Re: Onions and grapes

Do you know any of the other jelly makers in your area? Well enough to borrow a juicer? Several women I know share a juicer. I don't know if they bought it together or the owner is just generous. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Johnson Cyndi D Civ 95 CG/SCSRT" <cyndi.johnson@edwards.af.mil> 
To: <gardenchat@hort.net>
Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2007 9:39 AM
Subject: RE: [CHAT] Onions and grapes



Nope...I've looked at them, but it's one of those things I would
probably only use once a year. In any case my cupboards are full, I'd
have to get rid of some other appliance first!
I did get a suggestion from another group to caramelize the onions in
the slow-cooker (you just throw them in sliced, add some olive oil and
slow cook for about 10 hours) and then freeze them for later. I'm going
to try it this weekend.

Cyndi


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-gardenchat@hort.net [o*@hort.net] On
Behalf Of james singer
Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2007 2:11 AM
To: gardenchat@hort.net
Subject: Re: [CHAT] Onions and grapes

Do you have a steam juicer?

On Aug 20, 2007, at 4:56 PM, Johnson Cyndi D Civ 95 CG/SCSRT wrote:


Hmmm, sounds worthwhile, I'll try drying some onions. But I'll put the



dehydrator in the garage I think.
Yes the grape juice is incredibly sweet, more like syrup actually. My
tomato processor is a "Victorio" but it's the same machine pretty

much.

However the grape stems were too big and tough to go through the
smaller spiral that the tomatoes use, so it jammed up almost
instantly. Once we separated out the stems it worked okay. But still,
too much work for not enough return, I won't try it again unless I
have some better method or a pressing need (pun intended :-) for the
product.

Cyndi


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-gardenchat@hort.net [o*@hort.net] On
Behalf Of james singer
Sent: Monday, August 20, 2007 11:33 AM
To: gardenchat@hort.net
Subject: Re: [CHAT] Onions and grapes

Onions. I'd dry a bunch of them. Then turn the dried ones into flakes
and powder.

Wine grapes. I grew a few gwertztreminer [sp?] at the farm. I
processed them with a "Squeezo," which separated juice from all that
other stuff--skins, seeds, stems. The juice was cloudy, not clear. I
canned it in 1/2 pints--breakfast glass serving size jars. The juice
did not settle; it remained cloudy. It tasted great. I did not have a
brix meter at the time, but the sugar content was high-high--the juice



was quite sweet and tasty.


On Aug 20, 2007, at 2:04 PM, Johnson Cyndi D Civ 95 CG/SCSRT wrote:


I harvested the rest of the onions, these are "Candy", a nice yellow
onion. They did extremely well this year and I'll definitely plant
them again. I only had a few of them show signs of stress (they start



forming double bulbs inside the outer layer) and their average size
is



a whopping five inches across. I had a couple monsters at 8 inches
across!
So the spare fridge is full of onions and there's another 20 pounds
of



so just sitting in the garage waiting for inspiration to strike me -
they can't stay there long, it's too hot in there. You should be
happy



that you associate with me only via email, because we'll be eating a
lot of onions now.
So we have these grapevines. They are wine grapes we planted many
years ago, mostly for fun, thinking one day we might get ambitious
and



try making our own wine, which we haven't. Years ago I picked a bunch



of them and make grape jelly, and about all I remember of it is
learning that if you don't let the grape juice sit for a couple days
you get tartaric acid crystals in your jelly. We hack back the vines
when they get rambunctious and let the birds eat the grapes, they are



very small grapes and have lots of seeds so they're not good for just

eating.

Anyway this year they had a nice crop and I've been looking at them,
thinking as I do every year I ought to do something with them. Late
Sunday afternoon husband and I got a wild hair and we picked about 20



pounds or so and dragged out the tomato squeezer, figuring we'll
squeeze them up and have grape juice. We found out right away that
there's a reason they have different "screens" for squishing tomatoes



vs. grapes, so plan B was removing the grapes off the stems and then
sending them through the squeezer, very tedious.  Well. The
resulting,



ummm, stuff was pretty sludgy and just this awful color of
green/brown



(the color in wine comes from the grape skins, not the juice). So I
dumped a bunch of the skins back in it and let it sit. This morning
we



now have more of a brown/green color, only marginally better, and I
managed to strain out some of the sludge. It's fairly tasty though. I



expect eventually I'll get something drinkable but obviously we need
different equipment if we're going to ever do this again. Probably be



another 10 years before we forget this experiment! Not everything I
do



turns out well.
Husband and I did work in the dry garden too. I showed him the
oenothera (dune primrose) that could be pulled out, and told him not
to touch anything except that and grass. Instantly he says "how about



this?", pointing at freeze-damaged (but not dead) salvia. No, I said,



don't touch anything except those two things. "But how about this?"
pointing at the opuntia and so forth and so on. I had to threaten him



with great bodily harm but he did finally give in. So it doesn't look



much different - it looks like a desert garden at the end of summer,
which is to say, not too great - but I think he feels better. Oh yes
and my opuntia, which was greatly damaged in the Big Freeze, still
does look poorly - but it is putting forth new pads at the edges of
many of the damaged ones, and there were even some blooms. I dumped a



couple gallons of water on it and I have hopes that eventually it
will



be looking good again.

Cyndi

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Island Jim
Southwest Florida
27.1 N, 82.4 W
Hardiness Zone 10
Heat Zone 10
Sunset Zone 25
Minimum 30 F [-1 C]
Maximum 100 F [38 C]

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Island Jim
Southwest Florida
27.1 N, 82.4 W
Hardiness Zone 10
Heat Zone 10
Sunset Zone 25
Minimum 30 F [-1 C]
Maximum 100 F [38 C]

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