Preserving grape leaves

I wanted to start to say how much it feels good that we have planted most of the plants we wanted to grow this year.  Dan installed his hammock and is ready to enjoy it.

Here is the little bouquet I made this week.

Now I want to share with you how to preserve grape leaves.

At the end of spring or beginning of summer it’s time to prune the grapes and perfect timing to preserve the leaves.

You then we’ll be able to make stuffed grape leaves.

You need to get yourself a lot of leaves, I always try to count and then get lost in the count anyway…

I like to prepare everything I need before cooking or doing anything so here is what you’ll need.

-       grapes leaves

-       sea salt

-       lemons

-       sterilized wide mouth quart jars + the seal  

-       cotton string for cooking

-       boiling water

-       iced water

-       a canner 

So now that you have everything ready on your counter let’s get started.

First give those leaves a good bath to get rid of the dirt, bugs… To be sure it is clean- do it twice.

Remove all stems.

Prepare a pot with boiling water to blanche your leaves and another pot of boiling water to fill the jars later. You have now 2 pots of boiling water on your stove.

Stack the leaves by 12 arrange them by size the biggest first then roll them and attached them with the string.

Then put your leaves into the boiling water for 1 minute, time for them to be blanched.

Remove them and let them cool into iced water.

Take them out of the iced water ( try to get most of the water out )and place them into your sterilized jars ( depending on the size of your leaves you might have to fold them )

Sprinkle a good amount of sea salt on your leaves, here you can choose to put more or less salt depending on your taste. If you add too much salt you might have to wash your leaves once you will want to prepare them.

Add the juice of a lemon per jar then cover with the boiling water you prepared before. Make sure the leaves are covered with water leave at least ½ “ headspace. Add the  sterilized lid, the ring and seal it.

Process in your canner for 20 minutes. ( 20 minutes with boiling water )

Take the jars out of the canner, check if it’s properly sealed and you can store them away and use them when you want it !

You can store them up to a year.