Grapes
As Dog is my witness, I will never work with Concord Grapes again! (ok, a slight revision of Scarlett O'Hara's famous "never be hungry" line...how many of you caught that reference?)
We picked our grapes this weekend. That means wrestling with leaves the size of platters to get to the clusters, then keep all of the grapes together while tearing them from the vines. Without smooshing them. Or losing them. Or losing it at the sight of few-days-old out-of-skin grapes that the birds kindly left you to think of some kind of slime monster.
Then comes the question of what to do with grapes, especially when you're not really set up for canning. What to do with four LARGE bowls of grapes. That you have to seed. Google "seeding grapes" and come up with this pie recipe. Think to yourself, "ok, we can do this in time to take it to friends for a BSG evening" (we're trying to finish the second half of the last season....that's all we have left, and we just can't seem to get together to make it happen).
Um, yeah. Skinning the grapes is actually fun. You pull the grape of the stem, point the hole where the stem was into a bowl, and lightly squeeze, pushing the grape out. I can definitely see where the "peeled grapes for eyeballs" works for haunted houses and the like.
Seeding the grapes is not so much fun. No problems with boiling them to loosen the seeds. But pressing them through either a colandar or a sieve just wasn't working. Maybe I didn't boil them enough. Maybe I wasn't pressing them correctly. But the amount of time and niggling details for getting grapes without seeds....I could have watched quite a few episodes of Weeds or Pushing Daisies or even BSG for that amount of time. My right shoulder is killing me.
And my 4 1/2 cups of grapes? Actually enough for 3 pies, when I was really expecting one. And I didn't even get through peeling and seeding all of the grapes we picked. And we had to finish cooking the pie at the friends' because we were already way late as it was.
So, we had two pies, with the fixings for a third. And another two pies (maybe 3) waiting for their turn to be skinned, seeded, pureed, and baked. I finished the third pie last night, only turned it into a crumble instead. I may have over-cooked this one, and I may have forgotten to put extra sugar into the grape pulp itself, so it may be inedible. But no worries! I have the fixings for more!
So. Very. Tired. Of. Dealing. With. Grapes! The Husband says there are more ripe grapes on the vine. I told him he was on his own.