Happy Sunday, everyone!
We’ve had a busy and fun weekend! The Andersons participated in the town-wide cleanup yesterday (along with my son’s Karate team), and were stationed in front of the intersection at the new Community Garden site! Over 1000 pounds of trash and recycle was collected from various Westford spots throughout the day. Thanks to the Roudenbush Community Center and the many sponsors for coordinating the event!
Ok, so back to the food. I had a couple of share box oranges left, surprisingly. I think we were just running around so much this week that we didn’t notice them. For something different, I thought maybe I’d try to make a marmalade with them!
Here’s a tiny and random piece of trivia. I once wrote and recorded a song called “Marmalade” with my band, Apple Betty. Though I’ve sang about it all over New England, I’ve never made marmalade. in my song, marmalade is a metaphor for something that is overly dramatic and complex. After researching a few basic recipes, I realized it can be made quite simply with oranges and sugar, and without any added pectin or other ingredients.
Here is the basic recipe I followed, omitting the water and using 2 oranges from the share box. I took two of the oranges with the thinnest peels as directed. I used the bottom 2 oranges and ate the top one shown here.
After chopping the oranges and running them through a food processor, they were ready to mix with sugar in the saucepan. After not too long, this was happening!
This recipe worked quite nicely, and I used some of the marmalade in the slow cooker on a pot roast variation. Springdell onions and parsley were also involved.
After 6 hours of slow cooking, I had this.
It it was very tender and the flavor was nice, but I’d still like to tweak it before presenting the whole recipe here. I think it would be nicer as a glaze with the roast coming out of the oven. It as good as-is but has the potential to be great. This photo is a teaser of things to come!
For a side dish, we had honey orange carrots, which are lovely and fresh tasting (despite the carrots being months old and fresh from the DIY root cellar!)
First, you start with peeled and washed carrots that are sliced about 1/2 inch thick on the bias. You boil them until crisp tender, about 10 minutes, before removing from the heat and the water. While the carrots are boiling, I squeezed an orange (lemon juice would work too) into a handful of finely chopped parsley.
I gave the parsley a stir and once the carrots were cooked and drained, I tossed them with the parsley and orange juice. I then drizzled with honey to taste (between 1-2 tbsp per bunch of carrots) and gave it all another stir. The lightly sweet and refreshing taste is great!
Another side was the oven fries made with the russet potatoes, which I’ll share about on Tuesday. We had a strawberry rhubarb crisp with freshly whipped cream for dessert, courtesy of last Summer’s Springdell Summer share which included berries and rhubarb. I’ll be sure to share this recipe when things come back in season. Stay tuned!
I hope you’ll take these ideas and run with them. Sweet and savory dreams, my friends!