Preserving a YEAR's Worth of Fresh Citrus Six Different Ways!

Becky, if you take all your leftover citrus peels and soak them in vinegar for a few months , you’ll have a nice cleaning solution that you can dilute 50/50 with water and a few drops of dish detergent that smells wonderful.

Aloha Becky, I have zested 1000s of citrus by hand in baking school and working in restaurants and if you’re going to use the Microplane to zest, which is my favorite way as well, here is a tip for getting the most zest off the citrus: Hold the fruit in your palm vertically. So the stem side either facing up or down and your palm is grasping the side of the fruit. For the microplane, rest the non-handle end at an angle on the board for stability. The hand holding the microplane will be at an angle up off the board. Put the bottom of the fruit at the top of the microplane, up near the handle. So your palm is almost facing up, And as you push the fruit down along the length of the tool, roll the fruit. Using almost the entire length of the tool with each pass. When you get to the bottom, your palm will be facing down, and you will have a zested vertical stripe on the outside of the fruit. If you use a fair bit of pressure you can get all the zest in one go but you can also you can repeat this motion if necessary until all the zest is gone. Then you just keep rotating the citrus in your hand, and repeat, working in vertical strips along the outside of the fruit. This will get the maximum amount of zest with fewer missed spots! And is a bit faster once you get into the groove! Hope this helps next time! I know your kitchen smelled amazing that day!!

Writing from a citrus country, Turkey, you did everything right with the marmalade😊. A little bit of bitterness is the signature of an orange marmalade😊.

Not only do learn so much from Becky's videos, the comments have so many great tips and ideas! Way to go everyone. I appreciate all of you on here too! ❤

Hi Becky, with zesting the lemons, if you rub the zester on the lemons instead of the lemons on the zester, sort of upside down! So you hold the lemon and rub the zester on the lemon, you can see the pith a lot better, hope you understand and put it to practice because it is really a lot better and easier. ❤❤

I love how you are so conscious to use use every part of whatever you are preserving

Marmalade - coming from a British background where marmalade is an essential on toast/bread with tea, the best oranges to use are called Seville oranges - in Canada where I am, they are available for a 3 week period in February! You still get a tart taste, but not bitter!! They're the best orange to use.

Hi Becky. I am 70 and have made marmalade in the UK for years. One way is to cook the whole orange, another is the way you have done it and the way I like is to peel the orange and finely shred he peel and juice the orange to add later. The peel is then cooked in water until peel is soft then rest of ingredients added. This gives a clearer marmade. I also make lime marmalade, lemon marmalade and grapefruit marmalade. These recipes are from some very old cookbooks and I do not can. By just putting the marmalade and jam in washed jars and then put in an oven for 15 mins on low , I then put on a wax paper and put on the lid. As the jars cool they automatically seal themselves. I have used jams etc 3 years later and stiill good after being stored in cool dark place.

One other thing…You might also like to grow a kumquat tree in your greenhouse. I made marmalade with kumquats. Delicious! Also, the seeds are where the pectin is. So, once you get the seeds out of the kumquat or any other citrus, then you put them in a little cheesecloth type bag & add that to the fruit you’re cooking. That gives you plenty of pectin.

Since i don’t have a food dryer of any sort! I just freeze fresh zest. Works great!

I have to say, for all the gardening, canning, freezing, cooking, animal raising, butchering, plucking, harvesting, planting and food preservation I have done, this was incredibly impressive! I have never done citrus. Oh, I have done lemon curd and orange marmalade, but never anything like this. Becky, you continue to amaze me and to teach me! And inspire me!!!

Orange marmalade is amazing. This is a great recipe and you make it look so easy. I am a cookbook reviewer, and I reviewed the original Ball canning cookbook (one of your favorites) for Publishers Weekly trade magazine and gave it a BIG thumbs up. It is truly the canning bible. Love your ambition, Becky. We are all so delighted that this video appeared so quickly as you promised.

I'm blessed to have the most prolific Meyer lemon tree on the planet. It yields TEN 5-gallon buckets full, TWICE a year! I love them and use them for all the things, curd, cakes, muffins, vinegar, zest, juice, ice cubes, etc., and so do all my family and friends. I'm with my lemons like the gardener trying to pawn his zucchini off on everyone. Nobody leaves without taking lemons! 😅

I think I would want 12 lemon loaves!! One for now and 11 in the freezer, give me a years supply! Then I would also need more to gift. I love lemon cake

Hi Becky, if you get a cocktail stick and pick holes in the pound cakes the syrup will soak more into the cake

My sister-in-law used what she called the "I've run out of time" method to preserve her lemons. She washed them off and put them in the freezer whole. When she needed either zest or juice, she just took a lemon from the freezer, zested it, and juiced it when it thawed. What she didn't need at that time went back in the freezer.

Becky, I give you so much credit for always trying something new. You are never intimidated by a recipe! Everything turned out great❤

Haha, just got done preserving 20lbs of Meyer lemons and 20lbs of Cara Cara oranges. Ended up making lemon curd, orange curd, 3 fruit marmalade (i added a couple of grapefruit), the honey lemonade concentrate, lemon zest, orange zest, frozen lemon juice and orange juice, a Cara Cara oranges cake, and frozen lemon wedges for cooking.

I have been a subscriber for almost 3 years now and I have to say, that this is one of my most favorit channels on Youtube. It is always a joy to see what is cooking in the kitchen or how the garden is doing. Thank you for putting out such wonderful content. Love from Denmark

Becky, if you wanted to, you could probably use the lemon ice cubes in drinks, or the honey lemonade concentrate as ice cubes to use in water for a lighter drink, when you are out gardening and need an electrolytes boost.