Making jelly is much easier than I thought and I find myself wondering why I waited so long. However, after having to strain all my raspberries through cheesecloth to make my raspberry jelly I decided I did not like that part of the process at all. I knew I needed some help and after a little research ended up splurging and ordering the Roma Food Strainer & Sauce Maker (And I also ordered the additional strainer attachments for berries and grapes.). Making the grape jelly is pretty much the same as making my Homemade Raspberry Jelly, the only difference being the quantities that go into the recipe and the fact that getting the juice out of the grapes was so much easier! The really big bonus for me was that the grapes were FREE! I picked them ripe off the vine in my yard :-)
The Ball Classic Pectin recipe on the label does not give the amounts required for making grape jelly so I had to use their Pectin Calculator. It's a very simple and helpful way to get the exact ratio of juice/pectin/sugar that is necessary for any fruit you want to do. They also have a lot of other recipes available if you are combining fruits or are making herb jellies (mint for example). FYI the jelly does NOT come out purple! My husband was a little upset at first, but after he tasted it he realized it tasted just like the regular grape jelly from the store. It's funny how we get used to things being a certain way. Check out the Free Grape Jelly Labels at the bottom of this post! How to Video (written instructions and pictures are below)
Grape Jelly Recipe:
Directions:
Problems, Questions, or Want to Learn More?
Check out Simply Canning for help with Water Bath Canning. Check out The National Center For Home Food Preservation.
Free 4 ounce Jar Printable labels!
This is a pdf file that is designed to be used with Avery White Address Labels 5160/8160 size 1" x 2 5/8". Print a full sheet of labels, write in your name and the date, and choose to cut it out on the line or not! Click on the pictures or button below to download the pdf file.
I am really glad I purchased the products above and can vouch for them 100%! They made the process so much easier and in turn more pleasant. Check them out by clicking on one of the two pictures above or one of these two links: Roma Food Strainer or Roma Strainer Accessory Kit at Amazon (affiliate links).
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As promised here are two new recipes using my very own homegrown raspberries! Of course you can make the jelly and the smoothie/smoothie ice pops using any fruit, but raspberries are my favorite since I don't have to buy them! As with all the recipes I share, you can use the button below to download the pdf file below and print one sheet of 8 1/2 x 11 cardstock paper. You can then cut out each of the 4 x 6 inch recipe cards. They always come two per sheet. Visit my Recipes Page to print out previous recipes (pdf files) or to download a FREE 4 x 6 Recipe Card Template (.dox file) for your own recipes! Enjoy!
Check out my other posts about raspberries:
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Making homemade jelly is something that has been on my to-do list for so long it is not even funny. Years ago I made an attempt to can pickled cauliflower and it was an epic failure so I was not in any rush to give canning another try. Until now that is, and finally, SUCCESS! I made homemade raspberry jelly using my very own homegrown raspberries (See Grow Your Own Raspberries) that I had stored in the freezer (See Freezing Raspberries) until I was ready. What could be better than that?
Thank you to Simply Canning for their excellent water bath canning instructions! The information they shared was extremely helpful :-) Check out the FREE Printable Jelly Jar Labels below! Canning Jelly
Jelly not fully set?
Jelly is a little runny (doesn't fully set): Depending upon how 'runny' it is you can choose to do different things. If it's not too runny you can try putting it in the refrigerator and see if this helps it to set. If so, great, nothing else to do. If it doesn't set after that and you are not ok with calling it and using it as a jelly the way it is, you can either use it as a sauce (like for pancakes) or re-process it using more pectin. Just know that there is nothing wrong with it even if it is runny. It is completely edible and will last just as long as 'set' jelly if the seals are good! For other questions, concerns or problems check out the wealth of information available at The National Center For Home Food Preservation.
Free 4 ounce Jar Printable labels!
This is a pdf file that is designed to be used with Avery White Address Labels 5160/8160 size 1" x 2 5/8". Print a full sheet of labels, write in your name and the date, and choose to cut it out on the line or not! Click on the picture or button below to download the pdf file. Click here for FREE printable 4 x 6 recipe card! Check out my post Grow Your Own Raspberries! Check out my post Freezing Raspberries!
Please like us on Facebook, follow us on Pinterest and Instagram, and sign up to be on our Mailing List so you never miss a post! Thank you for your support :-)
I love salads in the summer and these two are no exception! I know they are simple, but that's the point, remember? The simpler the better in my book! My recipe book I mean :-) As with all the recipe cards I share, feel free to download the pdf file below and print out on 8 1/2 x 11 cardstock paper. They are 4 x 6 inch cards. Visit my Recipes Page to print out previous recipes (pdf files) or to download a FREE 4 x 6 Recipe Card Template (.dox file). Enjoy! Please 'like' us on Facebook or join our mailing list so you never miss newly shared recipe cards!
Here are two newly typed recipe cards that I am adding to my recipe book in my quest to organize it. I love any recipe that I can add my fresh garden vegetables to and these two recipes fall into that category because I can use my freshly harvested string beans in both of them! The fried rice recipe is also especially fun because I always make it with the extra rice left over from ordering Chinese food (They always give us so much!) so I am also not wasting food:-) Use the button at the bottom of the page to download a pdf file to print out and keep! Click the button below to download a pdf document of both recipes. I print them out on 8 1/2 x 11 inch white card stock paper and cut them out by hand. The cards are 4 x 6 inches. Check out My Recipe Page for more information, more recipes, and a FREE Recipe Card Template (.dox) you can download and use for your own recipes! Sign up to be on our Mailing List and/or like us on Facebook so you don't miss out on our new posts!
Free 4 x 6 recipe template AND two fresh vegetable recipes below! Cooking is not my favorite thing to do. I don't mind it, but it certainly wouldn't be my first choice of things to do with my free time. Actually it wouldn't even be my second, third, or fourth either! However, it is a necessary 'evil' that must be accomplished for the sake of my family, and well, keeping my own body going. We have to eat to survive, right? I do like to eat, but thats a different subject for another time. Suffice it to say that for now I at least try to keep what I cook as simple and as healthy as possible. My recipe book, however, is anything but simple so I recently decided to redo it. I have had it for about 20 years now and it's a complete disaster. I just kept throwing new recipes into it haphazardly over time to the point where it's completely disorganized and I don't even know what's in there anymore. Of course my favorite recipes don't require 'looking up' but I have been thinking for a while now about making sure they are all written down and organized so that I can share them with my daughter. So that's basically what my recipe page is really about: organizing my recipe book, creating one for my daughter, and of course sharing it all with you in the hopes that you will want to organize your recipe book too! First Things First: A New Recipe Book See that dilapidated old recipe book above? Well, I asked for a new one for my birthday. I did a lot of research on the kind of recipe book I wanted. It needed to be something that I could organize the way I wanted and not the way the company that made the book forced me to. I needed to be able to take the pages out, but also be able to add new ones at will and move them all around as needed. I also wanted to be able to make my own recipe cards on the computer (typed of course) and be able to print them and cut them out myself. I really had a lot of requirements....picky? Yeah, definitely. But I only plan on doing this ONCE! However, I also read online that making a recipe book for someone is a great gift as well so I wanted to be able to save and easily print out all my recipe cards for someone if I decide to make it as a gift. At the top of this post is a picture of the new recipe book I picked out. It meets and exceeds all my expectations! It is a CR Gibson and is available on Amazon. Additional pages can also be purchased (I asked for and got those too!). I specifically like it because of the following:
Whether you buy a new recipe book or not, I hope you join me on this journey to getting it organized and/or starting over from scratch! Recipe Card Template There was absolutely no way I was handwriting all of my recipes (Ugh... I couldn't even imagine doing that!). Writing them by hand would also defeat the entire purpose of being able to easily duplicate the cards to make a 'gift' recipe book. So I went online but there were so many recipe card templates to choose from that I didn't even know where to start! I finally just decided to make my own because I wanted the card to be simple, one sided, and not use a lot of ink when I printed it out. This makes it very easy for me to keep a file of all the recipes I type up so that if I want to make the gift recipe book I talked about earlier I can just open the file and print up the cards that are all ready to go! Here is an example of the card:
Typing & Printing the Recipe Cards To use the template, download the MS Word Document and open it. On the card, right click on the black text next to 'Recipe For' and delete or highlight "Type Name Here." Then simply type in the title of your recipe. Do the same for the ingredients and the directions. If you are good with MS Word you can insert a picture as well! After typing the recipes in, simply print the cards. I use white card stock paper because it is heavier like an index card. Then I simply cut out the card on the dotted line (which may be very faint) and slip it into a sleeve in the book!
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Hi there! I'm Kathie, the author behind Creating A Simpler Life blog. I'm excited to share our longterm projects (and planning) toward building our future retirement homestead in the Adirondack Mountains of New York. In the meantime I will be sharing all the other little things we do that are part of creating our simpler life!
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