fun with tangelos

Since I want to eat more locally, and since citrus fruit seems to, um, grow on trees around here...  

I raided a bucket full of very tangy tangelos (they just didn't get sweet this year) from a family tree this week, and have been playing with ways to use and preserve them.  I got a swell, stylish new juice squeezer, and have been freezing little bits of tangelo juice for cooking.  I tried making sorbet, too, mixing tangelo juice with a bunch of sugar and rolling it around in my ice cream ball.  It was yummy.

And, I decided to try making marmalade.  For kicks, I'll give you my instructions:

tangelo pineapple marmalade

ingredients:

14 tangelos, raided from a family tree

1 overripe pineapple that's been sitting on your counter all week

2 big limes, reclaimed from the curb after they rolled downhill from the neighbor's tree

about 4 cups of water

5 cups of sugar

On 7 of the tangelos, use a peeler to remove the outer layer of the peel. Chop it up into little bits and put it in a big pot.

Peel what's left of all 14 tangelos, and cut the fruity parts into little pieces. Attempt to remove all the seeds. Put the fruit and all the juice you can catch into the big pot with the peel bits.

Cut up the pineapple, salvaging all the bits that aren't too gross and brown; cut the useable parts up into bits. Add them to the pot, too.

Peel and chop up the limes, and add them as well.

Pour the 4 cups of water over the top--really, just add enough to barely cover all that fruit. Put it on the stove and bring it to a boil for about 10 minutes. Turn the heat off, leave it covered, and let it sit overnight.

Then, wake up sick the next day.  Get out of bed, contemplate what it would take to finish making marmalade, and decide to just put the whole thing in the fridge.  Some marmalade recipes call for letting the fruit sit for 24 hours or more; decide you want to be one of those.

On the third day, add the sugar to your pot, mix it in, and bring it to a boil.  Continue to heat, stirring regularly, until it does that magic turn-t0-jelly thing.
Put it in sterilized jars with and process in boiling water bath for 10 minutes, according to the instructions of someone who knows much more than I do about this stuff.

Then, set it on your counter and admire the warm, orangey color.
My recipe made enough for the six jars I had empty, plus a two-cup plastic container that went straight into the fridge.