Winter citrus

A friend of mine has a mother with a kumquat tree. Anyone who has one (or knows someone who does) knows how delicious these tiny little fruits can be. And how plentiful! So my friend was over recently and brought with him an entire grocery bag full of kumquats he'd picked for me. How sweet, right? Yeah well, after a week of eating kumquats with every meal (and for snacks in between) I was SO TIRED of them. A girl can only take so much, you know? And even so, I was still left with probably ten pounds of what by now I'm just referring to as "those damned things":

If I have to look at this many kumquats ever again.....

So I did what any self-respecting domestically-inclined person would do: I made marmalade! So much marmalade. All of the marmalade. I've never seen so much marmalade. I basically quadrupled this recipe which worked out fine. I did everything in two batches, so I could play with flavor pairings a little bit. The first batch I flavored with some of my favorite oolong tea- ti kuan yin, the second I added chopped ginger and lavender-infused water. 

The carnage.

The recipe tells you to slice the kumquats in half, squeeze the guts out, strain the juice, and then slice the rinds into "thin strips". The first three steps took fucking forever, and I'd be lying if I said I did anything other than use a pair of kitchen scissors to cut up the rinds into manageably-small chunks.

ready for the fridge.

This is everything for the oolong-infused marmalade before I added the water and set it in the fridge overnight. The cheesecloth bag is filled with the leftover pulp, seeds and tea leaves (the dark colored stuff on the right side of the bag) and adds natural pectin to the mix. 

The recipe recommends letting everything steep for at least twelve hours to help soften the rinds, which I did. Well, for more like eighteen, because I kind of forgot about the giant bowl of dissected citrus in my fridge and did other things. Sundays are my "do things" day. Oh well, let's just say I was making sure my rinds were extra-soft. Yes. Let's just go with that. 

why, what soft rinds you have, my dear!

I set up a large pot for sterilizing my glass jars, and after I'd done that and set that aside, I threw this whole mess into another pot with some sugar and let it boil. This is the easy part. You basically boil the rind/sugar mixture and then reduce the heat to a simmer and let it go for a while. Stir it every now and again to make sure nothing sticks to the bottom and burns. Nobody likes burned marmalade. I cooked the oolong batch for about an hour, and the ginger/lavender batch for about forty-five minutes.  I got a little impatient by the second round.  

I would advise against a taste test at this stage.

It's basically napalm at this point, so I let it cool down for a little bit before transferring it into the jars.  And this is the end result!  Fourteen half pints of marmalade, seven of each flavor.  Taste-wise I think they're both good, though I feel like the oolong flavor didn't really come through as much as I'd hoped.  I think next time I'll actually brew the tea and use that instead of letting the leaves steep with the rest of it.  The ginger-lavender is deliciously sweet with a bit of bite, thanks to the fresh ginger.    

Simple Beginnings

Sew. 

I found this fabric at my local Hancock Fabrics a few weekends ago. They were running a 50% off sale on their cotton prints, so OF COURSE I had to pick up a few yards of something. 

The print is not normally something I'd go for, honestly. I've never really been a fan of large prints or floral patterns on myself but something about this one intrigued me. There's something vaguely deco/nouveau about this that I like. I've really been trying to break out of my sartorial comfort zone recently so I thought I'd give this one a go. 

I used Simplicity pattern 4236, which touts itself as a "misses half circle skirt."  It calls for two skirt pieces to be cut, one each for the front and the back.  Sewing generally isn't a thing where cutting corners in your process is advisable buuuuuuuuut...... I kind of cheated. Just a little. Instead of cutting two skirt pieces, I folded the fabric in half, lined the pattern piece up along the fold, and then just marked and cut once. 

Tha Killer helps by standing along the folded edge. Thanks, duder. 

I didn't realize until I'd already had the zipper pinned and ready to go that I didn't have the correct zipper foot for my sewing machine. I'm sure if I'd actually read all the directions for the thing before installing it I'd have known that. No matter, I just stitched it in by hand. Far more time consuming but it did the trick. I didn't try too hard to make my stitches that even, but it'll do. It doesn't look like shite and lays flat enough for my tastes. 

An alteration I made to the pattern was to double the width of the waistband. I wanted something a bit thicker so I could wear tops tucked into it all high-waisted like and still have it look clean. I also extended the side of the waistband in the front a couple of inches so it forms kind of a tabbed hook-and-eye closure.  Maybe there's a fancy name for that?

The end result of my evening's labor was a pretty, simple, clean-lined circle skirt. The pattern is cut on the bias so it drapes nicely. 

I paired the skirt with a navy top, some navy flats, and a canvas bag. It was perfect for the dressy-casual Sunday afternoon I had with a ladyfriend last weekend. The weather in New Orleans was downright pleasant - temperate, not a cloud in the sky or too much humidity, and even a gentle breeze blowing. 

 The old Benz isn't mine, by the way. Thanks to whoever left it parked on the street for the opportunity to use it in an impromptu photo shoot. 

I don't know how to not look like an idiot in pictures. Oh, well. Just look at the skirt!