consider me your cautionary tale.
It all started with massive performance anxiety. I was feeling a bit intimidated. Before I’d even begun, I was feeling like whatever I was going to do wouldn’t to be good enough or interesting enough. Uggghhhhh!!!!! Where did the giddy go? These self-inflicted wounds are BOOOORRiNnnnggg.
I took the Just Go approach. Every single cookbook owned and borrowed was perused for tips, tricks and ideas. Why not just go trad with my ’53 edition of The Joy of Cooking? From there it was pretty easy to decide to do plain ol’ Blood Orange Marmalade. Simple. Simple. Wait. Irma and I are going to make this crazy complicated, aren’t we?
Follow directions? I pretty much followed Irma S. Rombaur’s recipe for Orange, Lemon And Grapefruit Marmalade up until the point it said cook the fruit mix in batches. Really, I did the whole soaking fruit thing. Overnight. For Real.
Remember up there I said up til the point… Well, I cooked it. And kept cooking it because there was so much of it and it wouldn’t spoon or saucer test well. At some point, I know it was hours later, I said to heck with it and thought it might set up if I went ahead and processed it.
I’m a bit of a Weck person. I’m a Weck person and this was my first time with the water bath. Oh, bubbles, how you scared me. I did lose a jar midway through. I was kinda wild to see pulp just appear in the water.
Instead of getting weepy, I took out the offending jar and stuck in a spoon and almost cried. It was good. Loose and syrupy, but good.
I finished processing the other jars. Let them cool. I just waited to see what the next day would bring. The next day brought just as much movement in the jar.
I looked around for ways to save my marmalade. There it was on p.85 of Anne V. Nelson’s The New Preserves. For every 2 cups of fruit goo add 1 tablespoon of commercial lemon juice.
I pulled the seal on all the jars. Measured and dumped back in the pot. Added the lemon juice. Cooked until the spoon test looked right. Processed and waited.
Oh, what a good morning can bring. Blood Orange Marmalade and plain yogurt. Bliss. That simple.
It was sweet and tart. Smooth, with hints of texture. The bits of rind really were a candied surprise. I enjoyed the Blood Orange Marmalade with yogurt a bit more than the pita. The fresh, cool tang of the yogurt lifted the marmalade and tempered the sweetness. Twas quite good.
So where’s the adapted recipe? I could just say since I didn’t do it right, why would you want it? Well, the truth is… I forgot to write it down. Next month, I promise?
♥
