Mixed Citrus Ginger Marmalade Take 2

Keeping a bag in the freezer labeled "Future Marmalade" ensures that citrus doesn't go to waste in my household. The mixture grows in its own good time, at a pace determined by meetings that offer mandarin oranges, Arnold Palmers and other beverages that come with a slice of lemon, an orange slice decorating a dinner eaten out somewhere. It grows in its own eclectic direction based on what I'm cooking, or think I'll be cooking; this year's mix included 2 limes, a couple of lemons I know I bought for a recipe I didn't get around to making, and a blood orange I don't quite remember acquiring, along with the usual oranges and miscellaneous slices.

Photo of a large blue Dutch oven holding a bright orange-yellow mix of citrus peels and flesh.

This year I used a different technique, following Food in Jars' technique of boiling the fruit and then letting it cool rather than macerating overnight, then slicing the peel into tiny ribbons. I also took her 1:1:1 fruit:sugar:water to heart. When the water you use is the water you boiled the fruit in, it's retaining all the citrusy goodness.

Ingredients

~4 lbs. citrus peel and flesh (I neglected to measure volume; I'd guess this was somewhere around 6 cups)
6 cups of the water the fruit boiled in
3-1/2 lbs. granulated white sugar (this was chosen based on coming close to matching the citrus by weight and not exceeding it; the last batch was a bit too sweet)
2-1/2 ounces crystallized ginger, chopped
2 T. ginger paste from a tube (feel free to grate and chop if that's your thing, and you can leave this out if you don't want much gingery goodness)

Instructions

Honestly, read Food in Jars for good instructions, or the National Center for Home Food Preservation. This is my abbreviated description of what I did and the options I considered. 

Prep the fruit: Your choice on handling the fruit. You can boil it all together in plenty of water for an hour, then let it cool. If you do this, you then slice the zest into tiny ribbons, save the seeds and pith in cheesecloth so they can go for a swim in the cookpot to provide pectin, and chop the flesh. 

Or you do the zesting/cutting/etc. beforehand and soak the prepared fruit overnight in the water. You still have to boil it at that point so I don't know that you're really far ahead; it's more a question of whether you remembered to set things up the night before the day when you'll have time to cook and can the marmalade.

If you really want to spread the labor out, do the zesting and separate the pith and flesh as you acquire citrus, keeping the zest, flesh, and stray juice in one bag, the pith and seeds in another, both in your freezer. Defrost all, put the seeds and pith in cheesecloth that will soak in the cooking peel/flesh combo, then proceed with boiling for an hour to soften before adding the rest of the ingredients.

Prep jars and water bath: I sterilize my jars by putting them on a pan in the oven at 250 degrees for 10 minutes or more. At about the halfway mark of cooking the marmalade you'll want to get that going. You want the jars to be warm or hot when you put the hot marmalade in them to avoid a big temperature differential. 

I've also made use of the hot water bath, dipping one jar at a time in with the canning tongs, but that's slow. I mostly do this when I end up with a bit more product than I'd anticipated and need a couple of additional jars.

Or you can run them in the dishwasher, in which case you started that well before this point because you read the whole recipe before starting to make it, right?

Boil the marmalade: Bring all ingredients to a rapid boil in a heavy pan such as a Dutch oven with plenty of surface area. Stir frequently and keep it boiling.

At about 25 minutes start testing the temperature. You're aiming for 220 degrees. I didn't quite get there with my 2024 batch and it jelled just fine. Do a bit of a taste test here for the balance of bitter, sweet, and gingery. You may decide you want it a bit sweeter or hotter.  Add sugar or more ginger accordingly and cook a bit longer. Toward the end, pull the cheesecloth bundle of pith and seeds out and squeeze it carefully; tongs come in handy here. That pectin-producing fruit stuff is now ready for the compost pile.

Put in jars and process: Set your jars up on a towel or baking rack. Ladle the hot marmalade into each jar, leaving about a quarter-inch (halfway up the threaded portion of the jar). Wipe the edges of each jar with a damp cloth so there's no product to interrupt the seal, put on the lids so they're firm but not screwed super tight. Process in the boiling water for 15 minutes, starting your timer after the water returns to boiling once all the jars are in.

Yield: From the quantities listed above I got 12 quarter-pints and 7 half-pints.

My small-batch trick: I have a really big canning kettle. Holds a bunch of water, deep enough to process quart jars, has the nice rack for lowering the jars in. And it takes forever to heat to boiling even if I speed it up by using my hot water kettle to quickly boil 4 cups at a time and dumping that in. 

If I'm not going to spend the whole day making multiple things to can, I use my soup kettle instead. I put a metal trivet in the bottom so the jars won't sit directly on the kettle. I have to handle each jar going in and coming out individually with the jar lifter. That takes a bit of time and care, but I figure I'm saving energy by not heating more water than I really need for quarter-pints and half-pints.

Photo of a line of glass canning jars, mostly quarter-pints with a few half-pints, sitting on a wire baking rack over a red towel on a white countertop. In the upper right corner, two brightly colored metal birds oversee the canning, one a short owl and the other more of a bluejay, both painted in bright blues, oranges and yellows.

Related Reading and Recipes



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Green and Growing: More Poems about Gardens and Gardening

The 2025 gardening season began for me in February when I pruned the raspberries and tayberries (oh, those wicked thorns!). I wasn't yet truly done with the 2024 season, in the sense that I still had berries and vegetables in the freezer waiting for me to turn them into something despite the complete canapalooza canathon canstravaganza I put up in jars in 2024.

I created a big garden bed full of poems I harvested along the way that same year. They just keep coming, the way the world keeps turning, the sun keeps rising, rain keeps falling, seeds keep doing their amazing thing and turning into plants that make more seeds. 

Now it's 2026 and I'm deep into another year of gardening. Heirloom seeds courtesy of my neighbor's generous daughter populate my raised beds. She shared her large stock and even started some plants for me: peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, five varieties of basil (Genovese, sweet, mammoth, Thai, ruby). Volunteer potatoes showed up early, telling me I didn't get all of them dug last fall. I relocated plant after plant into one raised bed that's now filled with a mass of greenery, the soil beneath where I hilled up the plants completely hidden. The new garden beds I created around a couple of trees give me more space for flowers. One of them bloomed with bulbs that I planted last fall. Those green shoots of hope poking through the soil shouted "Spring!", then died back as a reminder that I need to do more if I want color throughout summer and fall.

"Happiness"
Paisley Rekdal

I have been taught never to brag but now
I cannot help it: I keep
a beautiful garden, all abundance,
indiscriminate, pulling itself
from the stubborn earth:

Maya Stein

There are outlines of what will unfold in the beds.
That first tiny, ripe tomato. 


Curled carcasses of leaves all over the paths, kale stiff and starchy,
the basil stalks skeletal. What if, she wonders, I do nothing? A whole season
could pass this way, every death taking its own putrefying time and she
on the other side of the window, warming her toes on the hearth.

Joy Sullivan

I waited so long for love
and suddenly, here it is
standing in the garden, hands full
of heirlooms hot from the sun.

"In the Garden"
Fabiana Fondevila

There’s zeal ripening in the tomatoes
and purpose in the pumpkin vine
trampling its way to freedom.

There is inner city grit in the hydrangea
struggling to bloom
in its chewed up dress and tortured feet.


It is important for me to be down on my knees,
my fingers sifting the black earth,
making those things grow which will grow.
Sometimes I save a weed if its leaves
are spread fern-like, hand-like,
or if it grows with a certain impertinence.

"In Time"
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

In soil not yet worked this spring,
two perfect rows of parsley emerge 
in a curly leafed celebration of green, 
vestiges from last year’s planting.


I’ve seen the neighbors frown when they look over the fence
And see our espalier pear trees bowing out of shape I did like that
They looked like candelabras against the wall but what’s the sense
In swooning over pruning I said as much to Mrs. Jones and I swear
She threw her cane at me and walked off down the street

"Making Sense - or I Pledge Allegiance" (scroll down on the page to find the poem)
Carrie Newcomer

I lift up my face to the summer sky
The sound of larks
And the feel of dirt
To all that keeps making sense
In senseless times.

Related Reading
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A Rose Amidst the Thorns: Poems about Beauty Balancing Pain

In the face of horrors visited upon our world daily, in the struggle to protect our loved ones, choosing to let in joy is a revolutionary act. Joy returns us to everything that is good and beautiful and worth fighting for.
— Valarie Kaur

Poetry often gives us implicit messages. The takeaway is there if you think about it, as many an English teacher tries to convey, teaching us to read between the lines.

At other times it's right out there. This collection of poems falls into that category: poems in which the poet reflects directly on the stark contrasts between the many beauties in the world and its many agonies and cruelties.

John Ruskin, a prolific English author, poet, painter, philosopher, and social critic, wrote a book he titled The Duty of Delight. Critical of the Victorian Christians of his time, he wrote that they “dwell only on the duty of self-denial but exhibit not the duty of delight.”

Social activist and writer Dorothy Day used this phrase often, including as the title of a collection of her journal entries (*affiliate link). From a footnote in the book: "this phrase came to serve for Dorothy as a call to mindfulness in the face of drudgery and sorrow."

Or, as the Buddha said, "No mud, no lotus."

Sojourner Truth may have said it best: “Life is a hard battle anyway. If we laugh and sing a little as we fight the good fight of freedom, it makes it all go easier. I will not allow my life’s light to be determined by the darkness around me.”

These poems remind me of how incredibly fortunate I've been for the majority of my life, and how many don't have that same good fortune. 

They remind me to recommit to working for justice.

They remind me to pay attention.

As always, I've shared a brief excerpt from each poem. Follow the link to read the complete work.

"A Brief for the Defense"
Jack Gilbert

We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world.

"The News"
Emilie Lygren

Each morning we listen for what is breaking—

the sound of a thousand tragedies fills the air,
shattering that never stops,
headlines, a fleet of anchors tangled at our feet.

"Everything is Plundered, Betrayed, Sold"
Anna Akhmatova, translated by Stanley Kunitz

Why then do we not despair?
By day, from the surrounding woods,
cherries blow summer into town;
at night the deep transparent skies
glitter with new galaxies.

"Testimony"
Rebecca Baggett

I want to say, like Neruda,
that I am waiting for
"a great and common tenderness,"
that I still believe
we are capable of attention,
that anyone who notices the world
must want to save it.

"Adrift"
Mark Nepo

Everything is beautiful and I am so sad.
This is how the heart makes a duet of
wonder and grief. The light spraying
through the lace of the fern is as delicate
as the fibers of memory forming their web
around the knot in my throat.

"Fear and Love"
Jim Moore 

I wish I could make the argument that a river
and a sunset plus a calm disregard of the ego
are enough. But whatever comes next must include
tents in the parking lot, that homeless camp
on the way to the airport,
and the hole in your cheek
from the cancer removed yesterday.

"September, 1918"
Amy Lowell

Some day there will be no war,
Then I shall take out this afternoon
And turn it in my fingers,
And remark the sweet taste of it upon my palate,
And note the crisp variety of its flights of leaves.

"Prayer"
Teddy Macker 

dear lord in this time of darkness
may we be unafraid to mourn and together and hugely

may dignity lose its scaffolding
faces crumble like bricks

dear lord let grief come to grief

and then o lord help us to see the bees yet in the lavender
the spokes of sunlight down through the oaks

"Sometimes"
David Budbill

I know in the next minute or tomorrow all this may be
taken from me, and therefore I've got to say, right now,
what I feel and know and see, I've got to say, right now,
how beautiful and sweet this world can be.

"Sweetness"
Stephen Dunn

Often a sweetness comes   
as if on loan, stays just long enough   

to make sense of what it means to be alive,
   then returns to its dark   
source. As for me, I don’t care   

where it’s been, or what bitter road
   it’s traveled   
to come so far, to taste so good.

"Please"
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

We need you to remind us we can
be furious and scared and near feral
over injustice and still thrill at the taste
of a strawberry, ripe and sweet,
can still meet a stranger and shake
their hand, believing in their humanness.

"Thanks"
W.S. Merwin

with the animals dying around us
taking our feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
thank you we are saying and waving
dark though it is

A question for you: Do you have a favorite poem, or one that's painful to read, that belongs on this list? I have the memory of reading another one that has been reprinted many places that I now can't find so I'd love to get more titles and links.

Related reading

*Bookshop.org affiliate link. If you purchase through this link I receive a teensy tiny commission. Any commissions received will be donated to nonprofit organizations working for social justice and transportation equity.
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Canstravaganza 2025

Food in Jars blogger Marisa was holding a canning challenge that started in January. I happened across it after I'd already inadvertently completed the February assignments: frozen fruit and freezer excavation. I love that she includes a community-building item in each month. She also notes that this is all in fun and we should feel free to mix things up. I can say that I did at least one of the two challenges for each month at some point during the year, just not necessarily in the month she listed them.

January
  • Food in Jars challenge: Root vegetables and brassicas. I didn't check this box. I've made banh mi mix in the past (shredded daikon and carrot in vinegar) and it lasts forever in the fridge so I'll come back to this at some point. Community-building assignment: Share a jar. Definitely did that; I took jars to meetings and gave them to friends. That happens just about every month, actually.
February
  • Tayberry Jam Recipe by Chef Heidi Fink. 11 quarter-pints, 6 half-pints
  • Classic Raspberry Jam Recipe by Creative Canning. 7 quarter-pints, 7 half-pints
  • Blackberry Roasted Plum Preserves by Southern Fatty. 8 quarter-pints, 8 half-pints
  • Blackberry Plum Fruit Leather: No recipe needed. Pureed blackberries and plums in the food processor, dropped in dollops about the size of a Nilla wafer on the dehydrator trays, and dried overnight to produce little fruity coins by the next morning. Those went into the freezer.
  • The Food in Jars challenge was using frozen fruit, the community challenge was freezer excavation. For me, that came up when the freezer defrosted later this year. But I did make all of this month's jams from berries and fruits I'd harvested last year and stored in the freezer.
March
Working with green tomatoes frozen in 2024, 12 pounds of tomatillos frozen in 2023, I made:
  • Tomatillo Lime Jalapeño Jam: 8 half-pints, 12 quarter-pints. I added 3 jalapeños to the recipe, wanting it to have a bit of heat because that felt like a fit.
  • Green Tomato/Tomatillo Chutney: 12 half-pints, 7 quarter-pints. I linked to the recipe although I think in future I'll use my own Green Tomato Chutney recipe whether I'm using green tomatoes on their own or mixed with tomatillos. I can attest that the spicing mix in that is really, really good.
  • Food in Jars challenge: Make a mix. I didn't make a mix in the sense of a muffin mix or salad, but I did mix green tomatoes and tomatillos. Community challenge, contribute to a community fridge or pantry. I think we did drop something off at the food shelves by the community garden on Yew, and I gave away some herbs when I had more than I could use later in the year.
April
  • No canning, but the Food in Jars community challenge was to plant something and I did that. The canning challenge was herbs and alliums. I collect and dry herbs when the pots cry out for harvesting, so that happens when it happens.
May
  • No canning. Food in Jars challenge was berries. Mine are still growing at this point. The community challenge was to learn from a friend. I swap canning recipes with my friend Stefanie' we have different pickled cherry recipes and I like mine.

June

  • Sweet & Salty Pickled Cherries,: 26 half-pints (I'm not messing around this year. It took a great deal of discipline to stretch last year's cherries to this spring!)
  • Food in Jars challenge: Jam. I cover that in other months. The community challenge was to attend a potluck. Our neighborhood potluck is in August and I went to that.

July

  • Tayberry Rhubarb Jam: 9 quarter-pints, 8 half-pints
  • Food in Jars challenge: Pickles, and I made those pickled cherries in June. Community challenge, support a local farmer or grower. I do that with regular trips to the Olympia Farmers' Market, and I buy eggs from the "farmette" stand down the street.
August
  • Apple Cardamom Rosemary Jam: 4 quarter-pints, 4 half-pints. Read my notes on seasoning adjustments in my piece on making lots of use of apples
  • Froze 8 pounds of sliced apples for future apple-pear butter; the apples are ready ahead of pears this year
  • Food in Jars challenge: Sauces, which I'd thought I would make this year. I ended up doing this in November when I experimented with ketchup (never again!) and ended up making a chutney sauce. The community challenge was to gather or glean, and this time of year I'm picking blackberries. I also get apples as they ripen from a couple of publicly located trees.
September
  • Last September was a canning frenzy. This September wasn't. I went on a two-week vacation starting Sept. 27 and needed to get things done to be ready for that.
  • Food in Jars challenge: Condiments, and host a swap. I did the ketchup effort in November. A canning swap sounds like a fun idea; maybe I'll organize that one of these years.
October
  • Also not a canning month, but the "October Surprise" of a defrosted freezer guaranteed I'd be canning in November.
  • Food in Jars challenge: Drying and dehydration. I did that back in February with fruit leather, and over the course of the summer I harvested and dried some of the herbs I grow. Community challenge, share your knowledge. I write blog posts to capture and share my recipe explorations so check, did that.

November
  • Blackberry Jelly: 15 quarter-pints, 6 half-pints.
  • Tayberry Jam: The tried and true Chef Heidi Fink recipe I used last year. 
  • Sour Cherry Amaretto Jam: I used the no-pectin sour cherry jam recipe from Sourdough Brandon, enhanced by the amaretto suggestion in the recipe from DishNTheKitchen.
  • "Razzbuzzy Jam": 7 quarter-pints. Followed the Classic Raspberry Jam and stirred in 3 T. of raspberry liqueur. Not very buzzy, but tasty!
  • Spiced Blueberry Jam: 7 quarter-pints.
  • Smoky Spicy Tomato Jam: 3  half-pints, 11 quarter-pints. This Food in Jars is on repeat from last year and it's my go-to.
  • Green Tomato Chutney Not-a-Ketchup Sauce: 8 half-pints, 11 quarter-pints.
  • Salted Caramel Pear Butter: 2 half-pints, 7 quarter-pints
  • Cranberry Orange Jam with Crystallized Ginger: 3 half-pints, 13 quarter-pints
    • Read my comments on the Serious Eats site. Allow for more cook time to get softened citrus and cranberries. Try reducing the sugar a bit. You don't need pectin.
    • This is also the point in the year when I start thinking I should have put up more half-pints, ordered more quarter-pint jars, or both! I like the quarter-pint size for gifts.
  • Spiced Apple Butter: 4 half-pints, 3 quarter-pints, 1 6-oz jar, an experiment in reusing a commercial jar and lid that went into the refrigerator because I wasn't confident about the seal.
  • Food in Jars challenge: Apples. Yep, got that covered. Community challenge, barter with a friend or neighbor. I do a lot in our Buy Nothing group, both giving and receiving. That space doesn't permit bartering but it feels as if it's in the general spirit.
December
  • Food in Jars challenge: Use it up! Is she kidding? I make far too much to use it up in a year! Community challenge, bake for others. Yep, did that.
Not the blowout year that 2024 was, but then I still have jars of product from that year on the shelves. Anyone want some jam? Chutney? Green tomato sauce? Anyone? And I did actually end up hitting the mark on the Food in Jars challenge, just in different months.
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