Homemade bread! Homemade pizza! Homemade jam! Raising chicks! Starting a garden! It’s amazing the pursuits people are turning to with extra time on their hands. Contrary to what popular memes might try to convince you, social media and the grocery store shelves are telling me the world is not just sitting around streaming movies all day. I LOVE that so many people are sharing pictures of their sourdough, seedlings, and cooking triumphs.

What I don’t love is not being able to find the necessary supplies and ingredients that I’m used to being able to pick up almost anywhere! At multiple points during the past few months, I’ve been unable to get my hands on yeast, bread flour, and pectin. This week, it was pectin again. I finally found a lone tub of it way in the back of the shelf at the third store I’d tried. Phew! Because this week, the violets were in full bloom! And this year, we got around to making violet jelly.

It takes a LOT of violets to make violet jelly. Fortunately, we have both violets AND violet pickers in abundance. None of the boys uttered a word of protest about being sent out in the rain to pick, which should give you and idea of you how delicious violet jelly is.

Violet jelly also makes a great science experiment for anyone who’s homeschooling right now (so, pretty much everyone!) After steeping the violets overnight, you end up with a rather vibrant teal colored tea.

Interesting, but not necessarily appetizing. The next step is key — adding acid, in this case lemon juice, turns the tea from bluish green into a gorgeous pink-purple color!

Then once you’ve boiled it and added pectin and sugar, you have a chemistry experiment that can be smeared on an English muffin or scone! It has a mild floral flavor with a slight citrus note from the lemon juice and is the most deliciously pink spread you’ll ever eat.

If you’d like to try your hand at some, we used this recipe, and it came out perfectly!