Orange Marmalade

I am sure by now you have heard about the orange trees in our yard and how much I love having them there. A few people have tried fresh squeezed OJ from the oranges in our tree and can attest to how good they are. When mom and Memom were here, they came up with all these fabulous ideas of what I can do with all my oranges. Pretty soon they'll start falling off the tree and rotting unless I can find uses for them!

One of their ideas is orange marmalade (aka jelly). So I decided to make some! Here is my process:

First, I gathered all my supplies. A big pot, oranges, one lemon, pretty much an entire bag of sugar, my mandolin slicer, thermometer, and jars.

After washing the oranges thoroughly, I made 1/8th inch slices with my mandolin slicer. I have heard horror stories of people slicing parts of their fingers with these things so I was very careful. After slicing oranges up, I cooked them. (side note: I'm sore from slicing oranges, lame!)

While the oranges were cooking, I prepared to sterilize the jars. While I was popping off the vacuum sealed lids of my mason jars, one of the sharp lids popped right off into my unsuspecting knuckle. My extreme caution with the mandolin slicer was to no avail, because now I am bleeding badly in two spots on my left hand. While I am running water over my bleeding finger, I am wondering how deep I have cut myself to produce this much blood when I realize I do not feel well. My stomach feels bad, I'm sweating and my eyes are going black. So before I black out in my kitchen, I go sit down in the living room for a bit to calm down while attempting to get the blood in my finger to coagulate. Side note: I have always prided myself on being tough with body issues (blood, vomit, snot, etc) and am very sad I have had such a dramatic reaction to my cut. Anyway, I got those darn jars to sterilizing.

 Because of my accident, I am now behind schedule and it is approaching time to take Mitchell lunch. My jars are boiling, my oranges are still cooking but at this point I have decided I am not that committed to this marmalade coming out well. I shut off the burners and took a lunch break.

I return after lunch and continue cooking my marmalade, reaching the point when I add all the sugar and try to bring it to the right consistency and temperature. Stir, stir, stir.

I check how done the marmalade is by placing a teaspoon on a frozen plate, letting it sit for 30 seconds and then tilting the plate to see how runny it is.

It is ready! So now the canning part! This was tricky and unfortunately there was no one to document this so you only see the final product:

6 cans of orange marmalade! The original idea was to give these as gifts but now that I realize I am not equipped to properly can, I am too scared of giving someone botulism to give any as gifts. So I will just keep these for myself and freeze them.

Can't forget to clean up your sticky mess!

The following day (today), I taste tested the homemade orange marmalade. And...

I don't like it. :( I don't think I've ever had orange marmalade before so I don't have anything to compare to but it just tastes like the rind to me. I'm not sure if it's supposed to taste like that, but if it is, then orange marmalade is gross. If it's not then I can't make it with my oranges because the rind is too strong.

Oh well, I was really only out a bag of sugar so not an expensive waste and if I hadn't cut myself, I probably would have called this a fun experience. On the list of other things to make with my oranges is orange chicken, orange honey spread and orange frosting on chocolate cupcakes. I have high expectations that all of those things will come out much better!

My finger (hurts worse than it looks)