Tuesday, April 01, 2008

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.  

4 comments:

Krista S. Givens said...

i love your recipe, mol. but i'm not sure i could ever recreate those circumstances...

karen said...

Forgot to tell you that I sampled the marmalade when I was at the writing center and thought it was quite tasty. I liked how tangy it was. Like Sista Krista, though, I don't think I could recreate that particular recipe!

(p.s. I also ate a small square of chocolate)

Deb said...

Very nice! I've done a lot of jam, but never ventured to marmalade, so I might have to try something new this year! thanks for the inspiration.

p.s. if you get lots of tomatoes this year, instead of just canning or freezing them for pasta sauce etc, tomato jam is fabulous and you'd probably enjoy it!

feminist_mom said...

molly, remember the dandelion jelly we tried to make in GI from the backyard many moons ago??? it was a failed attempt but oh well, maybe it gave you the courage to try this later in your life and what a beautiful color! love your ability to create from found objects too! i found some alaskan cod at the store for dad to grill with asparagus... tangy too but in a different way, love mom