No sooner is Christmas over than all the little jobs for the year begin again, its like an endless cycle. As the years go by the cycle seems to take less and less time, which is scary. I was saying to my daughter the other day that eighteen months was such a short amount of time but she disagreed. Then I thought of the maths involved and and I guess its simply that to me its such a small amount/percentage of my life whereas for her the percentage is far higher.......you do the maths. ha ha
Anyway back to the actual point of the post, the marmalade. I use a Delia Smith recipe which I find works very well and has done year after year.
For those of you without the Delia Recipe the ingredients are as follows
Ingredients
2 lb Fruit Seville Oranges
4 pints Water
1 Lemon
4 lb Sugar (I use jam sugar)
Put clean jars in oven to warm.
Place water in pan
Prepare fruit by first cutting in half and squeeze juice. Collect any pips and place in muslin. Then remove the pithy interior of the fruit and place this in the muslin along with the pips secure this muslin bag into the saucepan of water.
Slice fruit skin into fine strips and add to the water.
Bring to the boil then simmer for two hours or until peel is soft.
Turn off heat and remove pips and pith in muslin squeeze carefully to remove the pectin from the pith. If you have a sieve you can press pithy mix through it to make sure you get as much of the pectin out of this pith/pip mixture
Add sugar and gradually heat until sugar has completely dissolved, then bring up to a rolling boil and bring to 140 degrees jam setting temperature.
Check for setting point. This point is reached when a teaspoon of marmalade placed on cold saucer wrinkles up when a finger is dragged over it.
Pour into warm clean jars
Label and store.
Enjoy
Well its that time of the year again when we all promise ourselves we are going to do things differently. We are going to get fitter, loose weight, take up a new hobby, stop smoking , stop drinking, be kinder to our family and friends, go out more or stay in more. Well the list is endless and we have all done it at one time or another. The trouble is we usually cant keep it up and by February or March at the latest most of our New Year resolve has vanished and we are back to the old routine.
Well this year my resolution is to stop worrying over the small stuff and take it each day at a time and enjoy life... in other words look for the good and be happy.
Corny I know, but I am going to count my blessings and I do have have quite a list of those.
So Happy New Year Everyone
Be Happy
I'd love to hear what resolutions you have all made.
