Maypop (passion fruit) jelly

Hello everyone! I wanted to share my latest canning adventure with you. I made maypop jelly today! I followed a blog post, for the most part, which I will share below. I did find that I needed more water than called for and wound up using about 3 cups of water per batch for boiling the fruit.

But, what's a maypop, you say? Well, it's also known as Passion Fruit and it's the fruit of the passiflora incarnata vine. It's sweet and tart at the same time inside. You don't eat the tough, leathery outsides. The inner portion is filled with crunchy seeds with a lemony "jelly" surrounding them.

Ripe maypops (so called because they "may pop when you step on them!) Those are ugly fruits but so yummy on the inside! These are some we foraged from a friend's farm.

This bloom was white but most often you'll see purple ones. Isn't it beautiful?

See the seeds and gelatin that surround them?

To make the jelly, you need to cut up enough of the fruit to make 2 cups, pressed into the measuring cup. Put it into a pan with 3 cups of water and boil it for 5 minutes. Then strain out the pulp and reserve the liquid.

Press the juice out with the back of a spoon or ladle, or set a large heavy cup on it to press out even more juice.

Here's the juice in the pot (pardon the ugliness of the pot) and ready for the powdered pectin.

Then, put the liquid in a tall pot (should have 3 cups of liquid total), add powdered regular pectin (a full package for this recipe), and bring it to a boil. When it's boiling add 3 1/2 cups sugar all at once. Stir and continue stirring until it comes to a hard, rolling boil, then boil and stir for 2 minutes.

Turn off the heat and let it settle down about 5 minutes. Skim off any foam. Ladle into hot half-pint or pint jars; process in boiling water bath for 10 minutes. (I use a steam canner but the timing is the same.) Wait 5 minutes after turning off the heat when the time is up, then remove the jars from the canner. I actually made 3 batches but the first batch only made one jar following the directions on the blog I'll link you to.

And here's the blog I mentioned! Give her a visit and let her know I sent you! PeppySis: MayPops Jelly

I will have a video for this in a few days and will add it here. :)

Sweet Potato Biscuits

I had a couple of leftover baked sweet potatoes that I needed to do something with. I hate wasting food, so I thought I'd work up a recipe for sweet potato biscuits. They turned out more chewy than I normally make, but the texture really resembles English Muffins, so I think if I'd cut them differently and baked them on cornmeal, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference!

Here's the recipe I worked up:

Sweet Potato Biscuits

• 2 medium baked sweet potatoes, peeled and mashed
• 3 cups all purpose flour
• 3 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 1/2 cups milk  

Mix together dry ingredients, then cut in the mashed sweet potatoes. Add milk a little at a time until you have a soft but not too sticky dough. Turn out on floured surface, pat the dough out, fold it over in half, repeating this move 4 times. Flatten to about 1/2 inch thick and cut with a biscuit cutter. Place on ungreased cookie sheet or in ungreased cake pan. Bake in preheated 400F oven for 20 minutes or until tops are cracked and biscuits spring back when touched. Brush with butter and serve hot.

Yield: about 18 biscuits.