Lemon and Orange Marmalade

I made this marmalade a few months ago, and although I do not really like marmalade I made it to give away to friends and family as gifts.

They seem to like it so perhaps you can also give it a try! I found the recipe here and it’s actually really easy to make:

Lemon and Orange Marmalade Ingredients:

6   oranges, halved, thinly sliced, seeds removed 
2   lemons, halved, thinly sliced, seeds removed 
4 cups water 
2 1/2 cups white sugar 
Juice of 1 lemon

Lemon and Orange Marmalade Method:

1. Place fruit and water in a large saucepan. Bring to the boil on high. Boil rapidly for 25-30 minutes, or until oranges are very tender. (My note - it took longer)
2. Reduce heat to low and add sugar, stirring, until completely dissolved. Stir in lemon juice.
3. Increase heat to medium and boil, without stirring, for a further 20-25 minutes, or until set, when tested. Pour into sterilised jars and seal while still hot.

The marmalade took much longer than the 20-25 minutes the recipe above mentions to reduce. As far as I can remember also I added less water than the recipe calls for.  (I think I only used two cups of water) It also says you should not stir the marmalade while it is cooking. Well, let me just say I stirred it almost all the time, literally begging it to reduce!!

I also almost think we added more sugar.. (The “We” I refer to here is my mom and I , because after standing over this pot for what for what felt like forever, out of sheer desperation I had to summon the matriarch for advice!!)

You need to test if the marmalade is ready before putting it into your sterilised bottles by dropping a teaspoon of it onto a cooled plate. I kept some in my freezer for this. Eventually though, after numerous “tests” and copious amounts of plates later I just bottled the batch!

Yes! Sometimes you just have to grab that wooden spoon, put down your foot and say “enough!”

It all turned out pretty well in the end, as it cooled the marmalade did thicken beautifully. Just be prepared to love and nurture your marmalade for an entire afternoon - literally!

Tomato Chutney Recipe

I decided to try my hand at making preserves - something I have never done before! My organic vegetable garden has been completely overtaken by my tomato plants and as the weather has been much warmer after winter - my garden was filled with tomatoes.

I made some relish a few weeks ago - just a basic tomato and onion mixture which is perfect for pastas, but as you can see.. I have a LOT of tomatoes - about 5kg's so I decided to make some tomato chutney!

I found a recipe called Autumn Tomato Chutney on the BBC Good Food website, that looked easy enough for me to give it a try!

Ingredients:

1kg ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped
750g cooking apples, peeled, cored and chopped
375g light muscovado sugar
250g onions, chopped
250g raisins
1 green pepper, de-seeded and chopped
2 tsp salt
½ tsp ground ginger
350ml cider vinegar

I changed it a bit, because I had sooo many tomatoes, so I added another 1/2 of all the ingredients. The recipe is so simple - because you basically just need to chop chop chop everything and put it into a BIG pot. (I went through 3 smaller pots before I finally brought out the biggest one we have)

Peel, core and chop the apples and put them into a HUGE pot.
Chop the green peppers and onions - I used a hand chopper thingie, which was much quicker.
Peel and chop tomatoes and add everything into the pot.

I didn't have muscovado sugar so I used regular white sugar and I used apple cider vinegar.
Bring everything to the boil slowly then let it boil for about 45 minutes - but I let mine cook for just over an hour..

I had to mash the chutney with a masher because I cut the apples far to big - but it actually worked out perfectly because everything came together really well with the mashing.

And finally.. ta daa! I had enough for 8 x 350ml bottles that I bought at Helgas for R4,00 each, and let me tell you - this chutney is really very very good!