I made motherfucking MARMALADE!

Shit yeah, bitches, and it was EASY! Here is what you do:

Buy a bunch of canning jars (12 16oz jars for $8 at HEB)
Buy a bunch of oranges (18lb bag for $7 at my farmer’s market)
Buy a bunch of sugar (The Library Overlord went out and got me some kinda crazy 20lb bag of sugar, I really hope I use it all making jam because I don’t have anything I can store this in)
(optional) Buy a set of canning tongs ($10, The Walmarts)

Get a big cooking pot, like for making a bunch of soup.
Get an even BIGGER, GIANT stock pot, like for making chili for a very large party.

Peel some oranges. I find it’s easier to quarter them first, then peel the quarters, because then the peels are all the same size, instead of all kinds of crazy sizes. Cut the peels into little strips and put them in your pot. I did 8 oranges per batch.

Tear the orange-quarters into little bits, and put them in the pot. You can do this over the pot, so the inevitable juice drips go in with the rest of it. Toss out any seeds.

Pour in water, 1 cup at a time, until it barely covers your oranges. For my pot, 4 cups did it. Then, add as many cups of sugar as you did water. THIS IS ALL YOU NEED TO ADD!

Bring that bitch up to a boil for like a minute, then take it down to a simmer. Simmer it until you can take some of it out, put it in a clean bowl, and it kinda starts to gel up when it cools. That’s when you know it’s done. The recipe I was using said that should take about an hour, but I had the heat on low at first so it took a lot longer than that. Just keep setting the timer for 20 minutes, after that first hour, and eventually it will be jam.

NOTE: MARMALADE HAS A BITTER BITE. If you don’t like that, don’t add the peel, and DO add pectin. I didn’t do that, so I don’t know how to tell you how to do it. Me, I like the little bit of bitterness, and the texture of the peel.

TO CAN: Get your big-ass stockpot, and put something on the bottom so the jars don’t rest directly on the bottom of the pot. I used a vegetable steamer thingy. Put your jars in, put your lid parts in, fill it with water, and boil that shit for at least a minute to sterilize. Then, USING YOUR TONGS BECAUSE THAT SHIT IS HOT, remove the jars and fill them with your nice, hot marmalade. Oh, yeah, baby, just like that. Fill me with your orange goodness. Put the lids on the jars, the screw-thingies around them, and screw them on tight. Do this to all the jars, or until you run out of marmalade.

Put the jars back in the boiling water, and boil them for another 15 minutes. Take them out, and let them cool down slowly. If you can still poke the top of the jar and make a clicking sound as the top comes up and down, then it hasn’t sealed yet. If it doesn’t seal by the time it’s room temperature, boil it again, and see if it goes that time.

It should probably wait overnight to cool down, and it’s supposed to take a couple days to really thicken up in the jar. But let’s be honest, you’re going to be eating it with a spoon by breakfast time, and there’s not a damn thing wrong with that.

FUN VARIANT: CHOCOLATE ORANGE MARMALADE!!!

When the marmalade is cooked, but you haven’t canned it yet, add in a bunch of chocolate chips. I didn’t really measure it at all, but maybe 1 part chocolate to 2 or 3 parts jam? Mix it up, and the heat of the jam will melt the chocolate. Can as per usual. It’s so good, your mouth will orgasm with delight.