Well, the garden is a mess, front and back. So much of a mess that I’d be embarrassed to have anyone visit me at home right now (so I won’t). And I don’t know when I’ll get to it. Maybe next weekend. For example, the fig trees have dropped their large, floppy leaves everywhere and now stand naked. They need pruning, as does almost everything else. Exceptions include the citrus trees, and the camelia bush that is about to burst into flower.
I stepped out into the back garden for the first time in a month and was rewarded with the sight of this fully-laden orange tree. Last Spring, I planted the lemon tree and the lime tree, but I did not plant this fellow, but it’s quite faithfully producing each year with no encouragement from me (I think it will need some feeding though….these seem smaller than they were last year).
So, what shall I do with these? I don’t know what the variety is. It might have been intended by the planter (whoever that was) to be purely decorative, but these oranges made an interesting (fairly standard recipe) marmalade last year. But I suspect that, given their unusual taste, they may be better suited to other recipes.
Thoughts anyone? I got some excellent discussion (thanks all) on the case of the lemons in the other thread, with recipe suggestions (thanks Janet, Amara), including the unexpected appearance of the food professional, Rochelle Foles from whose book one of the earlier recipes came! That’s just the kind of variety I like to see here….. thanks all!
I’d be happy to hear thoughts from everyone again….
-cvj
January 8th, 2006 at 1:03 pm
Oranges are wonderful by themselves. Fresh Squeezed for juice. If you want to combine them with something use them to create an interesting salad dressing along with some limes.
1/2 cup Olive Oil
1/4 cup Fresh Squeezed Orange Juice
3 Cloves Fresh Pressed Garlic
Juice of 1 Lime
2 Tablespoons White Vinegar
Fresh Ground Black Pepper.
Great on Plain Romaine or Any “greenish” salad.
(can be refrigerated and used over several days)
Elliot
January 8th, 2006 at 4:02 pm
If these are those thinner-skinned bitter tasting ones that i think they are from the photo of the tree, then i think you have an ornamental variety. For some reason my Dad liked them, but later found he could enhance their juiceability: by first putting them in a microwave for ten seconds, juice them, and then treat them like lemons making lemonade. When i grew up and then lived in SoCal i used them for making various sauces especially for goose and duck. Now that i live in the far Northwest citrus is not one of the mainstays of life. This has a hidden blessing in that i bought a 40# lug of CA navels for a whopping $10 at the market–because so few people up here know what to do with them.
January 10th, 2006 at 1:54 am
I made a lemon pie not so long ago (the filling was two large lemons, the zest grated finely and the white rind-stuff-thinger removed from the innner fruit and two cups sugar, wait two to 24 hours, then bake). A suitably large orange with a thick enough skin could probably make a good orange pie. Hmmmmmmm.