I made mint jelly for the first time years ago when we lived in town.  I had more mint than I knew what to do with, so this made sense.  I’d seen it in the stores.  We loved it.  So when we moved out here, it seemed like worth a try.  We have plain mint as well as spearmint and chocolate mint.  All make a nice jelly.  You can use mint on lamb, but we use it on toast.  Donovan likes it on his peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

These directions are copied from a message board entry Scott made a couple of years ago.  The images are from making plain mint jelly.

1 1/2 C. Packed Mint Leaves (fresh is better)
3 1/4 C. Water
5 1/2 C. Sugar
1 Box Pectin

1. Add water and mint leaves into a sauce pan and bring to a boil.
2. Once at a rolling boil remove from heat and let steep for 30 minutes.
3. Strain mint tea through a jelly bag, or other material to remove leaves.
4. Place liquid into another sauce pan and add pectin.
5. Bring mixture back to a light boil and add sugar, stirring to ensure that it dissolves.
6. Return mixture to a full rolling boil, adding 10 drops of green food coloring. (When we make chocolate mint, we follow the directions on the food coloring box to make it brown.)
7. Boil for no longer than 2 minutes.
8. Ladle jelly into clean jelly jars and seal with heated lids.

Look, thar be weeds in the pot!

Boiled down and steeped for 30 minutes.

I don’t use jelly bags. Any fine mesh synthetic material works fine.

Dumped the weeds on the cloth and let the juice flow through.

Give it a REAL good squeeze to get all the fluid out and chuck what’s left on the compost.

This is what you have. It’s clear fluid. The pot is just well loved and aged.

Adding the pectin and bringing back up to heat to start dissolving sugar.

Sugar’s all added and starting to mix.

This is where you start the timer for 2 minutes.. A few seconds before you reach;

…this.. Your timer needs to be running..

While you’re stirring, add your food coloring.

Two minutes are up, turn the burner off and let it settle!

Some people scoop the foam. I think they’re obsessive. It’s only a little foam. Either way, get to canning.

All done.. Lick the spatula and call it a day.

Depending on if you double the recipe, this is what you might end up with.