February is the time of the year to make marmalade as the new season of citrus fruit is in the shops. As well as using the traditional Seville oranges, marmalade can be made with limes, grapefruit or lemons, or any combination of the above.

My sister is an expert maker of pickles and preserves, and made a large batch of red onion marmalade with balsamic vinegar for consumption with the mountains of cheese at her recent wedding.

About the only thing thriving in our garden at the moment, apart from a few slowly swelling squashes, are the leeks. It set me thinking about the possibilities of preserving them.

I'm a bit unsure about Onion marmalade, not the taste or concept, just the naming of it. In my mind a marmalade is a fruit preserve, made from citrus fruit. However, fashion has invented a version using onions, which I guess tends to be sweeter and more jam like than an onion chutney, so I was tempted into trying it out using some of the onions still laid out in the greenhouse.

An exciting few days - making marmalade for the first time, something I've always fancied doing but never got round to. I think as it was I probably left it a bit late, luckily the local supermarket had bags of Seville oranges.
I promptly bought several bags and left them in a bowl for a while.