Grapes

Early in August my family went to visit my BFF in Fort White. She thought we were coming to surprise her DH for a belated surprise birthday party. Curiously,she planned it for her birtday weekend. Sooo we turned the surprise on her and sang the birthday song to her at the last minute. Her husband and I shrieked with laughter at her surprise! She was ...annoyed. To escape any good natured wrath I decided to go pick some pears. While on my way I was invited to pick some of those grapes too. Apparently my friend doesn't know what she has in 3 rows of grape vines producing tremendous grapes!! I got 2 grocery bags full. I also picked 2 bags of sand pears. Most of those were hard but yellow so I got what I could expect to handle. The grapes were muscdine and scuppernog. Most were ripe and they were sweet!After eating off my stash for a couple of days I decided to make jelly and fruit rollups. I got a recipe off the net and improvised from there. I mixed all the grapes together and the jelly came out a pretty rose color. It is looser than I like but it tast great. I held some of the grapes in reserve for munching but my eyes were too big!. I had peeled and dried most of the pears, but several were not ripe yet. Well the day they were ripe I peeled them and they were so juciy I couldn't chop them into pieces. They were crumbling(wet) in my hands. So I put them in the blender with the left over grapes and purred them. I then put the puree into the dehydrater and made hard candy. Not the expected result. I tried two times before i found the secret to fruit leather~ oil the pan first. It was dramaticly different on all points. It dried faster it was pliable and not sticky. Definately a new house treat. But what about trial 1 and 2? I made uglyies. Yeah they were ugly but tasted so good. Basicly the dried(?) sticky mess was pried up with a dinner knife and each chunk and strip was dredged in corn starch.I put these in a mason jar and they are a favorite of my grown son and grankids.Waste not!