Making Mint Jelly: Part One

This is the first time that we are trying this, and we haven't even finished yet, so don't try to follow this recipe until I posted a final part that says it actually worked.

We have tons of mint in our garden. One day DH asked curiously, "Can we make mint jelly?"

I said I didn't know, but we started hitting the recipe books. We found one recipe in Chile that called for cooking a large quantity of green apples then adding mint flavoring. That wasn't quite what we wanted, so I set to work online. The recipes that I found fit into two classes, using apples as a base and using purchased pectin. After discussion with his mother and some look in the stores, we decided to try the second method.

So I started the first phase today. I collected lots and lots of mint. No, I didn't measure it. It was probably five or six large handfuls of very tall mint stocks. I used one of those slightly curved, two-handled knives to chop the mint. I put that in a pot with about 2 L of water.

I let it simmer for couple hours. When DH got home from work, we brought up to a boil, then turn it off. Then he put it down in the workshop to cool.

The packets of pectin called for 1 L of cold juice each. To that they add a kilo of sugar. So I need to strain my liquid and get it cool.

Figuring out the best way to strain it took some experimentation. I decided to use wine bottles with screw on lids for storing the juice until we feel like making the jelly (hopefully this weekend). What I did was use a large spoon with holes in it to remove the majority of the mint pieces. I lost some liquid that way, but mint is cheap and water is not that expensive. I put a coffee filter into a funnel in the top of the wine bottle. Then I ladled in the liquid, trying not to get too much leaves with. When I got to the bottom, I just scraped all of it into the filter.

The result of this effort is probably close to 2 L of mint-flavored water. It took me three filters, but the first one was part of my experimentation process. DH took the bucket of mint pieces that I took out the other spoon outside to the compost.

Now, we let it cool and see what happens.

Some Administrative Stuff

As some of my older readers have already noticed, I have opened the blog up to public viewing, eliminating your need to log in to view my content. I am not really advertising the blog anywhere, but passing the link on occasionally to people who might be interested. It is okay if any of my readers want to pass the link on to someone else they think might be interested or show the content to someone.

I am already direct e-mailing posts to my grandmother. If anyone else wants to be added to that list, let me know. Grandmom, you may have to check my blog in your web browser to see photos and videos. I noticed that I didn't get the photos in the message when a friend added me to her e-mail list. So that is probably the case for you too.

I have also added a couple new features to the blog. I've added my "Tea of the Day" list where I post whatever tea I am drinking each day. I just felt like it.

I also set up a Twitter account and added the feed here so people can see what I've been up to lately if they want to.

You only need the Twitter Doo-Dad at the bottom if you have a twitter account that you want to log in to. I added it because it made it easier for me to get into twitter than having to go to that web site all the time too. ;-)

Horse Video

The long awaited, at least by my mother (who won't be able to see it probably until later this week at the earliest), video DH shot of our walk to the horses.

The Weekend

Our weekend was extended by a day because DH's work made him take a day of his comp time because there wasn't enough work. Luckily he is back at work today, but it was a very hectic weekend for us. We just had a lot to get done and even with the extra day, not enough time.

Friday DH came home to pick up me and the girls after work then we went to his parents for dinner. We left early enough to go get fence posts enroute and put up a fence around their main vegetable, herb, and flower garden to keep the girls out of it. DH had set a couple rows of leeks for them (he will do most of the care but it enables them to harvest when they want them without having to call us a few days ahead to arrange for a dropoff) and we didn't want the girls running through it while they play in the fenced yard. We got that done then had a nice dinner and headed back out to do some more yard stuff. We pulled some plants out of their front bed that there were too many of and some weeds. Then DH trimmed several bushes and trees for them. We put what we could onto the trailer, but left a load behind. I hope to get the video of the girls playing with the branches up on their blog one of these days.

Saturday we planted the lilac seedlings we brought home from their place. Then DH took the car up to the neighbors and walked home. You see, we needed to lead Queenie and Hopi up to the summer pasture at his place and there was NO WAY I could walk that far twice. I led Queenie, who kindly let me lean on her shoulders to rest my hip some of the time. DH took Hopi, who is much better at being led thanks to my work and the time she went with a short stiff lead rope in her halter. She wasn't easy though. He had to drag her, quite literally, across the road. We were lucky to get a small break in the heavy weekend vacation traffic, but it wasn't big enough to dilly dally and try to teach her anything. So while she put her legs forward to try to stop, he dragged her across the road. After that things settled down and she was able to nibble some clover once she realized her mother was cool with it all. The train tracks were another problem, but it helped that she'd already seen Queenie cross.

So now our little herd of shetland ponies is reunited and they sure are happy about it! Idiot me didn't realize I was supposed to take Hopi's halter off when I released her (she is growing and it can quickly become too tight), so we had to go back up yesterday morning to do it.

We went in to visit a bit with the neighbor, who is enjoying having enough time for his garden and whitewashing now that he doesn't have cows to milk twice a day. We also needed to pay him for the hay we got from him all winter.

Then when we got home, I crashed for a while in exhaustion. Once I recovered a little, it was back to work with laundry and other chores. We dug up some of our own potatoes for the first time for dinner (we didn't have enough left). They were bigger than DH expected but not huge and VERY good. So we have now eaten the first of the harvest of our own garden.

Sunday we started as early as DH could get me out of bed (it was NOT early). It took me a while to get functional. Then he decided it was time to sand and refinish the coffee table, so we took that outside and got it started. While he scrubbed it down, I got out his farrier equipment and got it set up.

Then we fetched Quintas and spent several hours trimming her hooves. She was not particularly cooperative (we think she might have had a bad experience as a foal... it wouldn't be a surprise if she had considering how neglected and undernourished she was when DH got her). It took a long time, but he did a GREAT job on her. She had problems with some of the hoof having broken off, so it was not easy for him to clean up all those rough edges and get a decent result.

After that, I got another rest and he sanded the table. At some point, I made some homemade salad dressing with sour cream, fresh parsley and chives, and salt and pepper to have with dinner (pork tenderloin medallions, readymade potato wedges we seasoned, and salad) and prepared the salad.

While the sanding equipment was out, we got out of one of the panels of the folding wooden screen we retrieved from the trash place a while ago. It must have been a very gorgeous oriental screen once with inlaid stone. But when we got it, some of the stone had come off. So we removed all of it then but it has been standing in the workshop waiting for more attention since. So we got the one panel out and I was able to sand both sides. We need to get something to fill in the holes from the stones before we can paint it and we're still discussing decoration options. But I found an online pattern for a huge horse stencil and we're thinking of spray painting that on. I also have some other smaller stencil patterns in western motives that we could use. They are smaller than we want probably, so I may need to try to copy them up larger (copy machine can't do that, so I would have to do ti manually with the grid method).

I was really beat from everything we did, so I ended up lying outside on a blanket working on the book I am editing for Edith (she wrote it in Englihs, which is not her native language, but it is quite good and a joy to edit). DH worked on repairing the stucco on the house while I did that. I have pics of the house before and will have to take some after pictures to show what we've been up to with it. It has taken a LOT of hours already and many more to go before it looks decent again.

Then we had dinner. While he was taking the potatoes out of the oven, DH's back suddenly went really bad, probably caused by having fought with Quintas in the morning. So he spent the rest of the evening in misery trying to relax. I did manage to fold some laundry, but other than that, we were donebeing productive.

Monday he had fun getting me out of bed again becase I was hurting really bad. I also had to take more pain killers than usual. But then we started running lots of errands. We got the halter off Hopi, went to the pet store for dog food, two grocery stores, and several other places. By the time we got home, both my brain and my body had shut down from the pain. So I spent most of the rest of the day resting. DH went to a local blacksmith to get a hoof jack made similar to the one he borrowed from a friend.

In the evening, we worked together to pull and trim rhubarb for his mother. He packed his lunch and played with the girls (while I continued to rest) then we went to bed.

Today he brought me a pain killer at 5am before he left for work. Then I stayed in bed 5 more hours until a friend dropped by to see how I was and got me out of bed. I was on my way up anyway. So I talked to her for a while then got the girls out and got myself dressed.

I have two main projects today beyond recovering: bathing Shawnee (she smells like a dog, which isn't normal for our girls) and doing the dishes. I already got a zinc tub out and filled it part way with water in the sun for bathing her. I want the water to warm up. I also put the hose where the sun will be on it so at least some of my rinse water is warm. And the towels are out on the picnic table to warm up too. I need to do that soon but it has been a little cloudy and the water is not as warm as I hoped yet, but the chill is off it. I also did some rinsing and sorting of the dishes, so they won't be too bad to wash.

Now I am going to rest soem more before I get to work. Hope everyone else is ahving a good week.

Bird Pictures

I had the long lens on while out photoing DH playing wiht the girls last night. On a short break, I got distracted by this bird. The Danish name is "gulspurv"--translates to "yellow sparrow." Havenn't had the chance to look up the proper English or scientific name.