Gin is usually my drink of choice, see last winter’s Blood Orange Gin & Ginger, but this winter I’ve been pulled toward whiskey drinks. Blood oranges are in season, and they blend perfectly with whiskey and a touch of cinnamon. Trust us.
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It’s blood orange season! Pick some up at the market and treat your V-day pals to this delicious pink cocktail.
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I’m pretty sure I’ve mastered homemade kombucha, and I’m sharing my new favorite recipe below. Follow our instructions and you’ll create a nice citrus-flavored kombucha with a light floral aroma. yay!
I can’t believe that it took us two months to combine tea and alcohol, but the day is finally here! Today we’re sharing our take on this delicious cocktail from Sugar & Charm. As you’ll see, this drink is a complex mix of a variety of botanical flavors. The Earl Grey tea provides a dark tannin-filled foundation, and then it’s layered with lavender, lime juice, and just a hint of citrus, both from the tea and a sliver of zest. Honey adds just a touch of sweetness. Needless to say, this drink is far from the Long Island Iced Teas we all had one too many of in college.
I mentioned that the drink gets a hint of citrus from the Earl Grey tea. Traditionally, Earl Grey is a black tea that is scented with the addition of bergamot essential oil. The bergamot orange is an extremely sour fruit with a rind the color of lemons. It is not considered edible, but with the addition of sugar can be turned into marmalade. Earl Grey tea was first produced in England in the early 1800s in an attempt to reproduce the flavors of more expensive Chinese teas. Perhaps surprisingly, combining gin and Earl Grey, as we do below, is not a unique idea. Although it’s not as fashionable today, it was common throughout the UK, particularly in the late 1800s.
If you’re looking for a fun alternative to chocolates for Valentine’s Day, pistachio and orange torrone may be it! But I have to admit, it took me over two months to build up the courage to try making this recipe. Calder came across it in an issue of Bon Appetit while researching recipes for Thanksgiving. The ingredients were purchased, and I promised to make it for the holiday (Thanksgiving, not Valentine’s Day). Then I didn’t, and I didn’t make it for Christmas or New Year’s, but here we are and I’m finally making the sweet for my sweet!
Torrone is a nougat-type treat made from honey, sugar, egg whites, and nuts, commonly almonds. The nougat comes in two varieties, either hard and brittle or soft and chewy. This recipe is for the soft and chewy variety. Torrone is a traditional Spanish treat served at Christmas, and is popular in many countries that were previously under Spanish rule, including Italy, Latin America, and the Philippines. The combination of citrus flavor and pistachios in this pistachio and orange torrone recipe are characteristics of an Italian torrone.
Oranges are our ingredient of the season. We’re filling our archives with zesty drinks, candies, crafts, and even cleaners!
This recipe for orange and almond cake produces a deliciously dense cake with just the right amount sweet, citrusy zest to brighten any cold and grey afternoon. And that’s why it’s become a winter staple in our house (of course, yesterday I happened to make it on one of the warmest & sunniest winter days, but I couldn’t fight the urge to bring the sunshine in!). The cake is finished with a sweet syrup made from fresh orange juice, and as a result, it definitely doesn’t need any sort of frosting, rather it pairs perfectly with an afternoon cup of tea or coffee ~ just what you’ll need after a day out in the snow.
The recipe comes from one of our favorite cookbooks, Jerusalem, which we may have mentioned here and here. I’m sure this won’t be the last time we share a favorite dish from the book!
A note about the ingredients ~
I love this cake’s short and sweet ingredient list. Of course the eggs, butter, sugar, flour, and salt are pantry staples; you just have to pick up fresh citrus and almonds or almond meal.
This recipe calls for the zest from four oranges and a lemon, as such, be sure to buy organic. There are two reasons to think about buying organic: 1. environmental and 2. health. From a health perspective, you’ll often see oranges and other citrus as being a “low pesticide residue” fruit as they are protected by their thick skin. Since those pesticides remain on the rind, anytime you’re using the zest in a recipe, you would be exposing yourself to a higher concentration of the pesticides if you don’t buy organic. And, I’m sure you know this, but an easy way to ensure that you’re buying organic in the produce section is to look for fruit and veg with a 5 digit code that starts with 9.
As for the almond meal, you can easily buy whole almonds and use a food processor to make the meal, but since this recipe calls for a whopping 2.5 cups, I find that it’s easier to just pick up a bag of pre-ground almonds. Not sure where to look? You can always find it for a good price in Trader Joe’s nut section.
When it comes to zesting the citrus, I find that it’s quicker and easier to use a zester that produces the nice long strips of zest. You can zest a whole orange (or four!) relatively quickly, and then use a chef’s knife to give the pile a few chops and create the smaller pieces that you need.
On with the recipe then. We’re trying out a new feature on our recipe posts, and we hope you like it! You can see the recipe below as in the past, but now, if you would like to print it, just hit the “print” button to the right of the title. That will open the recipe without photos in a new window as well as allowing you to print the PDF and/or save it as a file on your computer. yay! If you’re having any trouble or have any suggestions for further improvements to our recipe posts, we would love to hear them.
Ingredients
Instructions
I talked to the orange today and he said he is totalllllly cool with featuring his cousin, the blood orange, in today’s recipe. I’m partial to the blood orange margarita, but since I’m getting over a bug I’ll settle for a blood orange shrub soda. Have you ever had shrub? It’s described as drinking vinegar, but I like to think of it as flavoring syrup. It’s the perfect concoction to have on hand while you’re mixing cocktails or looking to spice up your seltzer water.
I’ve been on a shrub kick! I was gifted a whole bunch of shrubs from Tait Farm and I’ve been sucking them down all January. I love having a bubbly seltzer drink to break up the monotony of my normal coffee, tea and water rotation. You may also remember that shrub is one of my bedside necessities so when Katie gave me Quench by Ashley English for Christmas, I headed right to the shrub recipes. I spotted this blood orange recipe by guest contributor Marisa from the Food In Jars blog. I actually modified the recipe by cutting the vinegar by a third. I thought the apple cider vinegar was a tad overpowering in my first batch. It could have been that my blood oranges were a different type than those used by Marisa or maybe our oranges were at different ripenesses, whatever it was I hated knowing the apple cider vinegar was trampling all over the tangy blood orange juice. So here it is shrub sippers, an easy way make your own blood orange shrub syrup.
My favorite way to use this blood orange shrub (and all shrubs) is to mix up a little shrub soda. Simply combine a tablespoon or two of shrub with a glass of icy club soda. You can also use this blood orange shrub to flavor other favorite drinks like iced tea or lemonade. Shrubs are also delightful cocktail mixers, but I’m getting over a little cold so no suggestions at the moment. I’ll get back to you on that one 😉
Hey Spring Cleaners! Ok, I know it’s a little early for that. Hey, conscious cleaners! (How was that?) Do you buy green cleaning products for your home? Ones that aren’t so harsh and better for your kids, pet, waters and earth? I hope you do! I currently use Green Legacy garbage bags because they’re big, tough and biodegradable and for cleaning I use Legacy of Clean products. Personally, I cannot use Clorox or any other really smelly cleaners. I quickly develop a really big headache that just doesn’t go away. It’s probably because the chemicals are poisoning my brain or because I’m really sensitive to smells, who knows, I’m no doctor.
Anyway, if you don’t use natural cleansers, you can always start now with this easy natural orange cleaner. You just need a couple of items and a little bit of time to brew a batch. It’s super simple and you might even enjoy the smell of your cleaning products! This concoction uses white vinegar which is high effective at killing mold, bacteria, mildew and other household germs. If you don’t have a big jug of vinegar, go grab one! Vinegar is cheap and you get to leave the harmful fumes and toxic counterparts of other cleaners at the store. Vinegar is also biodegradable so you can wash it down drains and toilets without adding more chemicals to our water system.
Katie here: if you want to make a cleaner that you can use immediately, a quick and dirty trick is to use orange essential oil rather than soaking the fresh peels. Make a mixture of 1/2 cup vinegar and 1/4 teaspoon orange essential oil, then you can further dilute it with water as Sarah does.
I’ve used this mix on everything in my kitchen, bathroom and living room. Counters, tables, floors, sinks, molding, walls, etc. and it has always worked like a charm. Like I said, I dilute my mixture by 50% with water to tone it down a bit. I also always finish cleaning by wiping each surface with water so there’s no vinegar left sitting on my wood floors and other sensitive areas. I have read that vinegar is capable of deteriorating exposed window seals, dishwasher gaskets, and unsealed grout over time, so these surfaces should be rinsed with water after they are cleaned. Like any cleaning product warning, I suggest test cleaning on inconspicuous areas first to make sure this product is safe for your purposes. You could also google the specific materials you’ll be cleaning to see if there’s any information on how vinegar will react to them. So far I’ve only had positive results and lucky for me, this product keeps me headache free!
Christmas is so close! Today we’re popping in with a couple of orange treats : candied rinds and orange-flavored marshmallows. Both recipes are so easy to make, take relatively little time (so you’ll still have time to make them when you’re up late waiting for Santa), and they make a unique addition to any dessert table and hot cocoa mug!
First up, the candied rinds. I like to use a combination of orange and grapefruit for this recipe. It’s nice having the two flavors, but I also really like the variation in color that using more than one variety of citrus provides. Candying the rinds requires boiling them in a sweet syrup before rolling them in sugar, and while both steps are meant to create a sweet, candy, the finished rinds can still have a some bitter undertones that may make your lips pucker. This is one of those flavors that keeps some people coming back for more while others (Calder) pass after their first sample.
I use a technique that I learned years ago from Martha Stewart, and it’s consistently worked well over the years. But I’ve noticed that she offers a number of different methods for candying citrus rinds on her website, and they vary widely in both the ingredient ratios and the cooking times, so if your variation differs from my, by all means, stick with what you know.
I think these make a great addition to any cookie or chocolate tray, but they would also be a fantastic garnish on a slice of chocolate cake or (minus the chocolate) in your Christmas-morning mimosas!
Next up, orange-flavored marshmallows! I’m in love with these. The first time I made marshmallows was last February, and making them a second time just confirmed how easy it is to produce these light and fluffy sweets! I used the exact same corn syrup-free recipe, with the exception of using orange extract in place of the vanilla and orange dye in place of the red. Otherwise, I followed the tips and steps to a T, so rather than retype everything, I’ll just redirect you to that post and below I’ll share the fluffy orange-y goodness in photos.
The real magic happens in this recipe when you start to beat the hot liquid with an electric mixer. Before your eyes the tan liquid turns white and expands as air is incorporated.
Once you’re done whipping the marshmallows, it’s just a matter of deciding what to do with them, and you have a few options. Are you going to add a color? I like playing with marbling. With my last batch, I mentioned that I was too reserved with the marbling, so I tried to go bigger this time. I poured half of the marshmallows into a square baking dish, then added red and yellow dye that I blended together as I marbled it through that layer. I then poured the rest of the marshmallow into the pan and again, mixed it slightly to move the dye up into the second layer. As you can see from the first marshmallow photo, I ended up with some pretty good orange streaks. You can also go with a solid color, or you can try stripes!
In addition to color, you can think about size and shape. I go for the big, fluffy squares, but since it’s the holiday, you may want to use cookie cutters to make shapes. If so, then pour your marshmallows into a larger dish to create a thinner layer that’s easy to cut out.
Ok, now once your marshmallows have cooled, you just have the hard job of deciding how to eat and gift them. Start by dipping some in a big mug of hot cocoa, or let them a while and melt right into your mug. I did that today, and it creates this really tasty orange marshmallow layer on top of the cocoa, with each sip you get a bit of the melted, gooey orange flavor and it’s amazing. If you’re not going to keep them all to yourself, you could package up a few marshmallows and pair them with a good cocoa as a stocking stuffer. Just make sure to use an airtight bag for packaging, because you don’t want them to dry out before they’re enjoyed.
There you have it ~ two ways to add a note of citrus to your holiday! Now we’re off to finish wrapping presents {and we’ll be doing it with that mug of cocoa above, obvs.}…. oh, I may be experimenting with one more way to add some citrus to my homemade chocolates. We’ll be back with the full report if it works!
Cheers to citrus season! Growing up, my mom would order a half dozen boxes of oranges from the marching band fundraiser, which meant orangeade all winter long. I miss those big boxes and that orangeade so today I made something a little reminiscent of my childhood + alcohol 🙂 This citrus champagne spritzer has fresh squeeze oranges and lemons, but don’t fool yourself, it is still winter.
This bubbly and fresh drink turned my cheeks pink! It was the perfect pal for present wrapping today. Do I sound like the loneliest person on the planet?! Wrapping presents with a drink that I’m calling pal? Don’t answer that. But hey, if your holidays are hectic and you need a mocktail, try this recipe sans champagne and cointreau. Replace the alcohol with sparkling lemonade or use the sparkling orange and lemon soda as the base, but whatever you do, ENJOY IT!
These sparkling citrus champagne spritzers are perfect for a holiday party *ahem champagne toast ahem* or in my case a preholiday wrapping party. Mix up a whole batch or put on Mixed Nuts and drink one by yourself 😉
