A Little Fruit of the Vine...

We've talked about doing it for a long time, and last July (2012) we actually did...

Bob and I walked down to the fence row where the grape vines covered a tree and we picked the ripe fruit.
Just plain ol' wild mustang grapes...
The kind you have to pop out of the skin.
Then you have some choices: You can either swallow the seeds along with the "meat" of the grape or kinda eat around them and then spit the seeds out...(In case you've always wondered:  Grapevines do NOT grow out of your ears if you swallow the seeds.)
And then, the juice (or is it the grape skins?) start to make your skin itch.  Lovely.

But lovely it is.  Bob and I both have fond memories of this kind of wild grape.

My grandparents (Roy and Sadie Ragsdale) actually had "domesticated" some of these grapes.  They grew along a grape trellis in their back yard.  It was WONDERFUL to be at their house when the grapes were ripe.  We grandkids would pick and eat them the whole time we were there visiting.  Now I wonder if our grandparents really were OK with us picking and eating their grape crop.  We caused a terrific reduction in their harvesting!   But I guess they could have/would have stopped us if they minded too much.

Bob's memories consist of the grandkids picking the grapes from the wild and bringing them  home to their Oma (Lydia Dornhoefer). Oma would then can the grape juice and serve it later as a special treat for the grandkids.  (Adults would have iced tea; the kids were served grape juice.) Bob remembers her adding sugar and water and the juice from a lemon to a quart jar of preserved juice.  Yum, Yum! What a treat!

Way back then (goodness! that's my life I'm talking about!  Since when did I earn a way back then??) having juice to drink was not the common event that children know now.  Even if our parents had the money,  there just weren't many juice choices.  Bob says that at his home, the only juice served was orange juice from a can of frozen concentrate, but that was only occasionally (maybe once a month). Now it seems as if the many varieties available can take up a whole side of an aisle in Wal Mart.  There are so many choices (regular, organic, or light) and so many blends of different fruit and vegetable juices... Holy cow!

Anyway, Bob and I picked grapes on July 7 (The rule of thumb is that grapes are ripe for picking around July 4.) I googled how to can grape juice and I used my grandmother's (Sadie Ragsdale) juicer. (The wooden "masher" is now stained purple.)

Our little outing and google research made it possible for me to successfully can 4 quarts of grape juice.  I learned that it's quite a job to strain out all the grape pulp...it might even be impossible for the layman (i.e. not a professional processor) to get all the solids out.  I also read that great grape juice critics actually enjoy drinking "thick" grape juice better than the ordinary "smooth" type of store-bought grape juice that the rest of us drink.

Ira and Kelley were the first to try out our concoction. They were at the house shortly after Bob and I had this little adventure.  Sweet Kelley always seems so interested in old-time ways and paraphernalia.  She and Ira both joined us as we partook of the fruit (juice) of our endeavors.  They both approved!

Well, Kelley was at our house on March 9 as we celebrated Rachel, Josiah, and Bonnie's birthdays. She asked about the WellsBros reaction to the grape juice.  I had to admit we'd never had the chance to make the offer to them.

So, on March 11 --(not that the date is important..it's just that I happen to know it!) Rachel and I fixed an afternoon snack of homemade grape juice, frozen "sugar" peaches from the last year's first harvested crop of peaches from the new trees, and honey graham crackers. (No, the crackers were not made at home.)  As you can see from Micah's expression, our homemade style of grape juice was a hit with the WellsBros also.

But none of the boys actually finished their grape juice, even though I believe they truly enjoyed it.  Our (Rachel's and mine) hypothesis is that the juice was still a bit strong (too concentrated) for them to drink all of it.  This is the recipe I used for reconstituting:

1 qt canned grape juice (going one last time through a strainer)
Juice from 1/2 lemon (I cheated and used about 3 T of Real Lemon juice from a bottle.)
Approximately 3/4 c sugar
Water & ice to finish filling a 2 quart container.

When "the guys" drank it, the ice was only about 1/2 melted, so therefore, it was still a bit on the "strong" side.  It wasn't actually diluted to the 1:1 ratio for which I was aiming.

Rachel ended up taking the left-over juice home with her.  The plan is to use it as the communion juice at their worship next Sunday.  Just how awesome is that?

The verdict of our wild-grape picking and serving of the acquired juice:
 I believe we'll do this again.
(The Lord willing and a good grape crop!)  :)

Friday Night Lights

I had been looking in my recipe books for something...For what?  I have no idea any more...but a couple of days later I found this on the floor:

It is said that odors or particular smells evoke memories: the same can be said for some recipes.

My mom, being the hospitable person that she was and the wife of a head football coach, invited all the coaches and their families to our house for waffles after every home football game.  She claimed that this act was really a selfish one. Wanting her husband to come home, yet knowing that coaches want to talk about the game afterward and knowing she did NOT want to talk about it, she devised a plan.  Just invite the other men that wanted to talk football (and their families) over. In that way, she (and the other wives) could have the best of both worlds.

During this time, mom did have a lady come clean the house every Thursday. (Her name was Eliza.) Mom's Thursday evenings were consumed not with house cleaning, but with making waffle batter and homemade syrup.  She used the recipe above for her syrup (right off of the maple flavoring package) and used the waffle recipe that came with her SunBeam waffle iron she received as a wedding gift back in 1949. (recipe to follow)

On Friday nights after the game, the wives would come and bring their children. We played while the ladies fried bacon and made waffles and visited. The men ate, talked, and drew football plays on paper napkins. Lots of good memories...and is the smell of bacon making you hungry?

Buttermilk Waffles

1/2 c melted butter                                                     2 T sugar

2 1/2 c flour                                                                 1 t salt

2 1/2 t soda                                                                  4 eggs

2 1/2 t baking powder                                                2 c buttermilk

                                                                                     1 1/2 t vanilla

Melt and cool butter.  Sift together dry ingredients.  Beat eggs at high speed until fluffy.  Add buttermilk and vanilla.  Beat to blend.  Pour over dry ingredients.  Beat until smooth.  Blend in melted butter.

He-Gwe's Presence in This House

I don't really know much about Bob's dad.  He died on February 14 (yes, Valentine's Day), 1973-- several years before Bob and I met.

Getting to find out a little bit more about him was one of the  unexpected blessings we received when going through Bob's mother's things after her death.  And in spite of the the fact that Ira Allen bears his name, this man had never been referred to by any other term than "your dad's dad".  The kids crafted the name "He-gwe" during this time of semi-revelation.  Yes, that's an unusual name, but Bob's mom was Gwe-Gwe (a story of its own).

There are a couple of random everyday things I've always done in our household that commemorate this man of mystery.  I don't think I've ever really shared this with my children, so I'm thinking now might be the time.

We always use Lea & Perrins worcestershire sauce because that's what he used.

 (and yes, those are tomatoes and peppers out of our garden...He-Gwe's dad was a farmer who sold his produce commercially using hot caps to get an early start.)

We use Oral B toothbrushes because that's what he preferred.

And there are a couple of things that we deliberately do differently than he did but which recall his memory none-the-less:

We only set one alarm clock every night.  He-Gwe always set two.  One was a wind-up clock; one was electric.  What if there were an electrical outage or he forgot to re-wind?  He did NOT want to be late for work and jeopardize his job.  He was very proud to be a USPS mail carrier.  (Yep, they were most likely called mailmen back then--)  Considering that he only had an 8th grade education, he had done very well for himself and his family.  He had a reason to be proud!

...and we do NOT use a hand-cranked ice cream freezer and chip ice off of a 25 lb. block of ice when we make homemade ice cream. When Bob told me of this little quirk of his dad's, Bob was given a choice: If we used bagged, crushed ice and an electric freezer, we would have homemade ice cream very often; if we used a hand-cranked freezer and block ice, the making of ice cream at home would be a very special (and rare) event.  I think you know what Bob chose!

He-Gwe, we think of you in these little ways and wish we could have really known you!

As Easy as... Boiling an Egg??

Deviled eggs were one of my mom's favorite foods.  It became her designated job to fix them when we were having family get-togethers. She was very eager to help always, and after I had boiled the eggs, this was a task she could do while sitting. 

But, "as easy as boiling an egg" and "She can't even boil an egg!"???  I'm not so sure about those sayings....The boiling may be easy, but the peeling???? Yuk!  I've heard about and tried many fool-proof tricks over the years, but I guess I'm the fool.  (And besides, I have had trouble remembering the tricks.)

...but since we now have laying hens from which we daily collect eggs and "doubled" eggs are now a desired part of (at least some) our grandchildren's diet, I NEED to know and remember those tricks (and pass that information on to my progeny) .

So I conducted some research:
I first did some simple google research.  I saw some absolutely disgusting things on U-tube (like blowing the hard-boiled egg out the end of the eggshell--Really, who wants my slobber on their egg?? even if you ARE family!) and read some way-too-detailed ways to boil eggs and peel them perfectly.  Then I boiled and peeled eggs every chance I got trying different methods and taking note of the results to come up with what would work best for me.

This is what I've come up with (and the reason it works best so I can remember what I've discovered):

1.  Eggs should be 7-10 days old.  Fresh eggs' whites tend to stick to the membrane because of their low acidity.  As eggs get older, the shell becomes more porous; the egg is allowed to let off some carbon dioxide and the white becomes more acidic and won't cling to the membrane as much.   Also, the white shrinks a bit and there can be more air space between the shell and membrane.  Use fresher eggs if you must, but you will NOT get a prettily peeled boiled egg. Just know that up front!

2.  Place eggs in water right out of the faucet.  (Because eggs aren't noodles!  If you put eggs into water that's already boiling or too hot, the shell will crack because of the extreme temperature change.)

3.  Once the water boils, put the lid on the pan and remove it from the source of heat.  The guidelines say to leave the eggs in the hot water for 15 minutes if they're large, 18 minutes for extra large, but only 12 minutes for medium eggs.  But I've discovered that if you're boiling only a few eggs and using a small pan, it can take longer for them to be fully cooked--or the problem can be solved by just leaving the pan on the turned-off-but-hot heating element.  But if you leave a larger pot of eggs with a lot of eggs sitting on the element for the same amount of time, the yolk will turn gray-green. This is caused by a  chemical change that occurs in the sulfur in egg yolks. The eggs are still perfectly OK to eat; they're just not as pretty!  --and since I cook with electric heat, I'm not quite sure how that translates in gas heated cooking...

4.  Cool eggs down quickly.  Why is this step helpful? A quick temperature change will help the membrane separate from the egg white. This is the method I've come up with that works well for me: Pour off the hot water, then run tap water over the eggs. When the eggs are cool enough to handle, I crack both ends of the egg and run even more water over them.  Then I add a glass of ice to the water and let them sit in the ice water for a while.  

5.  Then, when you're ready to peel the egg, first roll the egg on the kitchen counter with the palm of your hand to sort of crush the shell.  (Do it with a light hand, though, or you'll mush the egg open.) Why?  The shell needs to be flexible to enable it to come off in one big piece with the membrane attached to it.

6.  Start the actual peeling at the fat end of the egg.  The egg has a little air pocket on that end, so it just makes it a natural place to grab ahold and start peeling.  When/if that stops working well, start at the other end.  I'm not quite sure why that works better, but it just does (for me, anyway).

--and another helpful tip from Rachel if  you're making deviled eggs:  Put your yummy egg yolk filling in a zip-lock bag.  Cut off one corner and pipe the filling into the egg white.  Nice and Neat!

Hope this is helpful!  And if you're eggs don't peel well, at least you kind of know why they're not!

*This egg dish was my mom's.  She loved that ruby-border glassware!  She also bought the punch bowl and glasses at (what-was-then) Eckerd's Drug Store in Waco.  She frequented that store because it was where she got her film developed.  They offered double-prints when you got  your film developed (a new trend!).  She loved, loved, loved to take pictures of and share pictures of her grandchildren.  It was her goal to make photo albums for each of them.  She started out good...but there were many, many empty albums (that she'd picked up when they were on sale) and bundles and bundles of photographs...neatly labled with dates, of course!