The Grape

This weekend we drove out to Yarrow to pick up the boys from my parent's place and, of course, we had to pick up more grapes. We've already made grape juice from 20 lbs of grapes this year... and it's a lot of work... but when you see these grapevines full to the brim of these juicy concord organic grapes it just makes you want to do something with them.
You might just be asking what we are doing with all this juice? Well, we usually manage to make a couple of batches of Grape jelly for the year with a few extras to give a way to friends and family. But also, the grape juice is really amazing. It's like eating a bunch of fresh grapes, it tastes that fresh and delicious.

Lemon Bars & Honeysuckle

Signs of summer in action: honeysuckle and lemon bars! Since I needed to bring something to a little pre-film premiere party with Faythe Levine, lemon bars seemed like the perfect Summer treat to make yesterday! I used the ol' Best of the Bridge recipe book (although this one is similar and online), and since I was doubling the recipe, I changed the crust to include 1 cup ground oatmeal and 1 cup flour. I found the crust a wee bit on the buttery side and was wondering if I could lessen the amount of butter and add a couple of teaspoons of water or something- maybe egg whites to hold the crust together, since there are no other binding agents besides butter for the crust on this recipe. I might also consider a little less sugar, although, lemon bars are supposed to be sweet, chewy and a little 'melt in your mouth' all at the same time. I was glad there were lots of treats at the party and I was able to bring a few home for the family!
Speaking of the party- it was a great little gathering with a really nice mix of local people within the design and craft community that I hadn't met before. It was nice to see some of the faces behind emails and other online contacts and hopefully there will be more of these little gatherings to come!

Out of Jam...

We took a trip to a local berry farm this past weekend to pick up a flat of strawberries for making jam. Surprisingly, strawberry season is nearly over here- the berries were small but sweet and juicy. With raspberry season on the horizon, I'm hoping to fill all our empty jars in our basement with homemade jam for the year to come!