Before I share my canning secrets and my infamous mandarin marmalade recipe and sound like a total trad wife, please let me assure you that I am in fact a raging feminist.
I come from a long line of smart and feisty working women who also had mad domestic skills. And though my parents encouraged me to follow my dreams and nurtured my inner strong independent woman, when I was growing up, they pretty much embodied traditional gender roles. Dad was the main provider, but we all knew Mom was the one holding it all together.
Most of the women in my orbit as a child would be the embodiment of trad wife dreams… but they were also pretty headstrong and badass. Domestic goddessing was an act of love and service, but not of subservience or rigid obligation.
Granny Hawkins (my maternal great grandmother) grew a killer garden and had an impressive root cellar. She taught me how to snap green beans and make pumpkin pie. I inherited her recipe box, but it’s mostly a few magazine clippings and recipes my mom or sister have helped fill in over the years. The real goods were in her head and she never needed to write down her recipes. So I don’t have to wonder where my love of gardening and making food came from, it’s from her. I did not seem to inherit the baking skills though. 🤷♀️
To me, food is a love language. But it’s also a survival skill. It can be pretty punk rock if you think about it. Cooking for and with people is one of my favorite ways to express gratitude, build community and share time. But I will expect help with the planning, the cooking and dishes, boys. Don’t get it twisted.
Unfortunately, I had little interest in cooking while my grandmas and great grandmas were still alive and trying to teach me. But once I lived somewhere I could have a garden (and was living on a college student’s budget), I had to learn to cook and I wanted to grow some food like grandma and granny, so I soaked up every lesson I could.
And then I went vegetarian at age 21 and really had to figure out plant-based cooking from scratch along with nutrition. Luckily rice and beans are cheap, and I got a gig designing the local food co-op’s newsletter so I could use the discount to eat local and organic.
Soon after that I moved to the Mendocino Coast, where I met some badass gardeners at Noyo Food Forest as well as amazing people who were into things like foraging, canning, swapping garden goodies and fermented foods, and dang did we have the most fabulous and delicious dinner parties ever. Mendo really cemented the feeling of food as a community glue, central to local culture and to well being. Especially in such a small rural area, we took care of each other by feeding each other and sharing in both the bounty and the struggle.
So when I’m in the kitchen or trying to cram another basil plant onto my patio, or cleaning my apartment (never as regularly as mom did), my actions may look like those of a 1950s housewife. But I’m channeling the DIY energy of the punk vegan cookbooks I first learned to cook plant based meals from, and the sass and kitchen wizardry of Granny Hawkins and all the women in my family. Traditional skills, but make it punk.
I’m pretty sure I’d make a great addition to anyone’s apocalypse team since I collect seeds, know how to grow food and turn it into nourishing meals. In these times, learning and preserving these traditional skills seems like important work. I hope I don’t need them so much for survival as for adding more joy and love to the lives of my community, but I like knowing I can be an asset. Cuz we all know the vegetarian is not gonna make a great hunter come the apocalypse…
Sharing recipes, swapping garden bounty and getting your kids off the screens and into the kitchen with you all seems like community care to me. And in these apocalyptic times, we could use more community glue like good food shared with good people.
With the potential of SNAP benefits drying up by next week thanks to this BS Republican shutdown, now is a really good time to donate to your local food bank, adopt a local family for the holidays and volunteer at a food pantry. We are gonna need to take care of each other. And there’s always an extra seat at my table.
It’s basically sunshine in a jar: Mandarin Marmalade 🍊
It’s Almost Citrus Season, Make Yourself Some Mandarin Marmalade
I use my mom’s old canner to can jams and jellies, and occasionally make things like applesauce or tomato sauce when there’s an abundance. But I miss my jam jams with the Mendo Mamas and our fermented food swap group. There was always a neighbor with too many apples and there were blackberries or huckleberries to pick in the summer, so canning became a fun seasonal community ritual.
Santa Rosa is too hot until October or so, but luckily citrus season is in the winter. My partner Josh has a massive lemon tree and a mandarin tree in his yard, and boy are those things prolific. Friends don’t let friends get fruit guilt, so we try to share and use as many as we can. The last few years I have been making delicious lemon jellies and mandarin marmalades, as well as dehydrating citrus rounds and drinking lots of fresh-squeezed juice.
If you have been the recipient of any of my canned goods, you’ll know that the mandarin marmalade is as good as it gets, and you’ll also know that I love you. Because that stuff is TEDIOUS af to make.
My process is based on the recipe for “light & fresh orange marmalade” that comes in the Pomona’s Pectin packages. This is the good stuff, and I like it because it allows for much less sugar than a normal jam or jelly recipe and still sets beautifully. If you’re using any other pectin, the recipe may need to be adjusted - follow the sugar & pectin recommendations on the pectin you have. But really, try to find Pomona’s cuz otherwise it’s just way too much sugar. I usually double the recipe since I have SO MANY mandarins at once. Here’s a fun video of the lemon jelly and mandarin marmalade process from my Instagram.
🍊 Mandarin Marmalade Ingredients
12-15 mandarins or tangerines, peeled (save the peels of a few of them)
12 or so more mandarins, juiced (remove seeds but keep it pulpy)
1 lemon, juiced, or about 3 Tablespoons of lemon juice
2-3 cups sugar (I like organic evaporated cane juice, sometimes I mix in some monk fruit sweetener for up to half of it)
4 ½ teaspoons of Pomona’s pectin powder
3 teaspoons of Pomona’s calcium water (the smaller packet inside the pectin box, mixed with water in a small jar)
Supplies: At least 6 half pint jars with lids & rings, a big canning crock, jar lifting tools, a ladle and a big saucepan.
🫙 Mandarin Marmalade Process
This is tedious, don’t say I didn’t try to warn you. I like having a squishy mat to stand on, a podcast or playlist blasting, and a good caffeine (and THCV+CBG) buzz going before I start.
Gather supplies & wash jars: fill your BIG canning crock with water, run your jars with newish lids and rings thru the dishwasher on a sanitizing hot cycle (lids can be reused a few times if the rubber seal is clean & intact, but safest to replace these often), and throw your canning tools in the dishwasher too (the jar grabber & magnetic lid grabber are essential). Start the stove to get your canning crock water heating - it takes a while.
While the dishwasher is running you can begin processing mandarins (or you may want to do this in several sessions for big batches, saving the finished fruit in the fridge until you have time to finish & can everything). Peel them, reserving some nice looking peels.
For the reserved peels (I try to keep 3-4 mandarins’ worth), lay them orange side down on a cutting board and flatten them out, then use a paring knife to gently scrape off all the white pith. You want it as orange as possible, the pith is bitter. Then cut the scraped peels into thin strips and then tiny pieces. These can go in with the fruit.
Juice about half your mandarins - cut them in half and use a citrus squeezer to extract the juice. Chunks are fine, we’ll mix the juice and cut fruit together.
Disassemble each remaining mandarin into sections, taking off as much stringy white pith as you can. Line them up with flat sides facing in one direction on the cutting board and then carefully slice off the flat edge of the membrane of each piece. This makes it easier to peel the remaining membrane off each piece. The outer edge can be tricky, but try to get off as much membrane off as possible.
Line up your naked mandarin pieces and chop them into tiny bits: 3-5 cuts per piece. Combine the chopped bits with the juice and the chopped peels. You’re going for about 6 cups of fruit / juice combined. Add more mandarins as needed until you’re at about 6 cups.
Prepare the calcium water according to Pomona’s instructions in a jar and shake well. Measure your fruit & juice to make sure you’re at 6 cups and combine into a large saucepan. Turn on the stove and bring the fruit up to a simmer.
Add extra lemon juice, and continue to simmer for about 20 minutes. Then add the calcium water. Measure the sugar and pectin and mix together in a separate bowl. Mix them well to avoid pectin chunks!
Make sure the fruit / juice is boiling, then add the sugar / pectin in, slowly stirring to incorporate. Stir vigorously for a couple minutes and let it return to a boil.
At this point hopefully your dishwasher is done - get out the jars (I like to use a mix of the super tiny ones and half pints - you’ll need at least six half pint jars but I always wash a few extra) and line them up near the saucepan on a towel, leaving some space in between.
Using a ladle, fill the jars with hot fruit mixture to 1/4” from the top (that headspace is essential, do NOT overfill).
Once the fruit mixture is distributed into jars, get a clean paper towel damp with hot water and use it to carefully wipe the rims of each jar - be meticulous about this, because a good seal is essential for food safety.
Once each rim is clean, use the magnetic lid grabber to grab lids out of the dishwasher (you can also sanitize these with the rims in a saucepan of boiling water if your dishwasher isn’t still hot) and place them on top of each jar without touching the rims. Then grab the rings, and tighten each ring onto the jar using a towel to hand tighten, because those suckers are HOT.
Make sure your canning crock is at a full boil and has enough water to submerge the jars fully with a couple inches of water above them. Carefully lower each jar into the crock with the jar grabber.
Once all jars are submerged, bring the water back up to a boil and set a timer for 10 mins (add 1 min for each 1,000 ft above sea level). If you made a lot, you may need to do the hot water baths in batches. Better to batch than stack too many jars in there, just make sure everything stays hot.
When your timer goes off, turn off the stove and make sure you have a towel laid out for the jars. Then carefully use the jar grabber to pick up each jar and place it on the towel to cool and set for about 24 hours.
You’ll soon start to hear a symphony of “pops!” letting you know you did your job and the jars sealed. If any of the lids do not pop into the down position by the time the jars are cooled, those may not have a good seal and should go in the fridge / be eaten first.
Once everything has cooled overnight, label your jars with the contents and date. Mandarin marmalade is shelf stable for at least a year, but good luck keeping it around that long!
I told you it was a lot! A double batch will usually take me most of a day, so sometimes I break up the fruit processing part and just save the bowl in the fridge to spread things out over a few days. But once you start the canning process, complete it all while the contents are still hot.
I used to process several kinds of jams or jellies at once for a marathon jam jam with my Mendo friends - having friends (and a variety of fruit) makes the whole process more fun! But it’s a labor of love well worth it once you pop open a jar and taste literal sunshine captured in sweet perfection. Enjoy!
Delicious jars of captured sunshine ready to be labeled and shared.
Want more recipes? I have a couple on my blog that are perfect for the coming winter months. I highly recommend making this warming herbal remedy with a group, it’s such a fun seasonal ritual: try my Fire Cider recipe.
And since it’s soup season, you might need some broth! I keep a bag of veggie scraps in my freezer, then every few weeks I turn it into veggie broth in my Instapot: make veggie scrap broth and let me know what your favorite soup is.
Looking for ways to help amidst growing food insecurity? Google “find a food pantry near me” or use Feeding America’s Food Bank Lookup and find a local organization you can support.
If you own a business, consider hosting a food drive and incentivizing your customers to donate food with special deals. Or sponsor a local family’s holiday meal or next grocery trip: posting on your local Buy Nothing group or NextDoor to find a neighbor in need to help. Mutual Aid is becoming ever more needed as we step in to fill the gaps left by our failing government.
Support My Work: I’m loving publishing this newsletter on beehiiv. It’s a great platform if you’re looking to start your own newsletter (use my recommendation link) that offers lots of monetization options. I will be coming up with some fun perks for my Paid Subscribers like marketing templates, checklists & guides. I’d love to hear your ideas, too - what would get you to put $5 on it and Upgrade to Paid?
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In gratitude & abundance,
~Pru
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