Day 100: More canning. And a spur-of-the-moment contest.

Yet another post to do with canning.  Really, I never ever do this except at Christmas. 

Christmas Conserve:

Finely chop three oranges, unpeeled.  Revel in the refreshing citrus scent on your hands.

Add one package of fresh cranberries

Dump in a pot with 14 oz crushed pineapple, undrained, and 3/4 cup finely chopped dried apricots.

Add 5 cups of sugar and cook over medium heat for 15 minutes.  Crush some of the cranberries as they pop.  Makes everything a lovely red colour, yes?

Add 1-1/2 packages of liquid certo--because you couldn't find the one package of pectin crystals called for, and the liquid says one package isn't enough if you have less than 7 cups of sugar.  So you wing the pectin.  Bring to a rolling boil and boil for 1-1/2 minutes.  Remove from heat. stir and skim off any foam.  There wasn't much.  Ladle into sterile jars and put on the lids.  Proces in boiling water bath for 5 mintutes.

Admire the lovely Christmas colours, especially when paired with the hot pepper jelly.

Then take a BIG mouthful of the remainders, since you saved a bit for yourself, and promptly SPIT IT OUT because, although the recipe didn't say too, you should trim as much pith off the peel as possible, or it'll be inedibly bitter, at least to my tastebuds.

Repeat recipe, only removing much of the pith this time.  Much better.

Anybody enjoy bitter orangepeel?  I'll send you some really pretty jam.  Seriously. Let me know if you'd like some of the first batch, because I really would rather it didn't go to waste.  Maybe we should make a contest out of it.  That seems to be the thing to do these days.  If you leave a comment about a cooking fiasco of your own, I'll randomly select 3 commenters (I'm hoping maybe I'll have that many!) and send out a jar of really pretty, and usually really tasty, Christmas jam.  I'll close the contest on Sunday evening at 11:00 pm, so I can try to get them out before Christmas.  Only three winners, because of shipping, boxing, etc. etc. and so on and so forth.

If there are any takers.

I'm trying to think of something diabolical to do with some of the other jars.  Any ideas?

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I also want to apologize for lack of comments lately.  As you may know, my hard drive on the laptop where I work is toast, and this computer is a bit of a beasty and also used by hubby to apply for work.  So my time here is limited.  The good news is that the new hard drive came today.  However, the computer company was supposed to call me at 8:15 this evening to guide me through installing, but of course they did not, which means I will have to go through that on-hold for hours routine tomorrow.  But then I'll have my computer back and will do some catch up.  I haven't even had time to peruse your posts much, so I'm looking forward to seeing what you've been up to.