The Bestest Ever Homemade Marmalade

Mmmmmm – how delicious do those oranges look! Well if you eat them raw then they're pretty disgusting as they're Seville Oranges and quite bitter – but they're probably the best orange ever to make marmalade with. They're only around for a few weeks of the year so get down to the grocers and grab yourself a basket – you won't be sorry. I try and make a big batch of marmalade every year to last me until they come around again.

I always thought making jam/marmalade sounded a bit daunting. All those stories from Grandma about boiling sugar and how terribly dangerous it all is. Nah – that's all rubbish, it's dead easy and you won't have ever tasted marmalade like it. It really is light years ahead of shop bought stuff.

So first things first – get to your grocers and grab yourself a kilogram of Seville Oranges. Chop them in half and squeeze all the juice out of them and then cut all the peel – chunky or fine – the choice is yours. Don't cut any of the pith off – that's the bit that contains most of the pectin which is what helps the marmalade set. Put everything in a bowl together with 2.5 pints of water and leave to soak overnight.

Transfer everything in to a large pan and bring to the boil. (Before you do anything else put a couple of saucers into the fridge now, you'll need them later.) Simmer for around 2 hours with the lid on or until the peel is soft – this will vary depending on how thick you've cut it. Just take a little bit out onto a chopping board and you should be able to squish it with your fingers really easily. Make sure you let it cool down first!

While you're simmering you'll need to sterilise some jars. There are various ways to do this – for ease you can put them in the dishwasher but I generally use my steamer – pop them in for half an hour.
OK – so after you've boiled for 2 hours you then need to add 75ml of lemon juice which is approx one lemon and 2kg of demerara sugar. Jeez – it's an awful lot of sugar – I didn't realise how much actually went into jam and marmalade – it's a bit of shocker! Stir the sugar to make sure it's fully dissolved and now you want to get your marmalade to a rolling boil.
It'll look a little like the shot above – lots of foamy bubbles. Don't stir when you get to this point as it'll reduce the temperature of your marmalade and take longer for it to reach setting point. You need to boil for approximately 20-25 minutes.

Now – this is the trickiest bit I think. Trying to work out if it's reached setting point or not. This is where the saucers in the fridge come in. After about 20-25 minutes take one of your saucers out and drop a little of the marmalade onto it, leave it to cool for a minute or so and then if it's reached setting point it should crinkle when you push it with your finger – like below. Can you see that?
Leave it for 10-15 minutes to cool down and then pot into your steralised jars. Hey presto home-made marmalade. I promise, you won't look back.

The Tomato Glut Preserving Post

Wow, we sure did have a bumper tomato year. Just before we went on hols we picked everything that was ripe (and some that wasn't) and we had a bumper preserving Sunday. We wanted to preserve them in a number of different ways and decided to do some bottling and then to make a couple of chutneys.

So here goes...

We ended up picking about four kilos, a mixture of yellows and red with a few greens thrown in for tang. First on the list was the traditional bottling. I was following the instructions from Preserves: River Cottage Handbook No.2, great little book.

http://www.rivercottage.net/ShopProduct334/PreservesRiverCottageHandbookNo2.aspx

It's a pretty simple process really. All you need is some airtight jars, I used Le Parfait, some sugar, a roasting tray and a tea towel.

Firstly you'll need to make up a batch of syrup which is simply some sugar dissolved in water. I made a light syrup which is 100g sugar in 600ml of water. You can add honey, alcohol, spices, herbs etc to your syrup to give it some added interest. I made a batch of plain syrup and then added my spices to the various jars so I could have a good mixture of flavours. Below is the basil pot but I also did thyme and chilli options.

Preheat your oven to 150c and stand your jars in your roasting tray which is filled with water at a depth of about 3cm. You'll need to put either a tea towel or a wad of newspapers in the bottom to stop the jars touching the bottom of the tray otherwise they'll crack in the heat. Cover with the jar top and rubber ring but don't fasten them just yet.

60-70mins for jars up to a litre and 70-80mins for 1-2 litres jars. Once out of the oven clip the lids on and leave to cool.

Don't they look delicious! Kept in a cool dark cupboard they should last up to a year. So that was bottling, think all in all we've got about 8 jars of varying sizes. Next – chutney! I love making chutney and jams but this is the first time I've been lucky enough to make it with homegrown ingredients! Two types, a yellow/green combo and a red spicy paprika.

OK, starting with the red spiced chutney. Ingredients are:

• 2 onions, finely chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, crushed
• 2 red peppers, halved, deseeded and finely chopped
• 1 red chilli, deseeded and diced
• 1kg (2lb 31⁄2oz) ripe tomatoes, chopped
• 450ml (3⁄4 pint) malt or white wine vinegar
• 350g (12oz) soft light brown sugar
• 100g (31⁄2oz) raisins
• 1 level tsp black mustard seeds
• 2 level tsp smoked paprika
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1⁄4 level tsp ground cloves

Easy peasy to make. Whack everything in a large pan, stir togther and bring slowly to the boil. Simmer for 1.5-2hrs until it becomes chutney consistency. Job done! This is really nice and smokey, will be brilliant with a strong cheddar or if you're a meaty eater maybe some gammon (although I'm guessing at that as I don't think I've ever eaten gammon!)

Next up was the yellow/green combo. It was really just a recipe for green tomato chutney as I couldn't find one I liked for a yellow variety. The yellows are quite tart anyway so I just reduced the amount of sugar a little to compensate.

Ingredients are:

• 2lb green tomatoes chopped
• 8 oz onions chopped
• 1 lb cooking apples peeled & chopped
• 8 oz dried fruit
  
• 8oz brown sugar
• 1 pint vinegar spiced or malt
• 2 tablespoons mustard seed
• 1 inch fresh ginger peeled & finely chopped
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon

Again, pretty simple as before. All goes into the pan and simmers uncovered until a nice sticky consistency. Probably about 3 hours. Into sterilised jars and seal.
I managed to get all the ingredients for the chutneys without gluten or wheat in so these are all ceoalic friendly. The thing that nearly caught me out was the dried fruits as some of them contained gluten, from what exactly I don't know? But I managed to get some in Waitrose that were gluten-free.

As with most chutneys they improve with age so keep in the cupboard for a few weeks before using. Managed to get five pots of each so we'll probably give some as presents for Christmas, that's if we can bear to part with them!