Yikes! What do you do when you've over purchased and now have an abundance of red grapes? This is not the type of item that has a long freshness life. Before they went all mushy and moldy on me, with the inevitable destination: Garbage Pail, I decided to make my own grape jam. Now full disclosure here, I don't really like grape jam. That may be because the kind I've had in the past was usually made from concord grapes and was that super sweet, purply stuff. But I had an abundance of regular red eating grapes and didn't see why they wouldn't work. So I experimented. I found a few strawberries and I thought the grapes might need a friend, plus they looked like they were destined for the garbage soon, too.

Ingredients:

1 c red grapes, whole
4 strawberries, quartered
1/4 c sugar
1/2 c water
1/2 tsp orange or tangerine zest
1/4 c juice of an orange or tangerine

In a saucepan, cook all the ingredients together. Simmer until the grapes breakdown and the liquid becomes thicker.

Let cool and spread it on whatever you want. I pulled out my favorite gluten free cracker, Mary's Gone Crackers, spread some whipped cream cheese and added a dollop of my freshly made red grape jam.

I have to admit that this made me like grape jam. You can do this with any fruit, really. So, next time that piece of fruit seems like it might not last another few days, breath life into it and make it JAM...again

Post script: After making this jam last week, I went searching the fridge so I could smear some on a cracker only to come up bare. Juan Carlos confessed to using it everyday and finishing it off. Lo and Behold, I found another bag of red grapes (I must have really overbought) and made a new batch.