Remember the dumpling dinner we had the other evening before all this quarantine stuff started (see 6 March post)? When I first bought the delicious chicken dumplings at Costco (interestingly, Trader Joe’s has the same product marketed at soup dumplings; they are not!) … Moving on … I saved the little plastic trays the dumplings are packed in thinking they’d come in handy on a rainy day.

I also cut out and save recipes from the magazines I subscribe to, from on-line newsletters, wherever. The recipes for gummies, those chewy, nice candies usually in cute bear and fish shapes, intrigued me. Ah ha, the dumpling trays would be perfect for gummies, a little large maybe, but they could be pretty shapes.

In the meantime, remember that Challenging Dinner when we hosted a lovely group of filmmakers from India touring the US (see 21 January post)? A few weeks after that dinner, another group of visitors came for another dinner; their goal was to learn about U.S. trade policy. What a lovely group, three bright, outspoken women from Zimbabwe, Mauritius, and Tunisia, and an upbeat young man from the Dominican Republic.

One of the unexpected benefits of these dinners is lovely gifts of all sorts. Miss Mauritius brought us an beautiful set of Muslim prayer beads (now with my Easter eggs) and a selection of fruit pastes, a product of her country. Constant Companion remembered something similar from his time living in North Africa. Daughter is slowly eating these tasty sweet treats.

As we were ending Week 5 in Isolation, my mind has been wandering. I’ve been trying to think of constructive activities to occupy myself with. I remembered the recipes I’d clipped or seen for gummies. I also remembered a few orphaned citrus fruits (grapefruit and oranges) that no one in the house were eating. Of course, there were also the saved dumpling trays. It was a slow morning and I pulled out everything.

I made two different types of gummies – fruit juice and prosecco (we had a half bottle which had been opened a few weeks earlier). The recipes were essentially the same, as follows.

You need about a cup of liquid. Take 1/4 cup and dissolve a pack of gelatin in it to start.* Put the rest of the liquid in a small pot and bring to a boil. For the fruit juice, not need to add sugar. For the prosecco, I added about 1/3 cup of sugar; dissolve it in the heating liquid. After the liquid boils, stir in the gelatin mixture and dissolve completely. Then pour into the molds The fruit juice recipe directed to oil the molds, the prosecco did not. I put oil on a paper towel and wiped the fruit juice molds. Place in the refrigerator for 2-3 hours and voila … they jelled.

*I did not feel like measuring the gelatin powder and used just one packet. They came out more like jello shots than gummies. When I try it again, I’ll use two packets and see what the consistency is like.

Constant Companion and Daughter woke to a surprise and loved it!