The Russian and I did some canning this weekend. Why? We hate shopping for Christmas gifts, we’re poor, because it’s cool, and because this is what our lemon tree looked like AFTER making 30 jars of marmalade.

We started by harvesting a big bag of lemons, about 20 pounds worth

Then we peeled them, and diced the peel

Leaving us with a pile of big, naked lemons

Don’t be fooled by their size though, the lemons from our tree are mostly pith

Then came the hardest step, juliene-ing 40 lemons. This was also the point when we realized we wouldn’t be finishing that night. It was hard work, we were tired, and while reading the recipe we realized it had to sit overnight in order to create pectin.

This is the flesh

this is our compost

and this is what we pulled out in the morning.

We added sugar

Boiled

And canned

And boiled

And canned some more

Don’t you wish you were our friend?

This year we celebrate the Joy of Cooking, what are you celebrating this winter?