May 15, 2016

Blood Orange Lemonade

Beverages, Blood Oranges, Easy!, Lemons, Oranges, Spring, Summer 0 Comments

I’m a pretty big fan of lemonade. Last year I finally nailed down a recipe for a delightful home-squeezed version, and I find lots of excuses to make it when it’s hot outside and all I want in this world is a glass of sweet, tart, cold, perfect summer beverage. Mmmmmmm.

I also love orange juice. After my recent trip to San Diego, I brought home five precious pounds of oranges and could think of no better use for them than to squeeze them into juice. So I did and it was perfect and glorious and I had no regrets except that I don’t have a citrus grove in my Colorado apartment complex. I would almost give up my life in Colorado to live in a place with orange trees. Almost.

Have you ever worked with blood oranges before? They are just so… provocative. Their skin is thin and blushes slightly, but upon slicing one open, you are met with simply stunning color. They vary: some are flushed with just a bit of red, like an orange with a sunburn, some are bright pink, and some are so deeply purple you can hardly believe they are same species of fruit. On their own, these oranges make the most MAGNIFICENT juice. If you have a happen to have a blood orange tree, please tell me that you make lots of blood orange juice. Also please send me your address so that I can move in with you.

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May 24, 2015

Basic, Perfect Lemonade + Lemonade Popsicles

Beverages, Easy!, Lemons, Party Food, Summer 0 Comments

The impact that holidays have on my mood is real. I don’t even have Memorial Day off, but a feeling I can only describe as three-day-weekend anticipation built on Friday afternoon anyway, as I watched the clock tick toward 5pm. The lack of social commitments and spectacular weather of these two days feel like a luxurious break on their own.

There aren’t many things that can break me out of my water-all-time-time beverage habit, but the arrival of summer weather is one of them. And lemonade is usually first in line for my liquid-y cravings. Amazingly, though, I’d never made it from scratch until earlier this spring during the citrus extravaganza following my trip to California.

I can’t believe I waited so long.

Woe to the time I’ve wasted buying lemonade from the grocery. Woe to the powdery mix that’s walking around emulating this precious elixir. Using only a few lemons, you can make the most perfect, delightful lemonade with hardly any effort at all. Please do so as soon as possible.

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April 22, 2015

Lemon Meringue Sunshine Cake

Cake, Dessert, Lemons 1 Comment

It’s another Earth Day and another 30 Pounds of Apples birthday! Four years ago today, I launched this little corner of the internet to archive tales and recipes from my kitchen, my garden, and my farmers markets forays. And despite some near-death experiences, the blog still continues to give me a creative outlet and an opportunity to share my successes and my failures with friends, family, and those of you I’ve never met. Thank you to all of you who read and cook with me, here’s to another four years!

And as any celebration should, this one features cake. A continuation of my citrus-y love affair, this is one of the most delightful cakes I’ve made in quite some time. Fluffy chiffon cake filled with bright lemon curd and Swiss meringue and iced with clouds of lemony whipped cream? Let’s just say I highly recommend it for your spring and summer soirées.

The cake part of this cake is a chiffon cake, lightly lemony in flavor. It’s spongy and light, so it provides a nice base for the bold lemon curd and the meringue.

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April 13, 2015

Lemon Curd

Fruit, Great for Gifts, Lemons, Preservation, Sauces 0 Comments

On our brief trip to California a couple weeks ago, I had a few goals: relax, spend a day in Disneyland, and visit a local farmers market to buy come citrus. I am pleased to say that I achieved all of the above. The following weekend I spent the majority of my time in the kitchen getting to know citrus in way I never really have before. Aside from acidifying canned goods, or zesting the occasional lemon cookie, I’ve never really thought about citrus as an ingredient before. Sure, I’ve had my fair share of lemonade, orange juice, and grapefruit halves, but when I found myself pondering the best way to use five pounds of lemons, I had no idea where to start.

It only took a few minutes of consulting my favorite cookbooks and cookblogs to see the overwhelming consensus: lemon curd seemed to be square one for entry into the lemon-y baking world.

And to be honest, I had NO idea what lemon curd was. I couldn’t recall tasting it, though in hindsight I now realize that almost every lemon-y dessert I’d had probably used lemon curd as a base. Lemon curd, it turns out, is the happy marriage of lemons, sugar, butter, and eggs. Somewhere between the consistency of a jam and a pudding, curd can be made with any combination of citrus, though lemon seems to be the most popular.

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