Preserving Citrus Fruits

While I was working on my content calendar and other planning for what I want to accomplish for my blog in 2019, I received the most exciting news. Marisa McClellan, author of the Food in Jars blog and related cookbooks, announced that she is again hosting a Food in Jars (FIJ) Mastery Challenge for 2019!  She did one in 2017 and it was so much fun – I did a blog entry for each month, but you can see my summary of the year with links to each of my monthly posts here.

The 2019 FIJ Challenge

To start 2019, the January challenge was for preserving citrus fruits. As long as whatever was made for the challenge incorporated citrus fruit of some sort, you could make whatever your little heart desired.

I, like many of my food preserving friends, have a few too many jars of things I have made hanging out in my pantry. A few months ago, I actually did a big recipe compilation post about all the ways you can Use the Jam from your pantry. When I signed up for the 2019 FIJ challenge, I told myself I would make something simple each month, in small batches, and not go overboard.

Preserving Citrus: Dehydrated Orange Slices

So, I started out the challenge by taking a handful of California navel oranges I already had in my kitchen and decided to thinly slice them and put them in the dehydrator. “That will be enough, that will meet the challenge,” I told myself.

We Got an Aldi!

Fast forward a couple of days, and as I was looking at my pretty jar of dehydrated orange slices, I knew I had to do a few more things. An Aldi recently opened up about 30 miles from my house, which is awesome.

We have a really great local grocery store in our small town, but for someone who likes to preserve and cook a variety of things, there are some ingredients I just can’t get locally.  Sure enough, as I was walking around the amazing produce section in our brand new Aldi, there were two bags of Meyer lemons waiting for me. And then a bag of mandarin oranges fell into my cart. I don’t know what happened.

Preserving Citrus: Marmalade Two Ways

When I got home, I browsed some recipes and decided I would make two different kinds of marmalade: Sweet Cherry Meyer Lemon Marmalade, and just regular Orange Marmalade for my husband.  I’m not a huge marmalade fan, but he insisted if I was going to make any marmalade at all, I had to make orange.  And since I wanted to try the cherry and lemon combination, I had to make both. There was literally no choice.

Washing the Fruit

Though I would buy organic if it was available in my area, it, unfortunately, isn’t – so my oranges, Meyer lemons and clementines all had a baking soda bath prior to me using them. In the past, I’ve always done a vinegar bath (three parts water to one part vinegar) – but I recently read some research that states a baking soda bath (one teaspoon of baking soda to two cups of water) is more effective at removing pesticides than vinegar, so that’s what I did for my oranges, Meyer lemons, and clementines.

A Two-Day Process

The marmalade extravaganza was a two-day process. The night before I was going to cook and can our two types of marmalade, I prepped all the fruit and set it to soak for the night in our COLD porch – per instructions of both recipes used. For measuring out the oranges and lemons, I used our new Taylor Stainless Steel Analog Kitchen Scale (11-pound capacity). Our old one was only a 6-pound capacity, and I actually broke it by trying to weigh more than 6 pounds – so I am pretty excited about this one!

Slicing the Fruit

I was careful to thinly slice the Meyer lemons for my batch, but my husband insisted that for his orange marmalade we should just put the whole clementines in our Cuisinart 7-Cup Food Processor. He didn’t want big rind pieces and he’s a huge fan of efficiency. (He can make dinner like 3 times faster than me.) I did cook the mandarins first per recipe instructions,

Sweet Cherry Meyer Lemon Marmalade

The next morning, I moved on with the process of cooking and water-bath canning the marmalades.  I made the Sweet Cherry Meyer Lemon Marmalade first. It turned out my dear husband wasn’t wrong about the food processor. As I cooked my marmalade, I decided I didn’t want to eat those big pieces of rind either. I hit it lightly with my Cuisinart Immersion Blender as it was cooking and it broke everything up perfectly. I didn’t puree it or anything – just made it a bit less rind-y and chunky. The rind is what some people like about marmalade. That’s the beauty of making your own things – you can do what you want (within safe guidelines.)

As you see above, I was cooking the marmalade in my Lodge Enameled 4.6-quart Dutch Oven aka my jam pan. It is the perfect size for almost every batch of jam, and I use it often.  I would recommend using a silicone spoon as you see above, there is so much stirring when you make jam, and silicon is nice and gentle on the enameled coating.

Batch Yield

This batch yielded about 12 ounces more finished marmalade than the recipe said it would. It called for 3 pounds of sweet cherries, and I was unable to find fresh ones here. (Shame on me, I did not freeze any of my own this year when they were in season.) So, I bought frozen sweet cherries that already had the stems and seeds removed. They came in 12-ounce bags and I bought and used three bags.

When I did my math, I figured 48 ounces of fresh cherries would be close to 36 ounces of cherries once the stems and seeds were removed. All I can figure is maybe the seeds and stems from fresh ones weigh a little more than I accounted for, so maybe I used a few more cherries than the recipe intended. Either way – I got an extra 12 ounces of goodness and I’m not worried about it.

Preserving Citrus: Orange Marmalade

While the cherry/lemon marmalade was processing in the Water Bath Canner, I started the cooking of the Orange Marmalade. We actually doubled the recipe – which normally is a no-no in jam making because you risk an improper set. However, the recipe we used was for small-batch anyway, so I figured doubling it would just make it a regular-sized batch.

We followed recipe instructions except for the double batch, and only used 3 cups of sugar instead of four.  Even though I used 1 cup less sugar than the recipe, it actually turned out very sweet. My guess is the clementines I used are sweeter than the Seville oranges used in the recipe? The yield on this doubled recipe was 7 8-ounce jelly jars and a small tasting jar, which was about 6 ounces less yield than the recipe said. So, pretty close!

Pure Cane Sugar

Speaking of sweetness, I recently found Zulka pure cane sugar and started using it for all of my kitchen sugar needs. Did you know that regular white sugar usually contains bone char? Like, ground-up pieces of bone from who knows what animal? Gross. Anyway – Zulka doesn’t have bone char in it, it’s verified non-GMO and minimally processed. I’m a big fan!

Whenever you can things, they always say to leave the jars undisturbed for 24 hours.  One thing I like to do is put my towels down on some Nordic Ware Cookie/Baking Sheets and then when the jars come out of the Water Bath Canner, I put them on the baking sheets. I also put hot pads underneath so the counter doesn’t get too hot.

I think this is a handy trick because then I can move the baking sheets to a more convenient place to finish their 24-hour resting period. The jars rest and I don’t give up the prime real estate of my kitchen island counter.

Both batches of my marmalade ended up being kind of a soft set. I absolutely hate it when it sets too hard – and marmalade is prone to do that. So, I was erring on the side of caution. They aren’t runny by any means, they just might be a little bit oozy off the English muffin. Who is going to complain about that?!

Preserving Citrus: Dehydrated Lemon Slices

Oh, one more thing – after I measured out the Meyer lemons for my marmalade, I had 4 lemons left. I thinly sliced those and put them on the dehydrator also! My husband and I are excited to use the dehydrated orange and lemon slices in water, tea, marinades, and more.

I was tempted to save one lemon for some Skinnytaste Chicken Picatta, but in the end, I decided to dehydrate all four lemons.  I’m hoping maybe next time I go to Aldi, they will have some more Meyer lemons for me!

So, there you have it: my adventures in preserving citrus!  Dehydrated Navel Orange Slices, Dehydrated Meyer Lemon Slices, Sweet Cherry Meyer Lemon Marmalade, and Orange Marmalade. I feel like I neglected the limes, but I often make batches of Salt-Preserved Limes so they get plenty of love in other months of the year.

And, I drank a margarita with a salt-preserved lime in it while I cut up the lemons and oranges. So, limes got some behind-the-scenes love anyway.