Culinary Funtimes/ Using The Last of Last Year's Produce

This is going to be a shorter post. I am just happy to announce that the last of last year's produce has been used up. The last of the zucchini was roasted on the grill along with some potatoes and yellow squash we got from the store and rosemary and sage and thyme fresh from this years garden. The last of the butternut squash puree was made into squash almond muffins for my Bugaloo. 

Lastly this week I also used up some grapes that were about to turn and made my first ever grape jam. Now I say first ever not to say I have never made grape jelly before.. I have loads of times.. but this was a grape jam.  I don't know if everyone who reads this blog knows the difference between Jam and jelly so I will explain a bit. A jam is made when you boil down fruit, water and sugar/pectin into a jell. However jelly is made when you extract juice from fruit and use that to jell with sugar and water and pectin. The difference ends up being that jam will have bits of real fruit in it while jelly is clean and clear and pure throughout. This was a new concept for me because I have never in my life heard of grape jam. It is the practice of most of the world to extract the juices of the grapes through cheese cloth and then jell that. However I was out of cheese cloth and so used a strainer. The result was that the skins and seeds stayed in the strainer but the meat of the grapes was small enough to pass through the holes. I was not sure how it would turn out but it was divine. We all loved it.