I never had any interest in mint jelly on lamb.
I mean…it just sounded…ick.
Then, not too long ago, Kirk came home from our local butcher with some lamb for the BBQ and a jar of mint sauce that the butcher had convinced him to buy.
We both looked at it with some measure of skepticism…..but they’d never steered us wrong yet. So we tried it.
And…YUM!!!
So here I am in canning season and I popped into Persia Foods for a few things and mint was just 99 cents a bunch. I bought three bunches and thought “What the heck, might as well give making it myself a shot”. (I have a mint plant at home…I could have just used that…but that’s our mint Moscow Mule machine 😉)
I didn’t hold out a lot of hope.
I simmered the mint leaves with a few cups of water and then strained it through a jelly bag for a few hours while I pressure canned the corn stock and corn kernels (separately) that I’d prepped yesterday evening…..and while I peeled and chopped 40 lbs of tomatoes for jarring.
When I had all of that out of the way I turned my attention tot he mint extract and gave it a taste.
Not impressed.
But all I was investing here was a couple of bucks on mint (I only needed two of the three bunches of mint), a few cups of sugar, about a dollar’s worth of white wine vinegar, and a box of powdered pectin. I figured at worst I was out about $6 if I hated it.
I came up a bit short on the liquid from eh mint and added ⅓ cup of water. I almost added a drop of mint extract thinking I’d watered it down, but stopped myself. That would be cheating.
The mint liquid, the vinegar, and the pectin powder went into the pot to boil, followed by the sugar….hard boil for a minute, and then off the heat and into the jars.
Before I committed to the lids I gave it a taste.
WOW!
OK, I’m suddenly sold on mint jelly!
How has it taken me this many years of my life to discover how wonderful this stuff is!
Home made mint jelly now has a place in my canning repertoire and in my pantry.
