Marmalade

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Every year we have so many oranges! They're more difficult to give away this year given COVID... we give to a few neighbors and friends, but I can't take them to the office and hand them out like in past years. An abundance of pears lead to ginger pear sauce and too many fingers led to candied buddha's hands... so doh, why not try my hand at marmalade? After skimming several recipes on the web, I decided to adapt this orange lemon marmalade recipe slightly to use less sugar and more oranges. It's just a little tart, and really delicious! The neighbors loved it. One request from Kurt & Pete: Cut the rinds into even smaller pieces.

Ingredients

5-6 oranges
rinds from another 2-3 oranges
rinds from 2 lemons
1 lime (all of it if it's small, or just rinds)
8 C water
6 C sugar

Instructions

Wash the oranges and lemons well and cut off any bad parts. Thinly slice and throw in a big pot. Eat a few oranges after you cut off the ends because they are so delicious. Realize you've eaten 3 oranges already and go find 3 more to replace what you ate. Toss in the chopped rinds from the oranges you ate, resulting in a rind-heavy marmalade (which, I learned later from my brother, is the secret to good marmalade -- yay serendipity.)

Place the pot of sliced fruit on the stove. Add the water and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and add the sugar and stir until it dissolves. Turn off the heat and forget about it for 6-8 hours or overnight, until the pot is room temperature.

Bring the mixture back to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer uncovered for 2 hours. Turn up heat to medium and boil gently, stirring often, for another 30 minutes. Put in a candy thermometer and cook until reaches (or gets close to) 220 degrees so the natural pectin gels with the sugar. Stir often and watch the thermometer closely - don't want to burn it! (And if it doesn't reach 220 but gets close, that's good enough - don't cook over like 3 hours. Once I simmered for 4 hours, and that was too much. It got too thick; it's okay for it to flow!) Turn off heat and let cool.

Spoon the marmalade into clean jars, wipe rims and seal. Chill in refrigerator. It may take a day or two for the natural pectin to set up properly. If refrigerating, use within a month (give it away to your friends and neighbors!), or freeze for 3 months. 






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