Limes!

[portiafaceslife]

I've been doing a bit of cooking this weekend, despite my increasing clumsiness - for which I blame the steroids, of course! I bought a bag of cheap limes yesterday - 12 for $3, so was inspired to try making marmalade, something I haven't done for about 20 years

Comments

[idlewild_]

OMG lime marmalade. Yum! That looks so good. I am impressed that the marmalade making went so smoothly. I found that the apple preserves we made were daunting, but that was our first time doing any home preserving that I didn't have you doing most of the work. ;)

What was the lime drink like? Just fresh lime juice in water? Or did you boil it up with some sugar? I still remember your homemade lemonade with great fondness -oh and the fly's wings in it, as we would call the pulpy bits. ;)

[portiafaceslife]

I tried out the marmalade this morning, & it's a tad overcooked, in that it's not quite as juicy as I'd like. I probably should have added about a cup more water after the long boiling before putting in the sugar. It has a good flavour, but is a bit too sticky. Also, the lime peel is still very chewy - obviously needs at least 2 hours cooking. So I'd say the marmalade gets an 8/10, but it wouldn't pass the CWA!

With the lime drink, I just put 2 teasp of sugar in the bottom of the glass, the juice of a lime, & stirred like mad as I added water. And kept stirring as I drank it. There weren't enough limes to do the whole making lemonade thing. Doing it this way, you can still get flies' wings - they're the best part.

(But I no longer make Purple Cows!)

[idlewild_]

Urgh. I did love the purple cow, but now I can live without it. Actually, I just find fresh beets too sweet and bland. And of course tinned beets are appalling.

Hmm. Am still at the preserving stage where what the book says, goes... I did not know you could mess with the water content without living in fear of botulism or something. But actually I love good sticky marmalade, though not so much the chewy lime bits.

[portiafaceslife]

I think some of the water evaporated during the long boiling to soften the peel, even though I had a the lid on. I wouldn't normally mess with the directions either - but if I make it again sometime, I might just try that.

You certainly don't want your preserves to be too runny, because of mould & other nasties, but I believe too dry can also lead to unpleasant things. My marmalade isn't dry - just not quite perfectly spreadable.