Concord Grape Pie and Grape Bread....a Labor of Love

One of the things I look forward to most in anticipation of Fall is all the great baking I can do.

One of my most favorite thing to make is grape pie from Concord grapes grown in the Finger Lakes.

I just need to drive about 45 minutes to get to Naples, NY where the grapes are homegrown in abundance. I like to stop at roadside stands to buy them or go to Joseph's Farm Market just on the edge of town.

The drive down there is beautiful, especially in the Fall and the scenery all the way never gets old.

Making grape pie is a labor of love. Harvesting the grapes is not part of it but I did have a summer job once where I had to tie all the long vines up before the fruit appeared so they could hold the weight of the grape clusters.

We will start with these...

I call it a labor of love because of how you have to prepare the grapes. It is not hard, just time consuming.

You have to squeeze the grape out of it's skin......on all of them!

Cook them down and then smash the seeds out of the pulp....

Here's the recipe so you can get started. It is from Applehood and Motherpie, a local Junior League cookbook.

Finger Lakes Grape Pie with Two
Crusts or Streusel Topping





Two pie crusts for the two crust version. One pie crust for the Streusel version. I use Pillsbury All Ready Pie Crusts. I think they are as good as homemade.



For the Filling:

3 cups Concord grapes                                            

1 cup sugar

3 tablespoons flour

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 tablespoon butter, melted

Wash, drain and stem grapes. Remove and reserve skins. Simmer pulp for 5 minutes.

While hot, press pulp through sieve to remove seeds, or use a pestle and strainer.

Combine strained pulp with skins.

Combine sugar and flour and add to grapes. Blend in lemon juice and butter.

Pour into crust. If using Pillsbury pie crust, you will have a second crust for the top or you can use the streusel topping below.

For the Streusel topping:

This recipe is from Thru the Grapevine, another Fingers Lakes region cookbook.

1/2 cup quick cooking oats                                       Mix oats, sugar and flour; cut in butter.

1/2 cup brown sugar                                                  Place on top of pie.

1/4 cup flour

4 tablespoons butter

Bake the pie at 425 for 10 minutes and then 350 for 30 minutes, or until the top is nicely browned.

I had a bunch of grapes left over so I decided to try Grape Bread. I had just enough to make the filling and it was similar to preparing the grapes for the pie. Bonus! It makes two loaves!

Just look at this gorgeous purple dough!

 Not as pretty when they are baked....

But oh so delicious!!

Here is the recipe I used. I got it online from the Farmer's Almanac Staff.

Concord Grape Bread

1 cup Concord grapes

2 1/3 cups sugar

1 tablespoon cornstarch

1/2 teaspoon lemon juice

3 eggs

1 cup vegetable oil

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

3 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon salt

Remove grapes from stems and wash. Slip skins from grapes and set aside. Bring pulp to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes. 

Press through sieve to remove seeds. Add skins to pulp and place in blender for a few seconds.

Bring grapes to a boil and simmer 20 minutes.

Mix together 1/3 cup sugar and cornstarch until well blended. Add this mixture and the lemon juice to the grape pulp and bring to a boil again. Cook for 5 minutes until thick. Allow to cool.

Add eggs, oil, 2 cups sugar, and vanilla. 

Sift together the dry ingredients and add them to the grape mixture. Stir until moistened. 

Pour into two greased and floured 9 x 5 bread pans. 

Bake at 350 for one hour (mine was done in about 56 minutes).

Enjoy!!

AnnMarie xoxo

I am linking up with these blog parties this week:

Wonderful Wednesday
Talk of the Town
Full Plate Thursday
Best of the Weekend
Anything Goes Pink Saturday
Happiness is Homemade
Dishing It & Digging It

Nineteen Years, a Lavender Festival and Lake Treasures

Eighteen years ago my husband Frank and I celebrated our first year wedding anniversary at a quaint Bed & Breakfast at Skaneateles Lake. One of the Finger Lakes in central New York in the United States, the name Skaneateles means long lake in one of the local Iroquoian languages.

It is a beautiful lake, a quaint town full of great shops and restaurants and this weekend, a Lavender Festival. We decided to celebrate our 19th anniversary on Saturday there. Our actual anniversary day is today, July 13th.

When we arrived at the festival at the Lockwood Lavender Farm on West Lake Rd, the first thing we saw was the mile long line for the bathroom! I was not about to wait in it although nature was calling. You will understand later why I am mentioning it! It still made a pretty picture with the barn in the background!

Just to the left there were rows of gorgeous Lavender.

 

The chair was lavender colored and put there for picture taking. I am holding my long stemmed bunch of lavender that I picked myself. That was one of the main features at this festival. 

 



 

You were given a pair of scissors, instructions and a cardboard guide for how large your bunch could be. I have to dry the bunch for about 3 weeks and then it is ready to display.

While I waited in line to cut my bunch of lavender my sweet husband volunteered to go wait in the bathroom line for me! It worked out perfect! When I got back to him, he was second in line. Did I mention that he agreed to go to a Lavender Festival for OUR anniversary outing? I have been calling him my Knight in Shining Armor for nineteen years now.

This picture was taken after he waited in the bathroom line! It was hot!

On the way to Skaneateles we stopped at a yard sale and an antique sale and got some treasures. My knight doesn't mind thrifting with me at all. Actually he likes it. He wanted to stop at so many yard sales that by the time we stopped at a three floor warehouse flea market on our way home I had to say "enough" because I was exhausted! That is huge. I usually don't say no to thrifting!

This box of antique lamp parts was calling me. I don't know why because I don't really sell supplies but I just loved these!

The large brass ring is from a chandelier.
 

I also found a great set of white enamelware pots with red trim. One has the cover to match. A tan green trimmed enamelware bowl, an Art Deco Son-Chief toaster and a 1930's Acme frying pan.

I just love these purses so I threw that in the mix although it didn't match a thing! :-) I will be listing all of these in my Etsy shop.

 

I came home with a thing or two for me too. I have always loved the look of an old door in the garden but don't want to pay the price for the really chippy, weathered ones. This door was at a yard sale while passing through Auburn, NY on our way home. It is almost 7' tall and has a nice brass pull and hinges on it. I paid $5!

 

 

I am going to figure out the fastest way to weather this so I can get it in my garden. I may have to paint it aqua first! My friend Susan gave me some great ideas for it so I am anxious to pull it all together. Won't it look great nestled in some ferns with a stone path leading to it and a window box attached near the middle filled with flowers? At night a spotlight can highlight all it's goodness!

And finally, we found an arts and crafts show that had a display of metal garden things. My husband is funny about not having an actual gift on the day of our anniversary so he just had to buy me something. My anniversary gift from him is clearing out a garden and adding a lilac bush, which I have been wanting since we moved here. Since the planting can't be done till Fall, he bought me this....

 

It is a metal sculpture, all chippy and rusty, which is hard to see, and it is my new favorite color of Aqua! It is large and we spent the morning hanging it from our funky side growing tree over the side garden. 

 

 

 

My gift to my husband was a pair of Converse high tops. He grew up in the 70's and Converse sneakers were the thing to wear, if you had money! They now make them with DC Characters and Frank wanted Batman and Joker. Since they make a pair with Batman and a pair with the Joker, not both characters on one pair, I bought him both! No surprise to me that he wore one from each pair at the same time. One foot Batman, one foot Joker. No joke!!

 



 

He pulled the look off great with his blue plaid shorts and Batman t-shirt. We went to the new Minion movie and Panera for dinner, with our son, as our anniversary date.

 

Next year Italy!

 

 

AnnMarie xoxo

 

I am sharing with these great blog parties:

 

Show and Share

A Return to Lovliness

Roses of Inspiration

Thrift and Vintage Finds Link Party

Wake Up Wednesday Linky Party

What's It Wednesday

Vintage Inspiration Party

Share Your Style

Home and Garden Thursday

Share Your Cup Thursday

Best of the Weekend



The Saga of The Canandaigua Lady

Every year for two weeks in August my son Michael goes off to camp. My husband Frank and I take this opportunity and try to find things to do together while Michael is gone. Things that he would usually find boring or not so much fun for a teenager.

 So, last August we booked a dinner cruise on the Canandaigua Lady.

As of writing this, and four attempts later, we still have not boarded the boat.

We are so fortunate to live at the tip of the Finger Lake area in Upstate New York, closest to Canandaigua Lake, one of the five Finger Lakes. Canandaigua (meaning “the chosen spot”) is a resort community with great shopping, restaurants and access to the shores of one of the most beautiful of the lakes.  

The Canandaigua Lady is a paddleboat that docks at The Steamboat Landing restaurant on the lake and provides lake cruises throughout the Summer and early Fall.

For our first attempt at cruising on the lake in a paddleboat, we were driving the 20 minutes with plenty of time to get there when we ran into lines and lines of traffic outside the area we needed to get to.  I know the area pretty well so we tried other ways to get in. All were clogged up with lines of traffic. It could only mean one thing. There was a concert at CMAC Performing Arts Center, another wonderful feature of this area, just not this particular night for us!

CMAC is located on the campus of Finger Lakes Community College. The outdoor amphitheatre brings in top artists from all over the country to perform. That night it was a huge performer, although I can’t recall his name now!

We were literally on Lakeshore Drive, within site of the boat, and could not get there because we were sitting in bumper to bumper traffic. The anxiety was high in the car, because of me, and I considered abandoning it and walking the rest of the way! The time came and went to board the boat and it was still sitting at the dock! By the time we got there a half hour late, we were told that the cruise was cancelled due to high winds.

Fast forward to this August. We still have our rain check from last year. We booked another cruise and an hour and a half before we were to be there, we had one of the worst downpours of rain this summer. We cancelled  because the rain had washed away our idyllic perception of being on a boat out on the sunny lake with the water shimmering in all its calmness.

We rescheduled for another day that week. By now we are running out of time because if we don’t get it in before the last week of summer camp, the rain check will sit there another year.

The day of our cruise I woke up sick and in much pain. Another cancellation.

All along I had been having doubts about being able to be on a slow moving, enclosed boat (they no longer serve dinner on the open air upper deck) while eating Eggplant Parmesan. Since childhood I have had a motion sickness problem. We rescheduled the cruise anyways for this past Monday night.

As Monday wore on I was increasingly concerned for the motion, the weather and how cold it was going to be out on the water since it was already one of the coolest days we’ve had this summer. The clouds were as dark as snow clouds.

Then Frank thought of something that never occurred to either of us. On a cruise you usually sit at large tables with other people you do not know. At the risk of sounding antisocial, we did not want that! We were on a mission to spend time together, alone, something that is scarce in our busy lives with a teenager at home.

A phone call confirmed that we would sit at a table for eight with six other people. Another cancellation.

Resigned to the fact that we would probably NEVER go on the Canandaigua Lady, we made reservations at the Steamboat Landing restaurant, sat outside on the deck overlooking the water and had a wonderful dinner together.

After dinner we walked along the shore and since we were in full view of the boat, we watched as others boarded. The weather had miraculously transformed from dark, dreary clouds to bright sunshine that spilled over the shimmering, calm water. Yup, exactly how we had  wanted it to be. There was even a rainbow over the horizon!

It was just not meant to be. And so goes the saga of The Canandaigua Lady. Farewell Canandaigua Lady….….farewell.

AnnMarie :)

Garlic and Grapes in the Finger Lakes

If you have lived in Upstate New York all your life, or more specifically in the Finger Lakes area like I have, did you know that the Finger Lakes are known for their garlic as well as their wine? I must admit that I did not!

Drive along any of the Finger Lakes....Keuka, Canandaigua, Seneca, Cayuga..... and there is that familiar sight of grape vineyards rolling down the hillsides.....dotted with a barn and fences. The grapes are clustered on the vine, almost ready to pick.

It is quite beautiful.

But where is the garlic grown? I never knew until two years ago when I came upon The Garlic Festival, held every year in August at Fox Run Vineyards on Seneca Lake. I thought it would be a nice drive down Rt. 14 S along the lake to see what it was all about. We were pleasantly surprised to see the abundance of garlic, garlic scapes and garlic products that were set up in tents to taste and buy. We have gone back twice since then and it seems to grow every year.....

It seems that the climate is ideal for Northern European varieties of hard neck garlic. Just as Vitas vinifera grapes thrive here, so do these specialty garlic varieties. There are many garlic farms dotted throughout the Finger Lakes taking advantage of the perfect conditions of water and air and sun to grow their special garlic. They make their garlic into butters, salts, braids and wreaths to buy.....

There were tents set up for festival vendors such as homemade soap, jewelry and flowers. There were cooking demostrations by area chefs and a flameworker from the Corning Museum of Glass. There was a tent full of any spice you could dream up to use in cooking or baking.

I couldn't resist buying a handmade silver ring made out of an old fork.

And I got the last bunch of silver dollars from a flower vendor....I could have sold them 3 times over to others that were sorry they missed out! That's me, my husband Frank and son Michael.

My daughter Jena, her husband Britt and baby Chloe joined us for the day.



Lake breezes, sun, garlic slices on crackers, gourmet food, family and entertainment. A very nice way to spend a 90+ degree day!



How have you been spending these hot, hot days of summer?

AnnMarie :)

 

Linking up with this great blog party!

Tuesday Trivia