Counter Clutter & Creation

I was pondering my next post...and in preparation for my 'creation' part of it, had a chuckle over how my homesteading life tends to infiltrate my house:

We have water bottles (the type

typically used for rabbit cages), fresh eggs, milled flour, flour container, apple cider vinegar, baking soda, bag of potatoes, a tomato and even a bag of popcorn!

Then on this counter we have:

In preparation for making Orange Marmalade ~ oh yum!

Gleaning - we were blessed to have someone donate oranges.

Start with 8 oranges and 3 lemons:

Wash the oranges and lemons (these were natural, no pesticides or other yucky chemicals).

I put my lemons in warm water to help make them juicier.

Next, I stared cutting oranges. I cut these into 8ths.

Each wedge, I made a slight 'V' to cut out the white pulpy part. Then cut into chunks.

Next, into the food processor. The first set of oranges I processed needed to go a tad longer. This was my first time making marmalade and I was on the learning curve.

Definitely want the peels chopped up well!

I picked up this gadget from a thrift store (hey, for 50 cents you can't beat it) but have decided I really DO NOT like it. It has a blade you can add and supposedly works well for grapefruit. I'm not impressed. It did help get the juice out of the lemons.

The recipe did not state why I needed to add lemon, my thought was to prevent browning. If that is the case, next time I will just dissolve a vitamin c tablet in there and be done with it. I have done that in the past with other recipes and it works extremely well.

In the crockpot above, cooking down the marmalade. I made the mistake of adding 2 cups of dry honey, then 4 cups of orange juice, I was supposed to add the juice, oranges, lemon juice cook for a while and then add the sweetener. I like using honey as it sweetens well, without a heavy taste and is more natural. I do not use white processed sugar in anything I cook.

Water boiling...the recipe I used said to keep the marmalade in the fridge for up to 2 months. Another recipe I consulted said to water can for 10 minutes. I opted for the water canning. I see no reason to take up space in the fridge for something that does not need to be in there. :-D

Water at a rapid boil, marmalade hot and into the jars it goes. Wipe down the lips of the jars, put the lids and rings on them and then into the pot.

I boiled these for 15 minutes, just to ensure that the water had gotten back up to a roiling boil.

Jar grabber - a friend bought this for me - WONDERFUL gift. Prior to this I was using a set of metal tongs...not a good idea. They did not grab the jars well at all.

Out of the canner, sitting undisturbed on the counter for up to 24 hours.

Listening for: bing, bing, bing, bing and ta dah, the last bing as the lids pop, letting me know that my seal is good.

The people that gave me the oranges received 2 jars - now that I have tried out the recipe and feel comfortable I will try to get a larger batch of oranges and do this again. Here is the recipe if you'd like to try making your own marmalade.