Saturday, April 26, 2014

Oh, just cannin' some mandarins...



Have you ever had a bag of fruit that starts to go bad faster than you had anticipated? As irritating as it is, there is a way to preserve many fruits to taste just as good as when it was fresh. My favorite, not to mention easy, fruit to can is mandarin oranges. Prices for canned fruit made my jaw drop the last time I went shopping for them. So I started buying fruit strictly fresh because it was cheaper! This morning I looked and we had about 2 lbs of mandarins that were on the brink of going bad. How did that happen so fast! Usually we finish a 3 lb bag before even one orange starts to look a little sick but this week... maybe the bag was a lot more ripe than I knew when I bought it. So rather than force feed Woodchuck and Woodchick citrus fruits through tomorrow I decided to just break out the water bath canner and cook up a few pints of mandarins. It literally took 30 minutes start to finish. Too easy.



First, fill your water bath canner with water and get it on the stove and bring to a boil. I also put my (already clean) jars in the water to get really hot while the water starts to a boil. Then get peeling! One of the reasons why I love mandarin oranges so much is because they are remarkably easy to peel AND there are no seeds. I peeled and sectioned those 2 lbs in like 5 minutes...
Rinse them off and get ready to add them to the sterilized jars!



It takes at least 8 ounces by weight to fill a pint jar but you can squeeze 10 ounces of orange slices easy. Just make sure that you leave 1/2 inch room from the top.

You'll need about 1 cup of fluid per pint jar. I made 3 pints this morning, I had planned on 4 but we got hungry during the process! I like a lighter syrup but you could always add more sweetener or sugar. Heck, you could even just do plain water! Or orange juice...

I did 4 cups of water and 2/3 cup splenda (trying to keep the calories down!). Bring the syrup to a boil before adding to the jars.

Once your sterilized jars are filled with the mandarins, carefully ladle the hot syrup over the top leaving 1/2 inch from the top clear. Be careful not to spill all over the rim! Place your new lids and tighten the rings to secure. Process in the hot water bath for 10-15 minutes. When the processing is completed, pull the jars from the boiling water with jar tongs and put in a place to cool undisturbed for at least 24 hours.



What you need:

2 lbs mandarin oranges (approx. $2.25)
4 cups boiling water
2/3 cup sugar or sweetener (approx. $.25)

Water Bath Canner
Jar Tongs
Jar Funnel
4 pint jars
4 canning lids
4 canning rings

Total approximate cost per pint of mandarin oranges is $.63! Beats the store prices and better for you!


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