Wine Making Attempt

After having made enough jelly from 20 pounds of our grapes, we decided that the rest of grapes can be turned into something else, other than jelly! Joe was itching to try grape wine making again, this time with a packet of yeast. So he picked a little over 10 pounds of grapes last night (note: there are MORE grapes yet on the vines) and followed one of the simplest recipes for wine making. It's simply grapes, water, sugar, and yeast. Nothing else.
In the below picture is Joe's new 5 gallon pail. Now we wait.....
Onto a different subject. Yesterday I made gyoza, pot stickers, again from scratch. I wanted to perfect my wrappers, not too soft. Here's a stack of 20 gyoza wrappers I made.
Filled....
Yum.... I'd go through the trouble of making homemade wrappers again when I have enough time. It was worth it.

Japanese Street Food

On this lazy relaxing Sunday, we actually didn't go anywhere for a change. The only time Joe went outside was when he picked another ten pounds of grapes (oh, and when he chased a flock of birds out of his grape vines). For dinner I made okonomiyaki (savory cabbage pancakes) as a main dish, along with soba noodle in light soup and corn on the cobs with a hint of butter/soy sauce. Everything you would find at a street fair in Japan. A fun accident!
For dessert was matcha (strong green tea served at a tea ceremony) ice cream. Thanks to Tak for having brought me a container of matcha powder from Japan, I just mixed Breyers vanilla ice cream with some matcha powder. Almost, only almost, as good as the real matcha ice cream in Japan.
P.S. Joe is getting grape juice squeezed in the kitchen as I type. I'll probably can some more grape jelly on Tuesday.

Dragon Rolls, Again

Just the other day I attempted to make dragon sushi rolls again. I wanted to make a different presentation from the previous time. Better... but not scary enough.
What prompted me on the making of dragon rolls was that someone gave us quite a few beets. When I cooked the beets (I roasted all the whole beets in the oven), that bright red bleeding of the beets somehow made me think of bloody dragon rolls. The below picture shows a bit of bleeding.

Grape Jelly: Part I

Yesterday I ended up making three batches of grape jelly, using up all 10 pounds of grapes we picked the day before. I figured I got everything set up for jelly making and canning, why not? Besides we have many more grapes ripening on the vines.
Of course, we tasted the freshly made grape jelly and gave it THUMBS up!

Grape Picking

Tonight Joe picked our first batch of grapes. Some of them started to drop, though there are still plenty of green ones for later days.
Two grocery bags full and heavy...
Then came the tidy work to do. We sat at the kitchen table to take off all the stems.... We weighed total 10 pounds of grapes with stems off. A good start. We're cooking the grapes to get juice tonight. So I can start our grape jelly making tomorrow.

Grapes... Almost Ready

Joe's grapes have started to color. The vines are covered with so many leaves that you have to stick your head to see the grapes! Maybe by the end of this month we'll be able to can grape jelly again.
And look at the tall sunflowers. We really hope they get to bloom.
There are much smaller sunflowers that survived the chipmunks, too. They take a long time to grow and bloom, but the bright yellow flowers are so cheerful. I love them.

Tortilla Press

Ta-da! We got ourselves a tortilla press last weekend when we were in Green Bay. Of course, I had to try it out as soon as possible.
Even I can crank the handle by myself (unlike when Joe had to press between two cutting boards as hard as he could).
The side kick for our home-made tortilla for dinner that night was grilled pork steak marinaded in home-made Adobo sauce.
They may look a bit rough and imperfect....
But they were chewy and flavorful on their own, I decided that our corn tortilla was the main dish.
Maybe next time I'll try making flour tortilla.