After Christmas, my family headed to Arizona for some sunshine and a chance to visit my parents and celebrate their 60th Anniversary.  The weather was delightful, with highs in the mid 70’s.  Whereas, in Minnesota, the temperatures were well below zero.

With the help of my younger brother and sister, we also moved my parents into a senior living center.  This meant that they would be selling their home, including the many fruit trees.  During the years that they have lived there, they have enjoyed having fresh lemons, peaches and oranges available right in their backyard.  I too have enjoyed the fresh fruits.  Each time I have visited them, I have taken some fruit back to Minnesota with me.  Since their house will be sold, this trip was my last opportunity to take some fruit home.

As in the past, this year my plan was to make some citrus marmalade.  While most recipes call for making marmalade out of oranges, I prefer the stronger flavor achieved by using equal amounts of juice from oranges as well as lemons.  I also prefer the enhanced fruit flavor obtained when using SureGel Low Sugar Pectin – less sugar, more fruit per bite!

The first step in making marmalade usually involves cutting up pieces of the fruit skin to make the strips that are present in the preserve.  I am not real fond of the large chunks of skin that this normally creates.  Instead, I use a small grater to grate the skin off of the fruit – the size is similar to fresh lemon zest.  This creates a marmalade that spreads nicely, looks more uniform and tastes great.   This also leaves the white part of the skin still on the fruit which makes juicing the lemons and oranges much easier because your hand has something to hold onto.  Today’s batch included six lemons and twelve oranges.  Since each lemon was about twice the size of the oranges, this resulted in equal volumes of juice after squeezing the fruits. A result was 72 ounces of marmalade.  Yum!