Saturday, December 22, 2018

How is this not already a thing?

Between toast and PBJs, my kids go through their fair share of jelly. Plus my share, since I don't tend to eat much of those things. In the past few weeks, they've adopted a new favorite flavor, and it's probably not one that most of my readers have ever eaten.

We made this discovery rather by accident. First, we bought strawberry preserves at Aldi, and they weren't berry good. Way way way too thick. Like, unspreadably thick. So we bought preserves elsewhere, and the Aldi stuff languished in the fridge, back behind the tupperware full of pickles, beside the leftover pizza sauce.

Meanwhile, our 4th grader went to a birthday party where the big activity was picking fruit. Primarily grapes, the kind with the seeds in. So she comes home with this big box of grapes, which are a complete pain in the butt to eat, of course, or do anything else with. I decide to make jelly out of this, because waste not, want not. Only in the midst of this project did I realize that we never got a new candy thermometer when our last one broke, so I kind of eyeballed it. Yeah, sure, that looks like 232 degrees or whatever. I assume that's why it never really solidified. 

I got the girls to tolerate it, even though it was functionally like pouring a liquid on their toast or whatever. And then, one day, inspiration struck: combine the too-thick preserves with the too-thin jelly in the food processor. Not only did this result in a better consistency than either on its own, the girls absolutely adored the flavor. 

Unfortunately, my supply is dwindling, and my supplies of thickened grape juice are exhausted. I may try regular old grape jelly--I may have to, or face a revolt from my kids--but the real question for me is why the two most popular fruit spreads the are didn't join forces before now? Why can't I just buy this somewhere?

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