Marmalade this time

I saw my neighbor, Joe, the other day, feeding oranges to his cows. He was cutting the oranges up with a knife, having brought them from his place down in Florida. Some of the oranges were in pretty good shape, really, so he gave me about a dozen. This was just enough to make the marmalade recipe in The Ball Blue Book.

I found out, reading The Ball Blue Book, that marmalade is any jam that has citrus peels in it. So it can be made with grapefruit peels and lemon peels as well as orange peels, and it can have other kinds of fruit in it.

It took longer than I expected to cook the marmalade down to the gelling point: about 40 minutes. But the results were pretty and delicious. I gave some to my neighbor so he would keep bringing me citrus from Florida.

My second attempt at strawberry jam resulted in jam that was a little too stiff, especially after refrigeration. I cooked it too long, and the temperature got too high. So I gently warmed it again with a little added water, and voila: perfect jam again.