We moved to Arizona in 1982 when my husband came to ASU to get a graduate degree. We loved it so much that we never left. However there is something that has bothered me throughout the many years we have been here that I couldn’t get the answer to until this year. The question was, “how do you bottle or preserve all the citrus that grows here?”
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| Having "fun" sectioning the Grapfruit. This is where the 5 1/2 hours of "Pride and Prejudice comes in! |
Over the years I had contacted the County Extension Service, did research in recipe books and on the internet, checked in my Ball Blue Book (the Bible for home canning), but never found any instructions or ideas EXCEPT for orange marmalade (not a fan). I was lamenting out loud again last year when I saw all my citrus going to waste. Of course my husband insisted that he could find the answer and I assured him that there was no way and that I had checked every possible place for an answer and that it just wasn’t possible. He grinned and confidently told me he would find one.
Well, much to my frustration, he did find some! And not only did he find some, he found video instructions and also informed me that Ball had come out with a new version of their Ball Blue Book (mine was 20 years old), that had the instructions on how to bottle grapefruit segments and citrus juices. Don’t you just hate it when that happens! I didn’t stay mad long because I was so excited! I had to wait a few months but last week I had 4 of my daughters over (#5 lives in North Carolina), and we bottled my citrus! First we did the grapefruit sections, then orange juice and ended with grapefruit juice. Here are the directions for the segments from the Ball Blue Book:
Grapefruit Sections
2-2 ½ lbs of grapefruit per quartSugar
Water
Wash grapefruit, drain. Peel grapefruit, cutting deep enough to remove white pith. Cut membrane away from pulp for each section; lift out the pulp without breaking the sell structure. Discard seeds. Make a light syrup; keep syrup hot pack grapefruit into hot jars, leaving ½ inch headspace. Ladle hot syrup over grapefruit leaving ½ inch headspace. Remove air bubbles. Adjust two-piece caps. Process pints and quarts in a boiling water canner.
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| Softening the lids in hot water. |
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| I mixed the yellow and pink grapefruit because I liked the look of it in the jars. |
Bruce also found a youtube video of someone canning the segments if you want to watch it. Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkyl2n51ClQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player
I will post the juice process in a few days so stay tuned!
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| A few of many jars |
1 comment:
Looks gorgeous. Well done!
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