COOKING WITH CITRUS FRUIT
It is the middle of a wet and windy winter in Western Australia. The citrus trees are covered in fruit this year. I live in an older suburb where many of the houses have fruit trees. Luckily, my neighbours share their bounty!
I made GLAZED LEMON SLICE, easy to make and very popular, from a Martha Stewart recipe. In her version there’s a glaze instead of icing but it sounded very rich and not, in my mind, in keeping with the clean, zestiness of lemons. I made a traditional icing using icing sugar, melted butter and lemon juice and added some finely grated lemon zest on top before it set. I prefer thin icing to thick frosting for cakes and slices.
Also made a baking tray of LEMON FLAVOURED SHORTBREAD biscuits. Apparently, these will last for a week, but never have in my house.
We like salmon for dinner at least once a week. Our favourite winter recipe involves baking two salmon fillets in a glass dish with one lime squeezed over the fillets and about 3 dessertspoons of maple syrup drizzled over the top. Baked for 15 minutes in 160° C fan forced oven, or until the outside is opaque, then served with vegetables. Quick, easy, tasty.
This time I also roasted carrots and red onions with cumin, sea salt and ground coriander plus lemon juice and sesame seeds to go with the salmon.
Having a supply of lemons, oranges, grapefruit and limes, I decided to try making SLOW COOKER MARMALADE. I have made marmalade since I can remember, either as assistant cook as a child or in my own kitchen. I rarely use bought pectin, instead relying on pips, pith and peel from the fruit tied in a muslin bag and cooked with the marmalade. Usually I make it in the microwave. Before I used to make it on the stove top. This time I followed a recipe for making it in the slow cooker. Followed the recipe, marmalade was still runny after stated time. Cooked it some more. Still runny. Bought and added pectin, still runny.
Pink grapefruit, oranges, lemons and also a lime cooking in the slow cooker. My first ever marmalade fail.
We like a chunky marmalade with peel and pieces of chopped up fruit. By the end of my attempts to thicken this lot it was boiled to almost clear liquid! Decided to experiment and see if I could use some of it to make a marmalade flavoured cake, because it still tastes great, it’s just too runny.
“MARMALADE THAT WONT SET CAKE”
I beat 140gm softened butter with 150gm sugar until it was pale and frothy. Added a 800gm egg and beat again, then added half a cup of runny marmalade. It curdled but went smooth and creamy again when I added 150gm self raising flour and mixed until it was smooth. Depending on how runny your failed marmalade is you might have to add more flour. Mine hadn’t set at all.
Scraped into a prepared cake pan and baked for 55 minutes at 160° C in a fan forced oven. Baked until a skewer inserted in the middle came out cleanly. Really lovely cake, would make a great dessert with cream or icecream. Not that I’m wishing ‘fail-to-set- marmalade’ on you!
Another day I used the same recipe to make FAILED MARMALADE CUPCAKES as our son was here for two days. Lots of cooking and eating together. Luckily, techno-kid also sorted out a few problems with my phone and blog. Thankyou!
OTHER EATING
I’ve made our own sourdough for some years and for the last eight months have been making my own sourdough rye bread. It is a heavy, dense loaf and probably an acquired taste but I really like it. Then my husband went to a nearby bakery and returned with this rye loaf. It was wonderful! I think we will keep buying it for a while then I will decide if I’ll go back to baking our own bread.
He also found other things we “needed”.
Another day and another bakery and more treats to fight off the cold weather. All very good.
MAKING PASTIES
Every winter I make trays of pasties and store them in the freezer. My family like them for lunch, at home or at work. Time to make more. I make pasties with meat and vegetables although I think traditional pasties have a vegetable filling. Pasties originated in Cornwall and originally Cornish Pasties had savoury filling in one end and a sweet filling in the other. The miners could hold then in one hand to eat.
Our new winter warming favourite dinner is SLOW COOKER BEEF BOURGUIGNON (here). I originally made it to use up some tough steak. I have continued making it because it is delicious and makes double generous sized dinners for two. Mostly I freeze the second one so I have a quick, hot, satisfying dinner available if we have a busy day. I thaw it in the fridge all day and heat it when we get home. I just add vegetables or if I’m rushed, buttered toast.
drinking
Normally I drink coffee and water but after too many double espressos recently at lunch I was introduced to fruit infusions. I occasionally drink lemon and ginger tea but this brew, cranberry and vanilla, was really lovely. Bought something similar in the supermarket and then read online that the brand I’d bought was still using plastic based materials to seal their teabags. Next time I was at the cafe I found out the brand name of the tea I’d been drinking there and hunted it down online. Now making tea using a tea infusers from my own bag of tea mix. And I really like it!
Just in case you thought all we do here is eat, I’ve included a photo showing just what one member of the family did when we got out of bed. It was a very cold (for W.A 7°C) morning and Louis found the warm spot!
Did you miss Bastille Day? Hope not! July 14th commemorates the storming of the Bastille in Paris in 1789. Probably easier to just eat macarons or croissants!
Wow! LOTS of good food things here! Make a body hungry, hungry! Hey, uh, do you do carry out? How about Ship Out? How about ship out to the USA? I’ll take some of each, please.
Hello!
Thankyou so much for your kind and encouraging comments. We have had our son here for a few days, so LOTS of cooking and eating together. Keep well and safe in these troubling times. We think of you both often.
Deborahx