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Perhaps taking on two kinds of jelly making in one day is just asking for too much. Yesterday, I made elderberry jelly and following immediately, I attempted to make mint jelly. It didn't set. I'm guessing it must have been in a twist because I devoted a whole blog post, photos and all, to the elderberries, and all the mint got was a tiny mention at the bottom of the post. Ok, Ok...I get it.
So today, after another run to the market for more pectin, I devoted my full attention to the mint. Of course, the mint plants are completely flowered out right now and there are a gazillion bees, hornets, wasps, beetles, and a huge assortment of all kinds of crawly things infesting the whole patch. The recipe demands 1 1/2 cups of packed mint leaves....that's a lot of leaves and takes a long time to collect when you are dodging stinging insects. It didn't help that Jeff disturbed an underground nest of yellow jackets close by the mint patch the day before and has waged complete and entire war on these guys since yesterday, including running the nest over with the car a few times. Needless to say, there are some really pissed off yellow jackets zooming all over the place still trying to place blame on whatever happens to walk by.
My Sister will be happy to know that the jelly is successful this time, so I'll have some jelly to trade for those eggs this week! Yippeee! I'm hoping to make one more batch of mint this week. This recipe only makes 4 - half pint jars....not enough to get hungry bears through the winter. The jars, above, are the results. Only three squat jars left, so there's a regular 1/2 pint mixed in. The mint, when boiled down, turns an ochre color, so I added only one small drop of green food coloring to give it a more appealing color.
Gee! Those pretty little jars of mint jelly make me wish I liked lamb! Perfect for holiday gift giving though right? Might have to make some after all.
ReplyDeleteExactly, Kay! I plan on putting together a little basket with three or four different jellies, preserves for gift giving. I'll need to get some nice letterpress gift tags on Etsy!
ReplyDeleteThat's some good looking mint jelly! :-) And as to the wasp situation, tell your hubby that I read on Wikipedia that wasps and hornets should never be attacked because they send out an alarm that hangs in the air wherever the alarm went out, and it can cause them to sting 'en masse'...which can kill a human!!! O_0 {I'm having a problem with hornets and wasps at my hummingbird feeder....UGH!} I just found this info on how to get rid of them. I'm going to be using this info myself!
ReplyDeletehttp://pests.getridofthings.com/get-rid-of-yellow-jackets.htm
Thanks for the advice! Already too late, he's been working at them for two days now. He got stung once, when he first stepped on the nest while weed whacking, but hasn't been stung again. He's planning on bringing the tractor over there and using the backhoe to dig them out! Yikes! He has bee keeping experience and I just recently watched while he helped a friend of his capture a swarm of bees that had split from one of her hives (not that yellow jackets compare to honey bees at all!). The swarm was huge. I've never seen anything like it, or HEARD anything like it. So cool!
ReplyDeleteYikes! O_O
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