Orange You Glad

As it turned out, I had a surprise day at home last Friday. There were plenty of other things I probably should have done, but I spent the morning making orange marmalade. I had picked up some beautiful oranges earlier in the week, had plenty of sugar on hand, and finally the time that I could commit to staying at home and getting it done.

Even though I've made lots of jams and preserves in the past, I've never attempted marmalade. I'm not sure why. I love it, and good orange marmalade--really good orange marmalade is expensive. Last year I picked up a jar made with champagne that was delicious.

While I was having my morning coffee, I did a quick search for a recipe and found one on the Food Network from Alton Brown. His recipes have been reliable in the past, and so I printed it up and dug in. The first step, of course, is prepping the oranges with a quick bath and slicing them up for the cooking process. I have a mandolin, but it's not a very good one, and as I suspected, wasn't up to the task of slicing oranges. No problem. I have lots of good, sharp knives, and it's only four or five oranges.

Once I threw them in the pot, I was tempted to go down and grab a bottle of champagne in place of the water. Hmm? Wouldn't the sugar in the champagne offset the amount of sugar that I would add later? As tempted as I was to recreate what I had found in the store, I decided to stick with the recipe this time.

Here's what it looks like as it cooks down:

The sliced oranges simmering with lemon zest, juice, and water.

After the sugar is added, the color changes as it slowly gets to the right temperature to set.

Ready for the jars!
(I went for a thicker set jam so that the orange slices wouldn't all rise to the top in the jars.)

This is the fun part.

And then you wait for it--that wonderful sound of the lids popping into place while they cool on the counter. How satisfying is that to know that this will be something we'll enjoy for weeks to come? Some Florida sunshine in the middle of a Minnesota winter.

The next morning, I printed out some labels so that I can give away a few jars. I've been the happy recipient of some friend's labors in the past, so it's time for me to share.

What's next? I've been reading One Man's Wilderness--a story set in Alaska--and it's made me hungry for sourdough, so as the jars were cooling, I mixed up a batch of starter. Some biscuits with marmalade...