Orange Marmalade, Part 1

I had a bag full of fresh Florida oranges a friend gave us. Sweet, juicy goodness. I also have two bags full of fresh mandarins from the tree at our river place. There's so many that it'll be impossible to eat them all in this fresh state, either peeled slices or quartered chunks. So today I'm making my first orange marmalade (ever), using the Ball Blue Book recipe with a slight modification. I'll also be preserving some of those mandarins too, but that's another post--these are some of my mandarins, I forgot to take a pretty picture of my oranges!

Orange Marmalade

Ingredients:
1 quart thinly sliced orange peel (about 6 large)
1 quart orange slices, cut (about 6 large)
1 quart thinly sliced oranges with peel (about 6 small)
2 cups thinly sliced Meyers lemons (2 large)
2 1/4 cups water
Sugar, about 9 cups

Directions:
Clean the fruit by placing in a clean sink of water with about 1/4 of white vinegar. Let it sit for 15 minutes, swooshing them around periodically and using your hands to scrub them and remove any dirt, fertilizer, pesticides, etc. Remove any remaining stem buds. 

Prepare the fruit. I removed the peel by cutting it off the orange, but then found it was easier to peel it by hand. Slice the peel into thin slices, putting them into one container. Cut the pulp into chunks, removing the seeds and put the chunks and as much juice as you can into another container. 

The skin on my smaller oranges was difficult to remove, so I decided to thinly slice them whole, removing the seeds. These went into another bowl.   

Combine the fruit and water in a large pot. Heat to just before boiling and simmer for five minutes. 

 Any remaining seeds will float to the top; remove them.

Cover and let stand for 12 - 18 hours in a cool spot. My pot is still cooling; I'll be moving it into a cooler corner of the cabin to rest overnight.

I'll share the next steps of making marmalade tomorrow.  

Thanks for reading my blog, you are the best f/f/r/f's, see you tomorrow,
Lise