Rainy Days And Marmalade

We've come into a patch of what's called 'winter weather' here on the Wet Coast, meaning that it's been raining - most days, all day, for several weeks.  Can't complain too much - we don't have to shovel it! We were lucky to have a few scattered dry days spread out over the month - the New Year's bonfire at the neighbors' house would have been considerably less comfortable while sitting in the wet.  As it was, we merely had to stand up occasionally to switch from burning our shins to thawing our backsides.....

It also meant that it was high time to find some organic citrus, settle in for a few hours, and get back to a family tradition that began some years ago.  While my dad's favorite preserve was Black Currant jam, for which fruit I searched the Farmers Markets and eventually began an annual pilgrimage to a local U-Pick (and which we eventually began to grow for ourselves), my mother settled firmly into an appreciation of a 3-Citrus Marmalade that I made once, on a whim.  Not the Apple Butter, gently spiced and cooked down from our own apples, or chunky Strawberry Jam, bright with the taste of summer in our back yard. Nope - a recipe that most marmalade makers would call cheating (you used boxed pectin - gasp!), from imported, tropical fruit.  Oh well, after all, we've made Durian Jam for the Malaysian side of the family from frozen fruit shipped across the planet. I'm sure the neighbors wondered what the heck that smell was, but it tasted quite good.

So, with a fire in the woodstove, armed with vegetable peelers, a sharp knife, some grapefruit, lemons, oranges, and TV shows on the iPad, I set about peeling and dicing the rind.

While I had all of that citrus on hand, I sliced up some organic Meyer lemons and covered them with a few spoonfuls of our honey - for a Vitamin C boost to add to my morning tea.

I like to use red grapefruit in the mixed marmalade with lemons and oranges, because the added color makes for a prettier finished product.

Of course, while I was buying all of that citrus, I may have overestimated what I needed - so I waded through my preserving books, and  saddled myself with the extra work of making a Grapefruit Marmalade....

and a Lemon Lime Marmalade. Both were more traditionally steeped overnight, the Lemon Lime including the seeds (in the tea ball) and the whole fruits, thinly sliced, making for a sharp, bitter tang in the finished preserve.

The finished product: 3-Citrus, Ruby Grapefruit, and Lemon Lime Marmalade.