Apple marmalade (and other marmalades)

There's no doubt, this recipe gets my vote for this years Best All Around WFD? award. (FYI, the 2008 WFD? Award Show will be hosted by Tina Fae playing, mmm, Rachael Rae. Oh no I didn't...oh yes I did.)

Apple Marmalade (makes one medium sized jar of marmalade)

Peels from 15 apples of whatever variety (use 10 of the apples for pies/apple sauce)
5 peeled/cored apples cut into small 1/2" cubes
~10" square of cheese cloth (you should get unbleached cheese cloth, to be found at your local Good grocery store)
1.5c turbinado sugar
2 cinnamon sticks

Add a few squirts of lemon juice to the peels as you peel them from the apples so that they don't brown too much.

Put all of the peels on the cheese cloth, and tie the cloth into a bag

Put the bag in the middle of a large pot, toss the cubes apples around the bag

Add just enough water to the pot so that the cheese cloth and apples float off the bottom of the pot

Bring to a boil, then lower heat to keep at a very slow boil for an hour, stirring every 10 minutes or so (when you stir, squeeze the bag of peels against the side of the pot to keep the juices flowing)

After the hour, squeeze the bag of peels against the side of the pot and remove the bag (try your best to squeeze all of the juice out of it before removing)

Stir in the sugar

Once sugar is absorbed, crank up the heat almost to high and get ready to stir.

Stir nonstop, keeping the liquid moving, until it thickens into marmalade (should take about 10 minutes). You can stop at any time...when you stop will determine how thick your marmalade is.

Once it's thickened to your liking, remove from heat and add the cinnamon sticks. Stir them in and let it sit for 15 minutes or so. That should be cinnamony enough...the longer you leave it, the more cinnamony it will get.

Store half of it in an airtight container in the coldest part of the fridge and eat within a week at the most. Overnight the other half to me.

The apple peels are loaded with pectin, which is what thickens jams/marmalades. So you can use the pectin from the peels to make any sort of marmalade. To make other kinds of marmalade, just change the fruit that's added around the bag of apple peels. Instead of cubed apples, add peaches, oranges, etc. I'm going to try peaches this week.