Kumquat marmalade

If you like orange marmalade then you just have to try making this.

Personally don't quite fancy eating fresh kumquat but turn it into a lovely jam and now you've really got my attention! Its really much nicer and so much more flavourful than normal orange marmalade. The kumquat skin has a much deeper and complex bite than the orange.

Made into jam (without any seeds), what you have is a sweet and yet slightly tangy flavour, just lovely with toast!

Making this kumquat marmalade is no rocket science - all you need is kumquat, sugar and water. How simple is that? To give it more complex flavour, I threw in a vanilla bean, seeds and all. It was a good combination. While I was cooking this jam, it reminded me a lot of making pineapple jam with cinnamon stick, cloves and star anise - can imagine that combination would yield a more 'spicy' flavour. Will give that a go another time but for the moment, I'm secretly enjoying this hoard - well you see, didn't get a big kilo bag in the first place, just slightly less than half and after trying to enjoy it fresh (didn't work - the seeds put a big towel on the overall experience, for me anyway) I was left with probably less than 2 cups and after cooking, you really only end up with probably a quarter of that (if you are lucky!!).

Anyhow, here's what I did:

Ingredients

2 cups (almost), wash, sliced and deseeded

1/2 cup caster sugar

1 tbsp honey

1 vanilla bean, deseeded

water, about 2 cups

Method:

1. Place sliced kumquat in a bowl and soak it with water overnight, making sure you have just enough water to cover the sliced fruit. Add in the vanilla bean and cling wrap the mixture. If the weather is warm where you are, best to store it in the fridge.

2. Pour kumquat slices and water into a saucepan and bring to a boil. Add in rest of ingredients and reduce heat to a simmer.

3. Cook mixture uncovered without stirring for about 30 min.

4. As the mixture thickens a little, stir and cook it a little longer to make sure all the the liquid has evaporated.

5. When finally ready, remove from heat and scoop marmalade into sterilised jars and seal.

What do you do with a pot stained with leftover marmalade?

Tear off some bread and scoop it clean.....oooh, it was truly a glorious yummy moment. Made me wish I made more of a mess whilst transferring the marmalade into the container!! ;)

Kitty cat bento (B#319)

....meow??? or should that be purrrr?

Looks more like a kitty than a tiger right?

Anyway, kitty is made out of quail eggs dyed in a little yellow colour, cut the top off so that you get a nice surface for the face. The tail if you are wondering is a food pick.

In this bento is a ham sandwich, some romaine lettuce (for the baran - did you notice the flower too? ha ha) and some strawberries and slices of green apple.

This will be my B.O.M.B. entry, read more here. Hope you are having a good and restful weekend.

Kids have very good memory, that is if they choose to remember - selective memory, I'm sure you know all about that ya ;) When Master Price opened his eyes this morning, first thing he said to me - no it wasn't 'Good Morning' but to remind me that I had earlier in the week promised to give him a dollar to bring to school so he could spend it! Hello, what happen to good morning - tsk tsk, reminded him later that he MUST greet his parents FIRST always as main priority in morning, then we can discuss about other things! :)