Marmalade Recipe Roundup

It's Februrary and that means it's marmalade season.   I love marmalade.  Nothing is as beautiful this time of year as a jar of citrusy sunshine.

I love marmalade on toast.   Also, on pancakes.  Also, on Blueberry Steel Cut Oats with yogurt.  Also, on brownies.   Also, on ice cream.    Also, on brownies with ice cream.



I love marmalade!  

Here are a few tips and recipes to get you started.   

• Marmalade Tools
• Mixed Fruit Marmalade
• Four Fruit Marmalade
• Rhubarb Marmalade
• Honey Vanilla Orange Marmalade
• Blood Orange Marmalade
• Old Fashioned, Southern Style Lemon Pumpkin Pickle [Marmalade]
• Chocolate Orange Marmalade

And once you have the jam made, here are some fabulous things you can do with it!

Orange Marmalade Cranberry Jammy Oatcakes

Eric's Jam Bars

Blintzes


Want the recipe for these Marmalades and a whole lot of other terrific jam recipes?   Check out my ebook:  A Simple Jar of Jam  at www.rurification.etsy.com.   You can preview the book by clicking the link on the sidebar.  Every purchase helps support this site.  Thank you!

Soup Season

This is the time of year we pull out our favorite soup recipes and I thought you might like them, too.   Here's a quick list of some of our best ones.

Cheesy Chicken Pepper Soup - we had this one with leftover turkey.  Yum!!

Spicy Pumpkin Soup - just a hint of Indian spices and good with any winter squash!

We love this Zuppa Toscana - a great way to cook up those hearty winter greens.

The last soup is one of my favorites!  Bean Soup with Bacon, Chicken and Pesto.  Pesto is guaranteed to perk up cold days and this soup is another great way to use up leftover turkey.

Musquee de Provence Squash

The first of these lovely Musquee de Provence pumpkins developed a big bad spot, so we cut the bad spot out and roasted the rest.

When Lily cut it open, she found that some of the seeds had sprouted - inside the pumpkin.

Pretty neat, huh.

The rest of the flesh of this squash was very stringy - like spaghetti squash.  Not my favorite.   I much prefer a smooth dense texture in my eating squash.

The others were a bit smoother, but still kind of stringy.   I roasted them all anyway and we liked the taste, if not the texture.   The flesh was very wet.   I pressure canned it the way I did last year.  Pureed, it is wonderful and has made some fantastic pies.  

Bottom line:  5 stars for looks.   4 stars for taste.   We could grow this again and I'd be happy. 

Winter Squash Recipe Roundup

Here's the thing about blog archives.  You can get lost in them, following one link after another after another.   I do this a lot on other blogs - and once in a while on my own.   It's fun seeing where a blog has been over the years.

Also, it's great collecting recipes from over the years.   I was looking for a winter squash soup recipe here from a couple of years ago and found these other terrific squash recipes along the way.  Family tested! Since we're smack in the middle of winter squash season, I figured you could use some of these.

Southern Style Pumpkin Chips  [Lemon Ginger Pumpkin Marmalade] - my favorite lemon marmalade recipe!

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Coffee Cake

Pumpkin Maple Soup

Spicy Pumpkin Soup

Coconut Pumpkin Soup

All of these recipes can be made with any type of winter squash - pumpkin, butternut, Greek sweet red, etc.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Coffeecake

Last fall we canned some pumpkin and it has been fantastic!  I pulled out a quart this week and asked Lily what we should make that wasn't too pumpkin-pie-ish.   This is what she came up with.   It was wonderful.    Seriously wonderful.

Basically it's three parts:  pumpkin, ginger spiced cake, and cream cheese chunks - all swirled together and baked.   Yum!

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Coffeecake 
www.rurification.com

1/2 cup butter
1 1/3 cup sugar

2 eggs
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp powdered ginger
¼ tsp nutmeg
¼ tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup milk
1 8oz pkg cream cheese cut into small cubes
1 quart canned pumpkin

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375. Grease 9x13 pan.

Cream the butter and sugar. Beat in the eggs.  Combine flour, baking powder, salt, and spices in separate bowl and gradually add to the butter/egg mixture alternating with the milk. Begin and end with the flour mix.   Pour the pumpkin into the bottom of the prepared pan. Fold the cream cheese into the batter and pour on top of the pumpkin. Swirl with a knife to marble the two.

Bake for 60 minutes or until golden and a toothpick comes out clean.