citrus!

the lovelies are back at the market.

what are you doing with them?

which are your favorites?

do you peel or cut?

jelly or marmalade?

juice or bake?

sweet or sour?

drink or zest?

i love them so.

Comments

[Dr. Biggles]

YEAH !!!! Zest and stuff in lamb legs, that's a good start.

Squeeze in to sauces and gravies filled with flavors and butter.

I just did a little meat jig around my office. Thank you so kindly for the boost.

Biggles

[Teresa]

I like both the zest and the juice of orange in my chicken salad. Yum!

[Marc]

It is exciting to start eating local citrus again. The first complicated thing I'm going to make is Claudia Roden's Middle Eastern Orange Cake (description and recipe at the Singapore-based KUIDAORE blog: http://tinyurl.com/y5o68s). It's especially interesting because the whole orange is used -- peel, pith and all.

[Kimberly]

Yes! Yes yes yes to all of the above. My favorites? Today, the Texas ruby reds that came from my sister's tree in Houston. Would that there were local citrus in Seattle.

[Peggasus]

I usually cut the oranges in eighths and eat them just like that, you know, like in a kid's lunchbox, and then I can do that thing with the teeth. Or else I peel, slice into crosswise sections and drizzle a few drops of vanilla on top.

Lemon and lime go (squeezed or zested) into recipes, on salads, and in my water.

Usually with a big bag of grapefruit, I will spend the time to supreme them and store them in a jar in the fridge, so I can just scoop into a bowl in the morning, with a sprinkle of Splenda on top.

I just today brought home a 5# box of Clementines for $4.88, quite a score here in Central Illinois. My younger son (15) will sometimes eat 3 or 4 at a sitting.

Oh, how I envy people that just have these things falling into their yards from trees! You lucky dogs!

[Lori S.]

I love that Claudia Roden cake mentioned above. I often make it for Passover.

Right now, though, my favorites are the little Satsumas, and I just eat them out of hand.

I also like juicing valencias and mixing the juice with vanilla goat's milk yogurt for a smoothie.

And my favorite winter snack is sliced navels with a bowl of pistachios. I learned to section an orange for this. Easier than I thought, and lots of fun.

[janelle]

Loads of envy for those with citrus trees! Here is a start:

Oranges: orange rolls, snacking, sangria

Lemons: lemon drops, sidecars, zest and juice for brocolli and beans, salad dressing

Limes: pelligrino

Once I spent 'forever' segmenting grapefruits and oranges, then mixed them with a vanilla simple syrup and a little fresh mint for a big breadfast treat.

Hmmmmm. Note the drink theme? Thank god summer is passed or limes would be all about mojitos, kamakazis and margaritas;)

[Sara]

I'm a baking fool, compulsive, like Sylvia Plath only without the depression. It's not about the sweetness so much. It's about the act of baking, so warm, so completely shareable.

In the last year I made lime-spice madeleines and blood orange pound cake, which didn't turn out nearly as colorful as I would have liked, but was nevertheless hugely delicious. The cake used all parts of the blood orange except the seeds. The madeleines only used peel and zest, so I used the juice for limeade.