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. 

Apple Butter and Applesauce

I cooked down two full crock-pots of apples this week, and allowed the fruit to cool before putting it through a food mill (this one a mere $5.99 at the thrift store.  I used to see them all the time but I have been avoiding shopping therapy of any kind to save money).

 

Two full loads of apples became one full crock of milled sauce, which I cooked down for several hours (lid off to help evaporation), which then became 16 jars of Apple Butter and 3 jars of unsweetened applesauce.  I left them on the table overnight to make sure they cooled and sealed.  They still need to be labeled and put away in the pantry, but for now I can appreciate the results of a bit of work, backyard apples, a bit of sugar, and some spices.

I've condensed the plum slices I put into the dehydrator the other day - almost 20 pounds - and added more apple slices to the vacated trays.  The last of the apples, I picked from the trees, though some needed a bit more of a forceful tug than a gentle lift off the branches.  No more fallen fruit with bruises or nicks!  I shared a bucket with my neighbour, and the rest should keep over several weeks at least for baking, dehydrating or preserving.

Spuds, Cukes, and a Chick

Adrian harvested half of our potato harvest last night, while I ground up 8 pounds of cucumbers so that I could can dill relish.  I actually thought I would have enough cucumbers to make some dill slices on the side, but our harvest fridge (our second fridge in the basement, that holds bulk onions, potatoes, blueberries, eggs, milk, zucchini, etc. etc.) had seen fit to freeze some of the cucumbers at the back of the bowl.  I turned the temperature dial up this morning! I wound up actually substituting a bit of zucchini to round out the recipe.

The zucchini, cucumbers, onions and garlic I used in the recipe were all out of the garden (I used the onions that had sent up flower stalks, and damaged bulbs of garlic, since they won't hold in storage).  Fingers crossed that this relish tastes good, since I've had a few let-downs in that department over the past years with new recipes. Some *very* vinegary beet slices are still sitting in the pantry because I assume I'll find a way to use them, and can't bear to think of all those hours of work wasted. 

Since the kitchen was already a bit of a mess, and the food processor dirty, we also made salsa, tabbouleh and zucchini muffins - and then rewarded ourselves with a dinner of local corn after the pints of relish were processed on the stove outside.  You know the garden is in full swing when you're eating dinner by nine!

Celine and her little chick are doing well.  There were no more chicks hatched out, so I removed the remaining eggs on Sunday, to let Celine focus on mothering. I gave them a leftover cob of corn for their private breakfast, and watched Celine peck pieces off the cob and drop them for the chick to eat.  There was a little pasting on the chick's butt, so I quickly scooped it up - to the annoyance of Celine, and pulled off the dried poop - to the annoyance of the chick.

Supplies were purchased to expand the rabbitry with outdoor cages, and that will be our evening project this week.  Spot's ears are still giving him slight issues, so I have been swabbing them with oil to lubricate and to suffocate any mites that are in the ear canal, and leaving him outside during the day to get more sunshine and wind exposure.  The look he gave me this morning was somewhat reproachful. Chun Li and Sakura are both beginning to nest, which is a good sign that we will have kits in seven days. I'm very interested to see what our cross-breeding results are, and the moms seem to have become less agitated over the past few days.