Concord Grapes, Part 3 (of 3)

A couple years ago, when our neighbors first started sharing their grapes with us, I only knew about grape jelly/jam and grape juice. Then, my mom told me about a recipe in the Mennonite Community Cookbook for Grape Pie. It is truly wonderful and the pie I have made most frequently since (and I like to make pie).

When you make jelly/jam, you de-stem the grapes, cook them down in some water and put them through a food mill to separate out the seeds and skins, saving the pulp to drain through cheese cloth for jelly or use as is for jam.


With grape pie, you want the pulp and the skins, but not the seeds. (Although, I have heard stories about people leaving the seeds in and the memorable crunch that occurred.) In order to accomplish this, you need to separate the skins from the pulp (which contains the seed) by squeezing the grape, thus popping the pulp out. Once you have them separated (above), set the skins aside and cook the pulp (only) to soften it and send it through the food mill to extract the seeds.


Then, you put the two (pulp and skins) back together and measure them into 3 cup portions for your freezer.


This leaves you all set to make...



Grape Pie (adapted slightly from the Mennonite Community Cookbook)

3 cups prepared Concord grapes (skin and pulp combined without seeds)
3/4 cup sugar
3 tbsp. flour
1 tbsp. butter
1 tbsp. lemon juice
8 or 9 inch deep dish pie crust

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

1 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup melted butter

Blend with a fork in a small bowl to make crumbs.

Pour grape mixture into pie crust. Sprinkle the crumbs on top. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes or until crumbs and crust are light to medium brown. Watch it disappear. Pin It