I need a nap already
Was up WAAAYYY too late last night, and the project responsible is only half done. Had I read the directions all the way through, and realized that the juice and bits for the marmalade would need to cook for 2 hours before getting to the "making it into jely" part, I would have waited until Sunday to start this. But I didn't, so....
It took an hour and a half to peel and juice two lemons, and juice 3.5 pounds of kumquats last night. That yielded maybe 2/3 of a cup of straight, very sour, juice. The recipe called for 4 pints of water, then simmer the juice and water with all the peels and pulp for two hours. The recipe also called for trimming the peels very fine and leaving them in, but I've had several requests for "not chewy" marmalade, so I put the chewy bits in a mesh bag. Hopefully, I've successfully extracted plenty of pectin from the chewy bits, so it'll gel when I add sugar and cook it down tonight. It did get plenty of flavor...we did a taste test before bed last night--2 parts sugar to 1 part juice, in a little dish. Very very nice. Just tangy enough to keep the sweet from being cloying, very very citrus.
So, tonight's goals are:
1) get dinner started, and to a point where it can be reheated when we're ready for it
2) clean pressure cokker (I'll need that to seal the jars, I can't get the canning pot up to temp on my stove)
3) measure the juice (and probably divide it into two batches)
4) add appropriate amounts of sugar to juice, get it to a boil and hold until it reaches soft gel stage
5) add to jars, etc
6) seal jars, probably 3 at a time, in the pressure cooker
Cleaning up the kitchen will probably wait until tomorrow.
It took an hour and a half to peel and juice two lemons, and juice 3.5 pounds of kumquats last night. That yielded maybe 2/3 of a cup of straight, very sour, juice. The recipe called for 4 pints of water, then simmer the juice and water with all the peels and pulp for two hours. The recipe also called for trimming the peels very fine and leaving them in, but I've had several requests for "not chewy" marmalade, so I put the chewy bits in a mesh bag. Hopefully, I've successfully extracted plenty of pectin from the chewy bits, so it'll gel when I add sugar and cook it down tonight. It did get plenty of flavor...we did a taste test before bed last night--2 parts sugar to 1 part juice, in a little dish. Very very nice. Just tangy enough to keep the sweet from being cloying, very very citrus.
So, tonight's goals are:
1) get dinner started, and to a point where it can be reheated when we're ready for it
2) clean pressure cokker (I'll need that to seal the jars, I can't get the canning pot up to temp on my stove)
3) measure the juice (and probably divide it into two batches)
4) add appropriate amounts of sugar to juice, get it to a boil and hold until it reaches soft gel stage
5) add to jars, etc
6) seal jars, probably 3 at a time, in the pressure cooker
Cleaning up the kitchen will probably wait until tomorrow.