Harvest – Simply Made Kitchen and Crafts

When we lived in Chicago, there was a local neighborhood restaurant that served the most delicious salad with greens, cucumbers, chicken breast, croutons and thousand island dressing. Every Sunday we would treat ourselves to their delightful salad along with one of their tasty pizzas.
When I tried to duplicate the salad at home, bottled thousand island dressing just didn’t make the grade. In those days, the Internet was not as extensive as it is now so I scoured my collection of cookbooks for a basic dressing recipe. My old Betty Crocker Cookbook (fifth printing,1988) had the perfect recipe because I had all of the ingredients on hand and could make the dressing with little effort. While I have altered the original recipe a bit, this Old Fashioned Thousand Island Dressing recipe has become a favorite in my house.

Old Fashioned Thousand Island Dressing

1 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons sweet pickle relish
2 tablespoons ketchup
1 teaspoon finely chopped onion
1 hard boiled egg, chopped

Mix all ingredients; cover and refrigerate before serving.

It’s Pickin’ Time!
Several years ago, we planted a few grape plants on a fence that divides our property from our neighbors. This is actually the first year that we have had success in growing a sizable crop of Concord grapes. In the past, as the late summer heat would coax the grapes to ripen, the deer would wait for the opportune time to mosey over to the vines and demolish the crop in one short evening. M and I would get giddy over the dark purple grapes that were just about ready to be picked and the very next day, they would be completely gone…ripped from the vines by the much more experienced deer.
As my husband was out mowing the lawn this weekend, he noticed that the majority of our grapes were just about ready to be harvested. M and I grabbed all of the available baskets and headed outdoors to pick our crop. We were delighted with the over abundance of fruit. My hubby even joined in knowing that we only had a small window of time to pick the fruit before the deer would come along and swallow up the lot.
This long holiday weekend will bring lots of late summer heat but I am anxious to get my grapes prepared to make batches of Concord grape jelly. While I have been canning for years, I have never tried processing seeded grapes to make jelly. I always rely on the Ball Blue Book to carefully and safely process canned goods. Since this is the first year that we have had a sizable crop, I have searched for recipes all over the Internet. I think I have settled on one or two that I will try. If any of you have a great grape jelly recipe or a few tips that you would like to share…please do so in the comments section of this post. I am hoping to successfully report back in a future post, news about the products of my labor.

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