Runaway October

It’s time for my par­tic­i­pa­tion blog post for Tigress’ Can Jam. I actu­ally have two recipes to share with you.

Our theme for Jan­u­ary was Cit­rus, which is awe­some because Cit­rus is so abun­dant here in Ari­zona this time of year.

Ari­zona Citrus

This first recipe was just a standby while I waited for my vanilla beans to arrive for my REAL recipe for the can jam.

Cit­rus Marmalade

Makes 6 half-pint jars

Ingre­di­ents:

• 4 meduim oranges
• 2 medium lemons
• 2 1⁄2 cups water
• 1⁄8 tea­spoon bak­ing soda
• 61⁄2 cups sugar
• 1 pack­age pow­ered pectin
• 1⁄4 tea­spoon butter

Prepa­ra­tion:

1. Wash your hands, uten­sils, and work sur­faces, and then pre­pare the ingredients.
2. Ster­il­ize empty can­ning jars by plac­ing them upright on rack in water bath can­ner and cov­er­ing them with hot water to 1 inch above the tops of the jars. Boil 10 min­utes. At alti­tudes higher than 1000 ft, boil the jars an addi­tional 1 minute for each addi­tional 1000 ft ele­va­tion. Keep the jars hot and drain just prior to filling.
3. Wash the oranges and lemons throughly, I use a scrub brush. Remove the rind in quar­ters from oranges and lemons. Trim and dis­card half of the albedo (white flesh attached to the rind). Or all of it if you don’t want all the bit­ter­ness asso­ci­ated with it.
4. Thinly slice the rinds and place in a 4-quart (4 L) saucepan.
5. Mix the rinds with water and bak­ing soda. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover, and sim­mer for 20 min­utes, stir­ring occasionally.
   

   Cit­rus segments

6. While the rinds are cook­ing, remove seeds from the peeled oranges and lemons, and finely chop the fruit, sav­ing the juice. Set aside.
7. Add reserved fruit and juice to the cooked rind mix­ture. Cover, bring to a boil, reduce heat, and sim­mer 10 minutes.
8. Mea­sure exactly 4 cups of cooked fruit and rind mix­ture (a box of pectin is suf­fi­cient to gel this much liq­uid). Use a slot­ted spoon to make sure you get all of the fruit and rind, and then use the juice to bring the total vol­ume up to 4 cups. Dis­card any left­over juice or use it in another recipe that calls for orange juice.
9. Add pectin and but­ter or mar­garine to the mea­sured fruit. The but­ter or mar­garine reduces foam­ing dur­ing the cook­ing process.
10. Bring the mix­ture to a vig­or­ous boil that can­not be stirred down, stir­ring con­stantly. Boil for 1 minute.
11. Add sugar to the mix­ture. Return to a boil that can­not be stirred down, stir­ring con­stantly. Boil for 1 minute.
12. Remove from heat and let stand 5 min­utes, stir­ring occasionally.
13. Pre­pare two-piece can­ning lids accord­ing to manufacturer’s recommendations.
14. Ladle hot mar­malade into hot, ster­ile jars, leav­ing 1⁄4 inch of headspace.
15. Wipe the jars and the rim with a clean cloth or towel, place a clean pre­pared lid on the rim, and screw the ring band on finger-tight.
16. Process in a boil­ing water­bath can­ner for 5 min­utes (alti­tudes of up to 1000 ft). (Increase pro­cess­ing time by 1 minute for every addi­tional 1000 ft in altitude.)
17. Let jars cool undis­turbed for 12 to 24 hours, then check seals by press­ing the mid­dle of the lid with your fin­ger. If the lid springs back, then the jar is not sealed and must be refrig­er­ated. Prop­erly sealed jars can be stored in a dark, cool place.

—

Now on to my offi­cial Cit­rus Can Jam entry.

This recipe is adapted from a recipe I found on Epicurious.com. It’s one of my very favorite mar­malades to date. It starts as a sweet lemon­ade taste , end­ing as a warm bac­knote of vanilla.

Meyer Lemon and Vanilla Bean Mar­malade
Makes 6 half-pint jars

Ingre­di­ents:

• 1 1/4 pounds Meyer lemons
• 5 cups water
• 5 1/2 cups (about) sugar
• 1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
• Pinch of salt

Prepa­ra­tion:

1. Wash your hands, uten­sils, and work sur­faces, and then pre­pare the ingredients.
2. Ster­il­ize empty can­ning jars by plac­ing them upright on rack in water bath can­ner and cov­er­ing them with hot water to 1 inch above the tops of the jars. Boil 10 min­utes. At alti­tudes higher than 1000 ft, boil the jars an addi­tional 1 minute for each addi­tional 1000 ft ele­va­tion. Keep the jars hot and drain just prior to filling.
3. Wash the lemons throughly, I use a scrub brush.
4. Zest lemons. The more pith you zest, the more bit­ter your mar­malade will be.
5. Peel and dis­card unwanted pith. While work­ing on a plate to catch juices, chop lemons finely. Dis­card seeds.
6. Pack enough lemons, zest and any juice to mea­sure 2 1/2 cups. Trans­fer to large non­re­ac­tive pot.
7. Add 5 cups water; bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium; sim­mer 10 min­utes. Remove from heat; let stand uncov­ered overnight.
8. Mea­sure lemon mix­ture (there should be about 5 1/2 cups). Return to same pot.
9. Add equal amount of sugar (about 5 1/2 cups).
10. Scrape in seeds from vanilla bean; add bean. Add pinch of salt.
11. Bring to boil, stir­ring until sugar dis­solves. Attach clip-on candy thermometer.
12. Main­tain­ing active boil and adjust­ing heat to pre­vent boil­ing over, cook until tem­per­a­ture reaches 230°F, stir­ring occa­sion­ally, about 30 minutes.
13. Remove from heat and let stand 5 min­utes, stir­ring occasionally.
14. Pre­pare two-piece can­ning lids accord­ing to manufacturer’s recommendations.
15. Ladle hot mar­malade into hot, ster­ile jars, leav­ing 1⁄4 inch of headspace.
16. Wipe the jars and the rim with a clean cloth or towel, place a clean pre­pared lid on the rim, and screw the ring band on finger-tight.
17. Process in a boil­ing water­bath can­ner for 5 min­utes (alti­tudes of up to 1000 ft). (Increase pro­cess­ing time by 1 minute for every addi­tional 1000 ft in altitude.)
18. Let jars cool undis­turbed for 12 to 24 hours, then check seals by press­ing the mid­dle of the lid with your fin­ger. If the lid springs back, then the jar is not sealed and must be refrig­er­ated. Prop­erly sealed jars can be stored in a dark, cool place.

—

Now… Who’s bring the fresh home­made bread so we can eat up all this mar­malade?

While I was work­ing I could eas­ily spend all day cruis­ing the inter­net, with lim­ited acces­si­bil­ity because of fire­walls and IP block­ers. I spent most of my time perus­ing par­ent­ing forums. My favorite was Mothering.com, which is where I came across the crazy notion that sham­poo was mak­ing my curly hair unruly. They called it No ‘Poo, I called it nuts. While doing some research I came to real­ize that typ­i­cal sham­poo was chock full of chem­i­cals, most that I couldn’t pro­nounce and didn’t want to rub on my head. 

There are a cou­ple of premises behind No ‘Poo. A few are:

• Sham­poo is a deter­gent and lit­er­ally strips your hair of mois­ture, oil and shine, mak­ing it prone to dam­age and break­age.
  
• Curly hair is espe­cially prone to sham­poo dam­age because it is more porous and frag­ile.
  
• Because hair is fre­quently stripped of its nat­ural oils, your scalp goes into hyper­drive. This is why some peo­ple describe their hair as an oil slick.
  

Start with three main ingre­di­ents — Bak­ing Soda, Apple Cider Vine­gar and a good con­di­tioner. When pur­chas­ing a con­di­tioner, read the ingre­di­ents.

• Try to find some­thing that does not have any ‘cones’ — Dime­thicone, Sil­i­cone, etc. These will coat your hair and you’ll end up with a greasy mess.
  
• Avoid min­eral oil, a nasty byprod­uct of gaso­line dis­till­ing. Your body id unable to absorb it, so it will also cre­ate a greasy mess. It also blocks the scalp from releas­ing built up tox­ins and oil. Acne any­one?
  
• Also avoid Sodium Lau­ryl Sul­fate (SLS) and Sodium Lau­reth Sul­fate (SLFS). Known skin irri­tants, SLS and SLFS are com­monly added to sham­poo and other deter­gents as a foam­ing aget. They are cur­rently being ques­tioned regard­ing can­cer and toxic build up in tis­sues.
  
• If you use a gel, use a clear one. You may find that oils work well for you now, such as coconut oil, jojoba oil, apri­cot oil, extra vir­gin olive oil. Some peo­ple like to use alcohol-free Aloe Vera gel.
  

When Declan was born, I was a shower and sham­poo every day kind of girl. I used lots of extras to keep my hair in check. I tried No ‘Poo for about a week before I couldn’t han­dle it. My roots were detox­ing and super greasy and my ends were dry, split and straw like. I had to go in pub­lic like that for 40+ hours a weeks. Eek.

Now that I stay home with the boys, I don’t get out as often and sham­poo­ing has come down to 2 or 3 times a weeks, to save time in the shower. I’m hop­ing that my hair wont have to detox nearly as much this time, and if it does, oh well. I can always wear a hat to the gro­cery store.

I’ll be photo doc­u­ment­ing my jour­ney and post­ing more info as I go. Next Up — No ‘Poo routines.

Here are some No ‘Poo sources:

What is No ‘Poo?

Info: Sham­poo Free

The No ‘Poo Method

The No Sham­poo Alter­na­tive — No Poo

Of Course I Washed My Hair Last Year (I’m Almost Certain)

How to Ditch Shampoo

All about the No ‘Poo Routine

Break the Sham­poo Habit

Treat­ing Your Hair Like a Bath­room Sink

Conditioner-Only Hair Washing

Wise Woman Forum — The No Sham­poo Thread

Moth­er­ing Dot Com­mune — Going No Shampoo

Have you ever con­sid­ered chang­ing up your beauty rou­tine in such a dra­matic way? If so, how or why not?

Have any of you tried No ‘Poo?