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Friday, April 11, 2008

On a Jelly Roll

I am getting so domesticated it's scary! It's almost as though some alien domestic goddess lifeform has taken control of my mind and body... I've been baking bread, and even dragged out the sewing machine the other day to do some mending, then today, following the instructions on the Prairieland Herbs site, I made violet jelly. I haven't made jelly in years and could barely remember where I'd stashed the canner and jars, but after digging around in the basement, I found them, covered with dust from years of unuse. So they were hauled upstairs, given a thorough scrubbing, scalding and the like, and I was ready to make some jelly.

Since there were several clumps of violets scattered about the yard, I picked about 4 or 5 hundred blossoms to get 2 cups of petals.




After infusing them in water, then straining them out, I had a jar of blue juice. When the lemon juice was added, it turned the juice a lovely violet, lilac color. And when it was all finished, there sat four jars of beautiful sparkly jelly! Well, you can see only three jars, but you get the idea.


So now I'm excitedly looking forward to blueberry, strawberry and blackberry season- maybe even pepper season- pepper jelly sounds good. Yes, I am definitely on a jelly roll!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

gorgeous! did you actually pick each petal off each flower? how does it taste?

*suffering severe violet envy*

Unknown said...

Good heavens, No! I'd still be picking off petals. I just used the entire flower. It tastes "different"- not lemony, as I thought it would. I guess it tastes like violets-but except for the candied ones, I've never tasted violets before.Mr. G said he couldn't figure out the taste, either.

Rurality said...

You should bring some to the soap meeting!

Unknown said...

Rurality- There may not be any left by then! It is quite tasty on toast :)

FarmWife said...

I so have to try this! I've never made jelly before, but we have violets in profusion!

Omelay said...

how beautiful. we want to make violet jelly. maybe next year

Unknown said...

farmwife- you must try it- I had forgotten how much fun jellymaking could be, and how satifying...

karl-thanks- I wish we had more violets, I 'd love to make some more- maybe next year.