Day Three (3)...a little of this, too much of that

Oh my darling, oh my darling, oh my darling Clementine...

Wednesdays are a very busy homeschooling day for me so I'm cheating a little with my clementine jam because I really made it last night and I just couldn't lie and say I made it today.  I'm usually out all day on Wednesdays from about 8:30am until about 5:00pm or later and so I wasn't expecting to do anything too labor intensive today.  I was really trying to come up with something fast and a little creative for dinner tonight but lo and behold, I got a phone call from my daughter saying they were going to Chic-fil-a after ballet class per their daddy.  Did I want something?  Uh, yes!  I told them to bring me a spicy chicken deluxe sandwich, hold the fries.  In the meantime I had a little snack and used up the rest of my carmelized onions, a bit more of my papaya strawberry jam and my way too expensive cheese that hubby bought me while in Paris.  When I did get my sandwich, I used a bit of comeback sauce on it.  That's 4 things that are closer to being completely consumed this week.

Back to the clementines.  Sorry, got a little sidetracked for a moment. The abundance of clementines was due to my husband buying clementines whenever they were on sale but then we had too many.  Sales are a good thing but I wondered how we would eat so many without going into clementine shock.  I scoured the web for Clementine marmalade recipes and most told me I had to let the sliced clementines soak overnight and well, I just didn't want to do that.  I wanted instant gratification so this is what I did.  See recipe and results below.

 Ingredients

8 Clementines

2-3 additional Clementines for juicing

1/2 cup Clementine Juice

Organic Sugar

After a thorough wash, slice 8 clementines as thinly as possible(I didn't do so well), cover with cold water and bring to boil. Once it boils, turn it down to medium low and simmer for 12 minutes. Drain and return Clementines to pot and repeat the above process 2 more times.  You are trying to remove the bitterness so that you will have marmalade that is edible.  After the final drain let it cool for about 5 minutes and then put the clementines in a food processor or blender and process but first, save the end pieces and cut them into nice thin slices(aka julienne)so you can have some "pretty" in your jars.  After processing weigh the clementine mix including the julienned pieces and then weigh the same amout of sugar and add to the pot along with a 1/2 cup of clementine juice. I had 1lb 1oz of Clementine so I added 1lb 1ozs of sugar. Mix it all together and turn on high heat.  Cook and stir occasionally until it reaches a temperature of 220 degrees.  Put hot mixture in your jars and if you don't want to store it in the fridge add it to a water bath for 10 minutes, let rest until cooled and store.  Or you can just pop  the jars in the refrigerator and enjoy!  Makes about 2.5 cups.

I just love the color!

After I made the marmalade I just had a little taste while it was still warm but got to really enjoy it today.  The half cup 'extra' I had I put into one of my Ball Freezer Jam containers and this will be my tester.  I heated up a soft pretzel roll, added a smear of butter and the marmalade, grabbed my cup of tea and ahhhhhh!!!  And did I mention that both of the little ones were asleep and the two older ones were at ballet class?  Let me say that again, ahhhhhhhh!  Now go in the kitchen, grab any citrus fruit and get your marmalade going.    

Sometimes leftovers can come together and make nice with each other!

 The cheese is from my husband's recent trip to Paris and I really don't know what it is but it seems the inner portion is goat cheese and the outer is brie like.  Whatever it is, it's good! And no, I didn't eat this whole block of cheese. Just a few slices after I grabbed the rest of the carmelized onions, some papaya jam and some good ole Triscuits. Mmmmm....

And here you have the Chic-fil-a sandwich with the Comeback Sauce in the background.  They actually were really nice together.  I have also used the sauce on fries, burgers and onion rings.

Comeback Sauce
 Recipe courtesy of Jackie Garvin at www.syrupandbiscuits.com
1 cup Duke’s mayonnaise
1/4 cup Heinz ketchup
1/4 cup chili sauce ( I prefer Heinz or DelMonte. DO NOT substitute Thai Chili Sauce)
1 heaping teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon Tabasco sauce
1/4 cup light olive oil
juice of one lemon
Mix all ingredients well and store in refrigerator overnight. It needs to sit to let the flavors become “acquainted”. They shouldn’t rush into marriage.