Chunky Pumpkin and Orange Marmalade

I decided it was time to make use of my Galeuse d'eysines pumpkin. It had successfully stored in our (cold) hallway for about four months, but I fancied some pumpkin soup and really wanted to try to preserve the rest - or at least some - of the pumpkin and make it last a bit longer.

I found this delicious recipe on Nigella.com and altered it ever so slightly

Ingredients
2 kgs pumpkin
4 oranges (sweet & juicy)
1 lime (juiced)
1.5 kg sugar
2 cm fresh root ginger - shredded
Gelatine

Cut the pumpkin into large chunks (remove the seeds) and simmer in water for about 20 minutes until soft 

As my kitchen scales only goes up to 5kg, I had to wait until I'd managed to halve the pumpkin before I could weigh it... it came in at a fine weight of 7.5kg

Peel the oranges and remove the white parts from the skin – it will take at least half an hour to scrape all (well, most of...) the pith from the skin, much longer than I had anticipated! Chop the peel into small shreds

In a separate pot, mix ½ glass (I used a pint glass) of water with two spoons of sugar and cook the orange peels in it, until they are soft, this will take about 15-20 minutes. Cut the peeled oranges into pieces

When the pumpkin is soft, removed the skin and mix/smush the pumpkin – do not puree! I peeled the pumpkin into a large bowl, then roughly sliced it into chunks with a sharp knife.

Cook the pumpkin chunks, oranges, orange peels and lime juice for 20 minutes

Add the shredded ginger, rest of the sugar and some gelatine (I used one leaf) and let slowly boil for another 20 minutes. Pot into sterilized jam jars.

I initially thought 1.5 kg of sugar was far too much for this recipe, so I just used 1 kg, but after the marmalade had cooled, I realised it hadn't set properly and was quite...tangy. So I emptied all the jars back into the saucepans, reheated the marmalade back to a simmer and added the remaining ½ kg of sugar and another gelatine leaf and that seems to have done the trick! The pumpkin has stayed a bright orange colour and has turned almost translucent through cooking. The marmalade is still quite tangy - especially compared to the shop bought marmalade - which tasted sickly sweet after I’d sampled my homemade batch - and it has a lovely strong orange flavour and aroma and I think the chunks of pumpkin and orange work really well together.

Photographs of the Garden.... June to October 2013

Heirloom seedlings I started in April in the top flat

We had to remove weeds and weeds and literally metres of roots from the staghorn sumac from the soil before we started any kind of planting

Bamboo cane supports for peas

Small area I marked out for onions and carrots - this ended up being smothered by the tomatoes, galeuse d'eysines pumpkin and butternut squash

Staghorn suckers - these sprouted along every single root in the garden, the trees had been cut just before we moved in, and as it turns out, the trees respond to a "trauma" by sprouting vigorously along all root lines.... 

Minnesota Midget - this had really small yellow flowers, but didn't get nearly enough sun as they ended up hidden behind the tomatoes and courgette, so unfortunately, we didn't get any melons

The tomatoes take off

Crookneck Summer Squash

Courgette - we got about three nice sized courgettes from this plant, which was perfect, we had so many summer squash to use up!

Cheyenne bush pumpkin

Cleo investigates, while I try to measure the growth of the galeuse d'esyines pumpkin

Hidden under the wide leaves - growing crookneck summer squash. I'd no idea these would do so well and ended up giving a lot of them away to friends and work colleagues, and still had plenty left over for ourselves...

.

Pumpkin and squash patch - the galeuse d'eysines is taking over the patio in the back left of the photo

More Crookneck Summer squash

The bright yellow flowers on the squash and pumpkins attracted lots of bees, it was lovely to be able to hear the buzzing from the backdoor and we plan on planting a lot more bee friendly plants and flowers in 2014

Some of the harvest, heirloom tomatoes and crookneck summer squash

Galeuse d'eysines - this weighed about 7lb when it was finished growing

Mix of Gardeners Delight - cherry vine tomato, Millefleur - yellow vine tomato and Jen's Tangerine - cherry vine tomato 

Little butternut squash, which I discovered after I pulled the plant from the tangle of tomatoes, strawberries and nasturtiums

Almost ripe - Cheyenne bush pumpkin

Bush pumpkin and galeuse d'eysines curing in the glass house

I got all of my heirloom seeds from The Real Seed Catalogue

Harvest time!

Galeuse d'eysines

We harvested the Galeuse d'eysines pumpkin and the Cheyenne bush pumpkin late last week....

I was so proud! I haven't weighed them yet but they're safely stored, curing in the greenhouse for the next week and a half, then I'm going to have to find a cool place in the flat to keep them.

I'm hoping to carve them both at Halloween, and maybe make a pumpkin pie... and pumpkin bread... maybe pumpkin muffins...we're going to have a lot of pumpkin to use up!

Cheyenne Bush Pumpkin

Cheyenne bush pumpkin... late, but I'm
going to give it a chance!

Small galeuse d'eysines - still on the vine

Me and my very first Galeuse d'eysines