Can Jam January - Citrus

The first Tigress in a Jam - Can Jam!

The theme for this month is citrus.

Pure Gold Marmalade, my own recipe of orange, lemon, passion fruit, mango and peach, is my first choice for citrus, but I still have quite a few jars of it in my pantry and I couldn't find any frozen passion fruit, so I made something new.

I combined Minneola oranges, clementines, peaches, mango puree and guava puree.


The Minneola orange is a cross between a tangerine and a grapefruit.

Deep red-orange and sometimes called the minneola tangelo, sometimes misspelled mineola, is easily recognized by its characteristic slightly elongated "neck" on one end.

At its peak of maturity, its pebbly peel turns to a very attractive bright reddish-orange color.

This tasty fruit is easy to peel, has a high juice content.

The ingredients above.

I like to buy fruits like mango, guava and passion fruit as frozen puree.

Because (a) it's easier - I hate peeling mangos (b) I feel like it might be fresher - the difference between tomatoes frozen at their peak in summer and fresh shipped tomatoes in the middle of winter might hold true with mangos too. (c) I can't buy local exotic fruits and it's cheaper to ship flat packages of frozen fruit than fresh fruit.

Just my opinion.

Above: The clementines in the food processor.



Some of the fruit before cooking.

I also added one bottle of ginger beer, 3 Tbs ground ginger and 1/3 cup bottled lemon juice.

Plus one pound of white sugar.



Jars bubbling away.



Removing jars from canner.




Finished orange/citrus ginger sauce.



Mmmmm, yummy!
Good for sauces or salads.
Or just on bread.
I think it is a little too runny to call marmalade, so I'm calling it Citrus Sauce.




Tilapia with citrus sauce.

Citrus sauce tilapia on a bed of shredded cabbage slaw.

The orange and ginger really taste amazing together.

I had a lot of fun with this Can Jam!

I know that on my own I never would have canned anything in January.

Now I have a nice gift to add to the gift baskets I'm making for the dinner party on Saturday.

I think I might include a card with recipe ideas for this Citrus Sauce.

Best Ever Challah

I'm sort of obsessed with potato water.

You may have noticed that I've used it in a lot of my recipes recently.

It's so wonderful!

The potato water makes such a difference in this bread.

It's silky, smooth and easy to handle.

Easy to handle is very important in challah, because of the 'fancy' braiding.

~

Best Ever Challah

Sponge:

1 cup flour

1 cup potato water (liquid reserved from boiling potatoes)

2 tsp yeast

In a large bowl mix flour, potato water and yeast. Cover and let sit for 45 mins.

Dough:

3 1/3 cups flour

1 3/4 tsp salt

1/3 cup sugar

1/4 cup butter

4 large eggs

Add flour and butter to the sponge ingredients. Mix until combined then add the rest of the ingredients. Turn dough out onto your work surface and knead. Dust with flour and knead again.

Place dough into a well greased bowl and cover it.

2 ways to continue: 1. Let rise in a warm place for 1 1/2 hours OR 2. Place covered bowl in the refrigerator for a few hours.

I chose option 2 and left it in the fridge for 18 hours. I made it the night before and baked it when I got home from work the next day. Perfect!

Either way you choose - Next, punch down dough and divide it in to 3 equal pieces. Roll the 3 pieces into 12-14 inch long ropes. On your well greased/silpat covered baking sheet braid the 3 pieces together.

Let rise for 1 hour, until doubled in size.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Egg wash:

One egg, beaten with a little salt.

Before baking, brush loaf with egg wash and sprinkle with sesame seeds or poppy seeds.

Bake for 40 mins or until loaf sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom.

Challah with butter and my Pure Gold Marmalade.

Don't let the braiding scare you away from trying this.

I literally made this up and figured out how to braid it, just because I had 4 eggs to use up.

Try it!

And let me know how it turns out.

Pure Gold Marmalade

This is my own secret recipe, so shhhhhh.
Keep the secret and make it for yourself.
One taste of this and you will know why it's called pure gold.
If you sold it, you would make pure gold!

~

Pure Gold Marmalade

You will need oranges, lemons, mangoes, peaches and passion fruit.

Now, you can do this however you want, but this is what I do: take 4 whole oranges and 1 whole lemon.

Grind up 2 of the oranges and the lemon in a food processor until finely minced.

Next take the 2 remaining oranges and peel them, discarding peel. Add the peeled oranges to the finely minced orange/lemon.

Next finely mince 4 cups of peaches in the food processor. I used frozen peaches from this summer's bounty.

Then the secret ingredients: Goya frozen fruit puree. This time I used 1 thawed bag of mango and 1 thawed bag of passion fruit.

You can use any amount of the above fruit you want. Mix it up!

I ended up with 12 cups of fruit pulp. With a traditional marmalade recipe you would add 12 cups of sugar to this amount of fruit pulp!

12 cups?!? No way I'm doing that!

I added half the sugar.

So 12 cups fruit pulp = 6 cups sugar

Stir pulp and sugar over med. heat in a large pot until the sugar dissolves.

Then bring to a boil over high heat, stirring constantly.

Cook rapidly almost to the gelling point.

As mixture thickens, stir frequently to prevent sticking.

This is going to take a while.

Like an hour.

Now if you what it to thicken quicker - add more sugar.

When it is thickened-

Remove from heat.

Skim foam, if necessary.

Ladle hot marmalade into hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace.

Adjust 2 piece caps.

Process 10 mins. in a boiling water canner.