A Weekend of Homemade Jelly

  Recently this past Saturday, one of my followers invited me to make jelly ,with her mother, to teach me the art of making jelly. Now for some readers who don't know what exactly is the difference between jelly and jam; jam is made from the whole berry or fruit crushed in and jelly is only made from the juice of the fruit. What we made was actually from her backyard, literally the freshest thing I have seen in the Chicago land area.

  As we discuss about what I do at the college and what life of a culinary student is like, the sweet smell of grapes cooking on the stove top like a sweet garden in the summer sun. For those who don't know how jelly is made, I would tell you about the experience I had of making is very simple and very delicious thing creation. The first thing that they do is that they warm up the frozen juice (that has been frozen for sometime for proper storage) and heat it up until the liquid is nice and warm. Then they add the juice to the stock pot on a high heat and add surgar until incorporated. Then after a minute of a roaring boil, we added a gelitinizing product known as pectin. After we added the pectin, we wait for another minute of roaring boiling, we take the pot from the heat and remove some of the foam for presentation. Then we added the jelly to glass jar, when it was sanitized in hot water for about an hour. We poured it into individual jars, seal them and lid them. After they cool off for about fifthteen minutes, the jelly is ready to serve.

  In the end we made two batches that adds up to fourteen jars of jelly and with the cost of all the juice, the lids ,and jars at under $2.00; it is the most economical and most pure tasting jelly I have ever tried. So if you need jelly, the best thing to do is make it and it is worth it after all that hard work. The taste is just pure sugary, berry goodness. It is almost impossible to resist its fruity aroma and firm texture as you bite in with a piece of bread smeared in fruity goodness. The best part about this is that the jelly can last for about a year. So you can make one batch and be set on jelly for an entire year, give or take the amount of jelly used daily. In the end, I would highly recommend making your own jelly and try it for yourself.