Easy Seville Orange (or any citrus) Marmalade Recipe

I posted a Seville Orange Marmalade recipe back in December. Later I found out that Roxanne and I used Calamondins, another variety of bitter orange. Sevilles have a thick wrinkly skin.

For the following batch, I used the recipes that I also used to make Lemon Marmalade back in February.
I didn't have a printout and was using my tablet and found I was jumping between my recipe and another source recipe.
To make things easy, I've combined both of them here, with lots of photos.
Text version is at the bottom.

I noticed that I was losing lots of precious juice onto the cutting board as I extracted the seeds, so I juiced the oranges before removing the seeds.

Here is the recipe in text:

Orange (or any citrus) Marmalade
for any quantity of fruit

1) Cut oranges in half and squeeze the juice. Pour juice into a food processor.

2) Remove seeds with a grapefruit knife.

3) Cut into 3/4" sized chunks, place in food processor and grind to a mash. Small chunks are OK.

4) Pour into LARGE sauce pan (I use a stock pot).

5) HERE IS THE WATER : SUGAR RATIO (from above source)
Pour in water a cup at a time until the fruit is almost covered.
Then add the exact same quantity of sugar.

6) Stir and heat to rolling boil. Be sure to supervise this step.
You don't want the mixture to boil over and get all over the stove. It is no fun to clean. I speak from experience!

7) Reduce heat enough so that the boil is maintained but not so furious that you have to stay in the same room.

8) In 30-60 min, it should start to gel. Avoid overcooking, or it will turn to rubber.
The "spoon test" is the best method to determine gel state if you don't have a candy thermometer.
If you do, cook until it reaches 220°F.
After a few batches, you'll get a "feel" for it -- gelled jam gets a heaviness when stirred and wrinkles start to form on the top surface.

9) Pour into jars and process, store in freezer, or consume.

For this batch, I had 8 baseball-sized oranges, which yielded  10.5 8oz jars.

Lemon Marmalade Recipe

My friend Francis had an abundance of lemons and I happily took a bagful off his hands.
Michael, my Qi Gong teacher, mentioned making lemon marmalade, which I had never considered.

Online explorations delivered the two recipes that I used.
The first is actually the basis for the second.

From the first recipe come the ingredients, it makes a VERY SOUR jam.
10 large lemons will yield approx 13 cups.

Ingredients:

• 10 large lemons
• 4 cups water
• 4 cups sugar

So simple!
(What the second recipe will give you is the ratio to use if you have more or less than 10 lemons).
I then went rogue and didn't follow either recipe -- partly because I wasn't paying attention.

Preparation:

 

1) Quarter and seed lemons (I leave the rind + pith, which is why it's so sour). Chop to 3/4" bits.
Place in food processor and grind to a mash. Chunks are OK.

2) Pour into LARGE sauce pan (I use a stock pot).

3) Add sugar. (I overlooked don't bother to precook the mash).

4) Stir and heat to rolling boil. Be sure to supervise this step.
You don't want the mixture to boil over and get all over the stove. It is no fun to clean. I speak from experience!

5) Reduce heat enough so that the boil is maintained but not so furious that you have to stay in the same room.

6) In 40-60 min, it should start to gel. Avoid overcooking, or it will turn to rubber.
The "spoon test" is the best method to determine gel state if you don't have a candy thermometer.
If you do, cook until it reaches 220°F.

7) Pour into jars and process, store in freezer, or consume.

The Empty Shelf Reading Challenge

Jon Acuff, who I discovered yesterday in my internet perambulations, has come up with what looks like a fun challenge: the Empty Shelf Challenge. Empty out a shelf in your bookshelf, fill it with books that you've read during the year, and document the process. He suggests using it as a way to read more books. (Read the full instructions here) Personally, I have no need of encouragement in that department. My problem is remembering what I've read and what the book was about. I can't tell you how many times I've pulled a book from the Mar Vista Library shelves, stared at the cover, read the bookends, and thought "Have I read this already?"

My first challenge was to designate and clear a shelf. Maybe in my office -- the whole thing could use organizing!

As you can see, this is less a bookshelf and more an accessories shelf.

We are supposed to put a book on the shelf AFTER it's been read. That didn't fly.
That empty self is made me unsettled -- I can see it from my office chair.

3rd down on left is my new "empty" shelf

My first book [to our left], which I'm part-way through, is The Round House, by Louise Erdrich.
I'll tell you more after I get it finished.
To our right is my Surface Design Classes binder from the classes that I took with Stephen Sidelinger in 2005.
Keeping it visible, hoping to get inspired to get my Surface Design e-book/e-course in motion. 

I put some of my "To Read" books there too. Most of my books will be from the library, so they won't be staying on the shelf after I'm done with them. A clean, empty shelf is not part of my world.

I'll be sharing my reads in a cloud photo album, in case I stop posting here.
Let me know if you can see it at this link down in the comments below. Never shared a cloud photo album before!