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.

Granny Conner's "Famous" Pecan Recipe

I've really been into recipes lately.  The harvesting of spring veggies (and the eruption of new life) spurs me to explore new ways to prepare old standbys...

All that (I guess) led me to my old (yes, printed on paper) cookbooks as I was trying to finalize the menu of a meal I am wanting to take to a church family with a new baby.  While perusing my create-your-own cookbook I acquired in 1980 while living in Rockdale, Texas,  I happened upon a recipe, written in my 20's-something handwriting, entitled "Granny's Pecan Pie".

Generations to come should know that my Granny, Ada Ratliff Conner, won a blue ribbon at the Houston Fair (which even then was a BIG deal) with this recipe.  Of course, when you reproduce this recipe yourself and it just tastes like pecan pie, you should remember that at these kind of shows presentation is---I started to say 99%, but it's probably not quite that high.  Maybe only 98%---of the score in the winning entry.  I remember that my Granny told me how she chose the perfect pecan halves (My Uncle Gene ran a pecan orchard in Houston at the time.) and placed them to form some sort of decorative design on the top. May sound easy, but you should just try to place those pecan halves very perfectly in an unbaked pie shell and then pour goo over them and have it all come out of the oven perfectly... I never acheived good results.   My poor results might just be due to my inept ability, but her far superior results are probably (at least in part) due to her very experienced hand.

I should really look this up before publishing, but Granny was 1 out of 7 or 8 girls in her family.  Granny was the "tomboy" of the bunch, but her job in the family kitchen was making the desserts.  She was an extremely great pie maker!!  (Those pie safes they used to have?  I'm thinking the Ratliff family might have had one...but maybe not...)  At Thanksgiving or Christmas when I was a kid, there were always at least 10 pies!

I don't have a picture of Granny with a pie, or even a picture of one of her pies...(They were all consumed!)...but I do happen to have this picture of her with Rachel and Ira.  It is dated September 1980.  She was a very lovely lady; she remained that way even in her last days.

But here is the recipe:

Granny's Pecan Pie

3/4 c Karo (she used light)

1 cup sugar (she used Imperial)

3 eggs

3 T butter (I'm pretty sure she used REAL butter!)

1 cup pecans

1 t vanilla

Unbaked pie shell

Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.  

---please note that I have the 30 minutes marked out in my cookbook and have written 50 minutes.

....and there are actually no further instructions with the recipe.  I do know that the butter was melted.  The pecans were laid out in a design and then the goo was poured over it.  I recollect her talking about how carefully she had to pour goo over the pecan halves so they wouldn't shift in the pouring. 

I also know that her pie shells were definitely NOT of the frozen variety.  Crisco pie crusts were the rage of the day.  That recipe (and the recipe I have alongside the pie recipe) is:

Crisco Pie Crust

1 1/3 cup flour

1/2 t salt

1/2 cup Crisco

3 T ice cold water

Combine flour and salt.  Cut in Crisco.  Sprinkle with water, 1 Tablespoon at a time.  Toss with a fork.  Work dough into a firm ball.  (and the rest you'll have to take from there!  Google and YouTube are great resources!)

And that's all I've got.

Maybe when you're feeling nostalgic you'll try out this recipe.  If you, like I finally did, don't want to try the fancy designs or give up on trying, you can always use chopped pecans or pecan pieces. Just place them on the bottom of the unbaked pie shell and then pour the goo on top.  This is a very forgiving method of just making a yummy pie.  Please note that it's always best with a little "cream" (what Granny called ice cream) on top!