homegrown grapefruit

as i pull into our driveway yesterday, i spotted a box of grapefruit sitting on our neighbour's front lawn. 

as i parked the car, i thought to myself they would be perfect for jam making if there is such thing as grapefruit marmalade. after all, grapefruit is part of the citrus family and you can make marmalade out of any citrus right? grapefruit are not expensive in the markets but you never know what perticide were used in a commercial orchard and when it comes to jam making, i much prefer to use fruit grown in a home garden because chances of them being pesticide free is higher.

following last Sunday's cumquat marmalade success, i've gained confidence in jam making and i've been thinking what other jam i could make. 

i walked over to the neighbour's lawn to check out the box of grapefruit and saw a note on the box that says 'help yourself'. great! gotta love some neighbourhood love. i picked out three grapefruit with perfect skin and i start to wonder what grapefruit marmalade tastes like. 

looks like it's Sunday 'jamming' again this weekend. 

Sunday 'jamming'

our homegrown cumquats were sliced and soaked last night so this morning we made jam!

we followed the instructions found on the Internet to the tee. the sliced cumquat were brought to a boil along with the pips tied in some muslin cloth in the soaking liquid and then simmered for an hour until the skin is soft. 

once the skin is soft, the bag of pips are discarded and 250 grams of caster sugar is added to the pot. 

we stirred the mixture to help the sugar dissolve and once it comes back to a boil, we turn down the heat and left the fruit to simmer for half an hour before checking on them again. 

after the first half hour, i was checking the jam every 10 minutes. to check if the jam is done, i place a teaspoon of jam onto a freezing cold plate and placed it in the freezer for one minute. the jam is ready when it 'wrinkles' as you drag your finger through it.  after three tries, the jam finally 'wrinkles'. 

we bottled them into two sterilised jar. i can't believe we managed to make two jars of cumquat jam out of our 'bumper crop' ! we tried it on some toast in the afternoon and it was quite special. it was homemade from our homegrown cumquat. nothing store bought could beat it. 

i think we should probably give the 'forgotten cumquat tree' more care from now on. who knows, we might have another 'bumper crop' next winter and we might get four decent jars of jam!