And as I was juicing I had the thought, 'What am I doing? I don't even like grape juice.'

Final product was still a little thick and SO POTENT. So then I had to thin and dilute the juice. 2 c juice to 1 c water in the Blendtec on the Whole Juice function. Then I poured it into jars and let it sit so the thick stuff rose tot he top, like cream, then I scraped that off, strained it, through the mesh part of the juicer because that was the finest strainer I had, and I ended up with this much juice.

Was it worth it. Absolutely not. Mostly because I don't like grape juice but there was no way in this world or the next I would have ever eaten as many grapes as I picked before they went bad. So lessons learned.

1. Don't let your belly be bigger than your eyes and reasoning

2. Grape juice is a PAIN to make (and messy)

But at least it is pretty

#juice #grapes #garden #harvest #juicing #grapejuice #vegan #paleo #glutenfree