It Takes A Village...

... or "The Odyssey of the Orange Marmalade".

But first... a word from our sponsors. Oh wait. We don't have any sponsors. Hmm... what to do with the 'dead air'... I suppose I could just carry on with the tale? You'd like that? Ok then...

It all started on a Sunday fair. No, I said "on" a Sunday fair, not "at" one... focus. So, it started on a Sunday, yesterday to be precise. And it was fair. Yes, as in beautiful, now are you going to let me get on with this? Ok, so the day began unusually early (for me) and even stranger, it began outside! No... I didn't fall asleep in the yard or on the front step! Alright... I suppose it was a little vague. After I exuberantly threw back the covers - scattering a selection of hissing and spitting cats in all directions - and skipped through the house singing to little twittering blue birds and cute little bunnies, while sparrows tied pink bows in my hair, before dancing my way out of the back door and into the back yard. Better? Puh-lease! Anyone who knows me will know that I'm unlikely to have jumped out of bed and I do NOT do pink! It's called artistic licence. Our sarcasm if you prefer.

So, standing outside by the pool - being shot rather direct and disgruntled looks by said aforementioned cats - I noticed a section of the garden that had been dying for some attention for a while now. Or, if you consider the state of it... living for some attention! I knew that there was a lot on my to-do list for the day, but I figured "How long can it take?". Let me take you aside right now and point out that any time you have that thought... Stop! Stop whatever you are doing or thinking of doing and walk away. Perhaps even run. For it is a well known fact that any time you think "How long could this take?"... it will take HOURS!!!! And yet, I continued. What on earth was I thinking? Well, I'll tell you what I was thinking... I was thinking that maybe this time I would be the exception to that rule. Let me tell you... I wasn't. Not even a little bit. It was a reality check. No... no money. I wish :-)

So, there are two hibiscus trees and a bougainvillea hiding in that lot of green and I figured that it wouldn't take long to rip out the clingy creeper (creeper - not creep. I shoot creeps, although ripping sounds like fun...) and weedy grass that had staked a claim on that spot. They were like the early settlers who fanned out across the land like a colony of desperate ants in search of a new bit of land to claim. They had carefully monitored this corner of the garden using an impressive network of spy bees and attack pigeons. It didn't take them long to notice that nothing much was going on there. So... they sent in the scouts. A few "expendable" plants - like that new ensign that shows up in an episode of Star Trek. You've never seen them before and the minute they get a line or a spot on an away mission, you know that not only is someone going to die... it will be them! So... these first, expendable, plants carefully set up camp in that corner and after a few weeks of sneaking around, they realised that no-one was paying them any attention. They sent word to the main colony and within a remarkably short period of time "poof"... there they were! So, I've walked past them for months, listening to the sounds of their parties and drunken gatherings (at all times of the day and night) and for some reason... Sunday morning it was time to EVICT! It was a sneak attack and one which I thought would be executed with the speed and precision of the attack on Pearl Harbour (which was horrible, but it was quick, which was the point I wanted to make), but instead it had all the stealth and speed of an attack slug. Yes. Slug. Not sub. Yes... I'm sure. My "quick" eviction project took almost 3 hours and was thigh weakening, back aching, shoulder straining, exhausting work. And you can imagine how much enthusiasm I had for even the idea of marmalade making when I staggered inside eventually. I was wiped out, but (evil grin) ... so were they!!


Now... you're probably wondering what on earth this has to do with Orange Marmalade. Ha! You thought I couldn't hear you mumbling in the back there! Well... it was important to set the stage for the type of day that it was. Otherwise... how could you possibly understand? So... having worked for 3 hours in the garden (looks nice doesn't it?), I went inside and was confronted by a pocket of oranges. No, I don't mean literally. They're oranges!? They did however lie on the kitchen counter and taunt me... You promised to turn us into Cinderella... you promised we'd be special... you promised it would be today... They were right. I had promised that they would be changed from mere (wonderful) fruit to something glamorous and desirable. I had promised that they would have a glittering future in pride of place. I just hadn't told them that they'd be cut, drained, chopped, boiled, sugared and bottled in order to achieve it. I didn't lie... exactly. I just didn't tell them everything. No need to alarm the volunteers after all. Is there?

So, I gathered a sharp knife (crucial to ensuring minimum discomfort to the fruit during all procedures... oh who am I kidding? A sharp knife is vital so you can work faster and easier!), a bread board, sugar (not pictured), juicer, oranges, lemons, lemon juice and lime juice... all the things I would need in order to do this. In the background of the pic, you may have spotted a pot. THIS is no ordinary pot. It is in fact a stunt pot. My usual jam pot was too intimidated to appear in this segment (and too small to be blunt) and so I had to employ a stunt pot. It is HUGE. Really. Really. Huge. I had to lever it away from Miss Twinset who thought that it would just about be large enough for her to make a decent punch in. To put it in perspective... it would have been enough punch for a block party... in New York! So I handed her a teapot and told her to make do! She's been in a sulk ever since, but I noticed that she was delicately sipping tea out of a fine bone china cup. Only - when she went to pee (she does that a lot. It's the booze)... I took a sip and it was not tea. Not even close!



Now I had a number of requests for the recipe and I'm sorry if you were expecting something complicated, but here it is... Oh. The other one just interrupted me to point out that you can get marmalade in jars. She knows because her upstairs maid brings it in on a tray with her breakfast. Sigh. How does she think it gets into the jars?? I'm going to enlighten her ... and you? Ok. SO I decided to use 5kg of oranges (around 17 as it turned out). First, I had to chop them in half across their middles (in other words, not from end to end. If you do it end to end you can't juice them. You'll figure it out). Then I juiced them all (including the lemons. They would be the little yellow things in the bottom left of the centre image). Let me tell you... after 3 hours in the garden, juicing this fruit was not fun, but I couldn't let you all down. As you're juicing the fruit, put the juice into the pot and keep the pips out. Now, I'll be honest. Most recipes suggest that you put all the pips into a muslin bag (musliN, not MusliM... this is a non religious specific blog!) and boil them in the mix. I didn't do this for two reasons. First... only the lemons had pips (figures) and second... I didn't have any muslin in the house *shrug*.



Having juiced all the fruit (finally), a task that took easily 30 - 40 minutes... No, I'm not kidding. I said my arms were tired and boy... were they :-)... May I continue? Thanks. After I juiced the fruit I was left with this bowl full of half oranges and lemons. That needed to be "sliced into strips"... Um. Well. As you can no doubt see, my marmalade is "rustic"... and by rustic I mean "chunky"... and by chunky I mean that I had more to do with my time than finely slice oranges! Besides... have you ever bought marmalade that was essentially orange flavoured fine jam with 3 rather embarrassed slivers of orange peel lurking near the bottom of the jar or tin? I hate that! I rather like the orange peel and so I make my marmalade for me :-) My blog... my kitchen... my marmalade :-) That's my story and I'm sticking to it.



When you've sliced everything, add it to the juice already in the stunt pot. Now add enough water to cover the fruit and turn the heat on. At this point, I added some extra lemon juice and about 1/4 cup of lime juice. You need to simmer the mixture until the rinds are softened. In a pot of this size, it took roughly 2.5 hours... so be prepared to commit a lot of time to this project (but only for this kind of quantity). When the rinds are finally softened enough, add the sugar. Now as you can see, there is 2.5kg of sugar in the pic (around 5.5 pounds). However, I actually added 4kg of sugar to the pot in total (around 8.8 pounds) for 5kg (11 pounds) of fruit. That is a S C A R Y amount of sugar! It made Miss Twinset faint and the other one subjected me to a lecture on diabetes, but I have to point out that you need the sugar in order to make this a marmalade and not a warm orange toddy. I did consider adding brandy, but I didn't want Miss Twinset to see where my booze stash is, so I had to skip that idea. Now you need to let this cook away until it has thickened sufficiently to set. While this is happening... pre-heat the oven to a low heat eg 70 deg Celsius (158 F) and put your jars onto a tray in the oven to warm. This is so that they don't crack when you put the hot jam into them. The only way to make either of my kitchen cohorts crack is to literally hide their booze, but I wasn't in the mood for that... it was such a beautiful day! Besides... the chances of them still being conscious when it comes to bottling, is next to zero... so why worry?



Now... this step (cooking it out) is likely to take a while. For this large pot, on a low heat, it was a long time. I'm not kidding. A smaller pot wouldn't take as long. I promise. By the time I was ready to bottle the finished product, the other two had long gone. The jars weren't hot, but it's advisable to hold them with a cloth. This is purely because the jam is boiling hot and you will burn your hands through the glass if you don't. When you've filled the jar, you need to put the lids on straight away. This will actually help to seal the jar and it has a satisfying "pop" when you open it... just like it's store bought cousins! I made about 18 jars (10 large and 8 smaller ones) and I have to say that this marmalade was fantastic and tart. Even with all that sugar, it has a great traditional marmalade flavour!


So... after all that work and the muscle aches that followed after... at least I have the yummy product to enjoy! And if you're wondering about the title... I think it would have been easier and quicker if I'd had a village to help me :-) Let me know if you try it (your own... not mine) and how it turns out.



Until next time...