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.

Pumpkin Waffles - Vote For Me!

This month's challenge, on The Leftover Queen's Royal Foodie Joust, is to use orange, black and sugar.

So, Orange: pumpkin or squash - Black: Dark ale or cola - Sugar

I have to be honest, before this recipe I'd never bought beer.

I know nothing about beer.

At first it was a struggle to think of a recipe that used pumpkin, beer and sugar.

But then I thought of pumpkin waffles.

After that, the only thing left to do was to buy the beer.

Whew! Who knew that there were soooo many types of beer?

I stood in front of the cooler for a long time.

Finally, the clerk asked me if I needed help.

"Yes! Do you have any dark beer? Besides Guinness?"

"Ummmm, noooo. Just Guinness."

Ok then. Out of a million types of beer I went home with the only dark beer - Guinness.

Now to the recipe!

Perfect Pumpkin Waffles

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup oatmeal flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cloves
1 1/2 cups pumpkin (canned or cooked)
1/2 cup brown sugar (packed)
6 Tbs. butter, melted
4 large eggs
1 1/2 cup buttermilk (or milk with 1 Tbs lemon juice added)
1/2 cup dark beer

Mix together in a large bowl dry ingredients. Stir in Pumpkin, butter, brown sugar and eggs.
Add milk and beer, mix until thoroughly blended.
Scoop batter into a preheated waffle iron.
Bake until waffles are golden brown.
Serve with butter and warm maple syrup.

I made oat flour by grinding whole oats in my mini food processor.

All of the ingredients.
Look at those bright orange yolks!
Thanks for the eggs Ladies.




I made the buttermilk by adding 1 Tbs. bottle lime juice to 2% milk.
Then let it stand for a few mins. and add the beer.
Why do you even need to use buttermilk?
The acidic buttermilk reacts with the baking soda/baking powder and results in lighter waffles with a higher rise. Have you ever made a baking soda/vinegar volcano? Same idea - poof!



I threw a few chocolate chips into the batter.




Nice and golden.

What do they taste like?

Well, do you like pumpkin bread or cake?

They taste just like that.

However, because there isn't as much flour they don't taste starchy, the spicy pumpkin flavor can really shine through.
Crispy on the outside and soft on the inside.

And they re-heat well too.

Just follow the same refrig or freezing directions

as I used for the In a Hurry Pancakes.

I served mine with home-made cinnamon butter.

Now, how can you vote for me?

Well, on Nov. 1st The Leftover Queen Forum will start voting on every one's recipes.

Please vote for me!

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.