grapefruit marmalade: a delicious success
Tart, tangy, a little bit sour with a little bit sweet… and the texture’s just right, too. The grapefruit marmalade has fulfilled all requirements of its name! I’m just thrilled I didn’t spend my two hours of grapefruit-watching for nothing. Now I’ve got 6 and a half cans of the stuff… all of which should last for at least a year! Hurray, canning!
Once again, I’ll link to the recipe. I also used this canning guide along with this orange marmalade recipe to figure out all the preservation business.
My advice? Buy jar tongs (like these) because they look like they’d make life a lot simpler around all that boiling water. And expect plenty of cleanup time… by the time my jars were out and cooling, the entire kitchen was covered in sticky grapefruit. Oh, and instead of chopping up all of the steaming hot grapefruit by hand, I sliced it then gave it a few pulses in the blender. (make sure it cools down first, though! hot things + blender = bad news!) That was way easier than slicing squishy grapefruit, especially since I didn’t want big chunks of peel floating in my jam.
I still can’t believe I made something that tastes like real marmalade. That was fun.
So, armed with my bucket of blackberries, I googled for a good berry custard pie recipe. Especially since I know there will be plenty more opportunities to test a variety of pies, I was feeling very brave. So I went with 
My sewing pupil returned yesterday, with a friend, and they made whales! The whales are actually surprisingly tricky, but we went slow and it all worked out. The poor girls had to sew in a house glowing with the smell of pie… But we had fun and their whales are super cute. We used fleece for the bodies in place of my typical lycra or velour (not beginner fabrics!) and they have cotton bellies as per usual.
