10183 uva fragola

Whilst I'm sitting watching the fig chutney boil away I've been wondering what to do with some other fruit from the garden. We have a relatively young (6 years) vine of uva fragola growing over a seating area. the grapes have a mild strawberry twist to the taste but the skin is quite tough. Previous posts on this grape are very old and I'm just wondering what I can do so the fruit isn't wasted. As a bunch of grapes, the skin is just a little too tough.Any other ideas?

Category
Gardening & Agriculture

We've had good results making grape juice for the kids by running the stemmed & washed grapes through a food mill (manual in our case), and bottling the resulting juice. It's cloudy, and I supposed could be filtered or strained, but we've heat-packed it in bottles with sealed caps (bain-marie style), recently opened some over a year old and it's still delicious. No sugar, salt, or preservatives added.

You can make a very nice liqueur called [B][I]Ratufià di uva fragola [/I][/B]or Concord grape liqueur.

You need:

500 g uva fragola, gently washed and dried
500 g white sugar
1 cinnamon stick
3 whole cloves
500 ml pure (drinking) alcohol 95º
300 ml water

Put the grapes, cinnamon, cloves and 200 g of the sugar in a large glass jar with a good, tight lid. Cover with the alcohol. Close the lid tightly and shake the jar to dissolve the sugar completely. Allow to marinate for a month in a dark place.
After one month, make a syrup using the remaining 300 g of sugar plus 300 ml of water. Boil for 2 minutes and allow to cool completely.
Filter the contents of the marinade through a very fine sieve pushing to get all the grape juices. Add the syrup. Mix thoroughly and allow to rest for at least 10 days before drinking it. Enjoy!

Just eat them - pop them out of their little skins by squeezing them between your forefinger and thumb and enjoy!