adventures in canning

note from the blogger: i made this batch over the president's day weekend and am only posting it this week (3rd in march!). due to technical difficulties (or my incompetence, which is more likely), i got held up with the pictures. the story is still the same.

i spent the long weekend making marmalade. meyer lemons are a hybrid, a cross between a lemon and an orange. it's sweeter than a regular lemon but still tart enough that you realize it's a lemon, not an orange. it also has a thinner, more orange-yellow peel. last week i spied a meyer lemon tree in a neighbor's yard so on saturday i went by to see if they'd let me pick some. turns out they have two meyer lemon trees and they also said yes, so i was in business. i went home, got a five gallon bucket, and commenced to pick a wee bit over 22 pounds of meyer lemons. funny thing is, to look at those lemon trees you'd never know it.

i made some meyer lemon marmalade a few weeks back with the lemons from our little tree, i think i had about 22 of them, funnily enough. so far as taste went i was very happy with how it turned out and it was my first foray into canning, which really isn't hard and is very satifying - so much stuff to show for the work. the one thing i wasn't happy with was the distribution of the peel in the marmalade. the recipe i used said to chop the peel by hand and it ended up at the top of the jar. once you got through the peel it was more like jelly than marmalade. luckily i found a different recipe that recommended using the slicing attachment on the food processor to slice the lemons and not only did that work much better in terms of distribution of the peel throughout the marmalade, it also shaved off what i am guesstimating to be two hours of work. woo hoo! i've never used the slicing blade before so i feel confident when i say i'd never have thought of that on my own in a million years.

the marmalade cooks...

i made two kinds of marmalade: meyer lemon with lavender and meyer lemon with vanilla bean. in subsequent batches i have made plain (at my dad's request), and a combo lavender/vanilla bean. drew likes the combo best, i like the lavender best, lucy likes the vanilla bean best. they are all pretty damn good, imho.

some of the finished product...

a closer look...

you don't like marmalade? neither did i, until i had my first taste of lemon marmalade. i started making lemon marmalade years ago when i was living in berkeley with regular lemons from the tree in the backyard but i didn't go so far as to can it. i'd just make a small batch and eat it until it was gone, then make some more. i like meyer lemon marmalade better. the thinner peel cooks up softer and tastes better; less pith = less bitter. since meyers are a little sweeter it takes less sugar - but regular lemon marmalade is still pretty effing tasty. i have heard from many family members i've send the marmalade to that they like it, even those who have never cared for marmalade. i suspect, like myself, they only ever had orange marmalade, which i've always found too sweet. i also made some blood orange marmalade that drew and my lovely sister-in-law, val, both love and say is their favorite. it's not my favorite but it'll do in a pinch. my plan is to never be totally out of meyer lemon marmalade, if i can help it.

i will get around to posting the recipe and instructions soon, but right now i have to go walk the little dog. marmalade is easy and canning is easy, too. i was all intimidated by canning but it's not hard, just time consuming. drew and i are planning our garden, which will be replete with heirloom tomatoes. canning some of those lovelies is definitely in our future