Chuck's marmalade...w/limes?

On Saturday, Grace and I spent most of the day cleaning up and working on the apartment, so by supper time, we were hungry and ready for something special. One of the things I made was a oriental soup that I had at a restaurant last week. It was a lovely, pale broth with ginger, lemongrass and noodles. I wanted to try to recreate it at home, but it still needs a bit more work before it is perfect. And blog-able.

I also wanted to try the marmalade recipe that I had posted earlier, but with limes. I had plans to make a coconut cream pie, and I thought that a little dollop of lime marmalade on top would be awesome. Unfortuantely, lime peel doesn't respond the same way as lemons and oranges in sugar syrup. The peel was hard and inedible, although the syrup was gorgeous. Lime is hands down one of my favorite flavors, and I am thinking that a lime syrup without the peel would have worked very well on the pie.

I also have a confession to make. The coconut cream pie? I used a store-bought graham cracker crust, and a Jello pie/pudding mix. Because for me, sometimes a shortcut makes the yum-yums possible. And yum-yum, it was.

I'll keep working on the soup recipe. I also need to get into the habit of taking notes when I am eating out, so that I can keep track of flavors of notable dishes. As it is, I can't for the life of me even remember the name of the restaurant.

*sigh*

I'll get the hang of this eventually, I promise.

Chuck's Marmalade, with Pictures

I made Chuck Hughes' marmalade on Tuesday night, and it turned out really well. It's ridiculously simple, but I took pictures anyway.

I started off by taking 6 clementines and boiling them for about half an hour, until they were really soft. The smell in the house was lovely. I only used 6 for the first time, in case it didn't go well. But it was just enough, and made a jar of marmalade.

Once they were soft, I cooled them off in cold water and chopped them up, skin and all. I did cut of the little stemmy bit at the top, but other than that, everything went in. Again, the smell was heavenly.

I placed the chopped clementines back into the sauce pan and added 1 cup of sugar.

I then cooked the mixture on medium/low heat. There was a lot going on here in the kitchen while I was making this, and so I cooked it a little too long and slightly scorched the bottom, but I would say 20 minutes or so would've done it. It still came out lovely and fragrant, with that sweet, mildly bitter taste that is classic marmalade.

When I make it again, I will pay more attention to the cooking time, and take it off the heat when there is still a bit more syrup. Still, it is quite lovely. It is really nice on toast. Enjoy!

Chuck's marmalade

Yesterday I was watching Chuck Hughes' cooking show, "Chuck's Day Off". He was making all sorts of culinary wonders, but one thing that stood out to me, mostly because of it's simplicity, was a clementine marmalade. He literally just boiled a bunch of clementines in water until they were soft, chopped them up (skins and all), dumped them back into a pan, added sugar and gently boiled them until they were marmalade.

It all just sounds too easy.

So in the interest of my curiosity and love of marmalade, I bought some clementines and will be trying this marmalade recipe out.

Pictures and results will follow.

I also paid a visit to our local thrift store, on a search for kitchen goodies. I found a french fry basket which will come in handy for a future poutine project I have been playing around with. I also found a wooden pastry brush, a cork screw, and a fairly sturdy hand mixer