brightly coloured citrus slices & bonus citrus syrup

     so, i kinda love pinterest, but i kinda hate that so many pins out there lead to broken links, or wrong links or just photos when you think it is a tutorial or recipe, or you have to click through 40 different pages to get to the information you wanted from the original pin, or just plain old faulty information, or all that other stuff that makes pinterest kinda suck sometimes.  i still kinda love it anyway though.  to get to the point, a long time ago i had pinned this photo:

it leads to a party supply store & just says to soak lemon slices in food colouring & then freeze them to add to punch at your next party.  i thought they look kinda neat but it seems like a total photoshop image to me, still, i wondered if it would work, so it sat on one of my boards waiting for me to give it a shot.
      the other day i happened to have some lemons & a bunch of limes that were starting to need using up.. so, experiment time!!!

     i had a lemon, 3 or 4 little limes & i had some oranges so i decided to give it a shot with one of those too!  i did my best to slice them thinly & decided to try 3 colours, a blue, a turquoise-y green & a purple!  (though why i didn't choose to do a bright pink is beyond me, i had neon food colouring & the purple ended up being kinda a muddy colour.  oh well.)  so, photos!

     after an hour or so, they looked like this:

     i decided to put them in the fridge to soak overnight.  the next day when i came to check them out i discovered that the back of my fridge seems to be freezing things..

     anyway!  this is what they looked like the next day!

     the green ones were the ones were the ones that froze, which is why there is only a single green lime there.  the lemons all seemed to curl up while they soaked overnight.  the fruit and the pith are the only parts that took the colouring, none of the peels changed their original colours.

 
     these things had quite a bit of food colouring on them, my fingers were pretty colourful after working with them even though i was using a fork to help me scoop them out of the bowls, so i rinsed them off in water to get rid of all the excess dye.  (also i used some warm water to melt out those green ones)  here is what the final results looked like:

     i think the blue & green ones look kinda neat.  i should have chose a different colour for my third choice.  out of the three types of fruit i would have thought that the lemons worked the best, but i think the limes did.  after all this i put them on plates in the freezer to freeze & then transferred them to bags & will put them in drinks in the summer time, some iced tea or something.  overall it turned out better than i was expecting.



citrus syrup
      so.. i had to do something with the rest of the fruit!  i had a birthday party to go to the next day & was asked to bring some iced tea, so some syrup to sweeten it was in order!   i had the ends of all of them, about half a lemon, a quarter of an orange and about an additional lime and a half.  first thing to do, get all the zest from the left over bits and ends that i could.  this involves some sharp knife work because you dont really want to get the pith because that will make the syrup bitter.  i always have to remind myself to be careful when cutting odd shaped things because i end up doing stupid things like cutting towards myself & at odd angles, but maybe that's just me?  i also squeezed out all the juice i could out of the remaining bits and pieces.

 
     i poured the juice into a measuring cup and topped it off with water to bring it up to 2 cups.  i poured it into a sauce pan on the stove and turned it on to med heat and added 1.5 cups of sugar.  stir it up until it dissolves, then add the zest!

    
     continue cooking until it begins to boil & then let it simmer for, i dont know, 5 or 10 min.  you can taste it and see how citrus-y you like it.  the more juice & zest you have and the longer you let it boil the stronger the syrup will be.

     after this is done you need to strain it.  i poured mine into a measuring cup first to make this step easier, but if you use a larger pot then that step might not be needed.  strain the syrup into a jar, let it cool a bit, cap it and store it in the fridge.

     ta-da!
if i was to make this again without just using scraps i would probably use the juice and zest of:
1 lime, 0.5 lemon, 0.5 orange, or well.. probably the whole lemon really!  maybe even more limes to make it kinda sweet & sour-y!
     by the way, it was really tasty in the strawberry fruit tea iced tea i made!

grapefruit jam!~ (&lemon)

ugh.
     i have not posted in so long!  & i have a few things i have been meaning to make posts about before i totally forget about them!  BUT!  the other day i made some grapefruit jam, so i thought i would get that in & perhaps fit in the rest of my past jam making adventures.  (i have had a few because i am planning on giving jams out for christmas!)  I had previously made a whole bunch of pomegranate jam to give as gifts & then was intregued by a recipe for lemon jam that was in a book i had taken out from the library.
     So here it goes.

Grapefruit Jam.
      This batch i totally made up on my own, no recipe, no real research, i just went for it.  I originally was going to follow the steps that i took in making the lemon jelly i had previously made but decided that i did not like that idea.  I did something super simple instead!
#1.  I supremed some grapefruit, i did 4.  I actually have never supremed citrus before & it was a lot easier than i thought it would be, i think the key was using a sharp knife.  Pretty much you just slice off the top & bottom (this also helps it sit nicely) & then you start slicing off the peel from top to bottom.

Then, once all the peel is off, you cut out the little sections of fruit.  I also made sure to save all the juices & squeeze out any remaining stuff i could from the juicy parts that were left on the peel.  From 4 grapefruits i got 2.5cups of fruit/juice.

Next step, i put the fruit in a pot & added sugar & put it on med-high heat to cook away!

Originally i had added only 2 cups of sugar, but that was not enough & i added another 0.5 cup.  I had done an initial plate test & it was not quite done & it also did not taste quite sweet enough.  I think if you want a really really sweet jam then you need to add even more sugar.
     I was surprised at how much the fruit broke down while cooking, i had left it in big chunks at the beginning and with just light stirring the large pieces totally broke down.  (but this jam still has lots of pulp)
     After putting the pot back on the burner after the initial plate test it started bubbling up a lot more, this happened when i made my lemon jam as well, in fact my lemon jam ended up bubbling up so much it boiled over the pot!  I had read some where that jelly tends to boil up quite a bit, so i assume this is normal?  but both times this did not happen until after i had taken it off the burner to test it & then put it back on?  Just making a note.
     The next 4 photos are what the mix looked like at the start, how much it had broken down, the bubbling up after putting it back on the burner & the finished jam!

     After it was done i filled the jars.  This amount of jam only filled 5 little jars & about half of a 6th (these are 125mL jars), so it was a small batch.  I boiled them in a hot water bath for 15min & then turned off the heat & left it uncovered for an additional 5min.  I do not know if that extra step is needed or not or even if i should be doing it, but it allowed me to finish up with some other stuff i was doing at the same time, so it all worked out!  This jam was super pretty!  It was night time & the little bit of light from the stove just made it glow, so lovely!  I have not opened a jar yet but i did eat some of the left over bits from the pot & it was yummy! 

& super simply, equal parts grapefruit/juice & sugar, cook till it passes the plate test & you are good to go!

Lemon Jam
     The lemon jam i made i followed the instructions & recipe from this book: The Art of Preserving by Lisa Atwood,except that i shrunk it down to, i think, 1/3 of a batch.  A teeny tiny batch that only made 4.5 little jars.  This jam, or well, i guess it is actually jelly, took 2 days because it kinda makes a citrus pectin out of the peel.  You have to first thinly slice some fruit (2/3lb), with peel & boil it & allow it to drain overnight.

You are then left with some thick yellow liquid.  I actually got a little less then i was supposed to according to the recipe, but oh well.  You also then need to add some lemon juice (2/3c)!

mix this all together with 2c of sugar & ta-da! After i did the plate test & put it back on the burner it started boiling up&up&up&up & so i had to pour it into the GIANT pot in the second picture. I managed to clean things up pretty good it looks like, but there was lemon jam all over the burner & smoke everywhere, plus the jam was starting to set up quite quickly, it was not fun times.

This jam was very fast! From start to finish the cooking only took a bit over 15min & without the boil over disaster it would have taken less.  After the cooking i filled the jars & did the water bath thing.  This jam, like the grapefruit, was also very pretty!

     I was thinking that i should have made mandarin orange jelly for christmas time, since it is such a christmas fruit, but i think that lemon & grapefruit will do fine for now.  I also have the pomegranate, i have lots of that (& i will do a post about it later) & i think 4? jars of nectarine jam (since 3 of them did not seal and are in the freezer & i ate one) to give as gifts as well.  It will be a very jam-y christmas!