Oranges!

This time of year, I always look for (and usually find) a bag of organic oranges….and then proceed to use the whole fruit (peel and pulp)!

Usually, the first way I enjoy the oranges is to eat the pulp then process the skin in a small food processor and dry it to enjoy later.

This year I have already used some dried orange peel as an addition to the loose tea in the filter of the ‘coffee’ maker. My office smells of tea and citrus (and the flavor is good too). I can always use it as a seasoning in mulled cider or a stir fry…it’s not possible to have too much dried orange peel!

The recipe I like for cranberry orange relish uses the whole orange. I cut the ends off and any large areas of pith…but most of the orange is cut in chunks and put into the food processor along with cranberries and a little sugar. The relish is good on its own or combined with other things:

  • With tomatillo salsa and heated…used as a sauce for meatballs or stir fry

  • With some oil to make a dressing for salads…particularly for salads that include other fruit

  • In muffins

  • In soup

Cold or hot…cranberry relish is one of my favorite winter foods (I sometimes prolong the season by freezing cranberries and sometimes the cut up oranges as well)!

Oranges are one of the great flavors of winter!

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 18, 2022

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Archaeologists Uncover Hundreds of Colorful Sarcophagi at Saqqara—and They’re Not Done Yet – The seeming endless interest in Egypt…sustained by continuing new finds.

8 cool wild cats you probably don’t know – So many wild cat variations!

Fjords emit as much methane as all the deep oceans globally – When storms churn up water in fjords….oxygenating the fjord floor…methane emissions spike. If the water mixed more frequently the methane emissions would drop because anoxic environments at the bottom of fjords would disappear.

Tree rings are evidence of megadrought – and our doom – Tree ring data indicates that the 22-year period from 2000 through 2021 was the driest and hottest in the last 1,2000 years for the North American Southwest. There was another 22-year drought from 1571-1592 that was nearly as dry but not as hot as the current drought. And the water distribution allocations were made based on a 22-year period between 1900 and 1921 that we now know was an anomalously wet period for area! Not good signs for the future.

A 3400-year-old city emerges from the Tigris River – Drought lowered the Mosul reservoir. There was a quick survey…discovery ceramic vessels with 100 cuneiform tablets…and the conservation measures to project the site as the water rose again. The site is now completely submerged.

Fifty years later, Kim Phuc Phan Thi is more than ‘Napalm Girl’ – One of the most iconic photos of the Vietnam war…still makes be as emotional now as the first time I saw it. She says – To confront violence head-on…’the first step is to look at it.’

Two articles about the flooding in Yellowstone: Repairing and reopening Yellowstone National Park won’t be easy and Extreme flooding devastates Yellowstone, forcing the closure of all park entrances – Very sad….also scary.

Wildlife bedtime: weird nesting habits of North American wildlife – Black bears, black-footed ferrets, jumping spiders, bald-faced hornets, and red-sided garter snakes.

How Vivian Maier, the Enigmatic Nanny Who Took 150,000 Photographs, Found Her Place in History – Street photographer…that only became known after a storage locker of her photographs/negatives was auctioned off when she couldn’t make the payments on it.

Zapping orange peel oil into new, pleasant aroma compounds – I’ve always liked the smell and taste of orange peel (I buy organic oranges and use the whole orange!) but evidently the compound that is in orange peel, limonene, can be the starting platform for other scents as well.

Not so mundane oatmeal

I’ve eaten oatmeal all my life. I probably ate it before I can remember. But I doctor it very differently now that when I was growing up when I pilled on the butter and brown sugar.  Yes – I still start with some butter in the bottom of my bowl but not as much and earlier in my life.

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And I don’t put just oatmeal and water in the pan (I’ve skipped the salt for a long time). Now I add raisins and orange peel too….sometimes cinnamon.

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Recently, I decided to clean out the refrigerator – cranberry orange relish (using it up) as the topping. Yum!

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It was a good feeling to make something that tasted so good…and was very different from the same old oatmeal!

Soups for Winter

Homemade soups are my winter lunch favorites. I like Root Soup: easy to make with fresh beet, potato, and carrot…seasoned with onion, garlic and basil. I let it cook long enough for the vegetables to become soft enough to mash a little. The pumpkin seeds on top provide just enough crunch (and protein too).

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I’ve already had a cold (and ear infection) this year and Homemade Chicken Noodle soup tasted so good. I made it several different ways. This one started with chicken bouillon with orange peel, dried onions and garlic, soba noodles and canned chicken. The soba noodles only take about 5 minutes to cook. While the soup bubbled on the stove, I use the scissors to cut up some arugula into the bowl. At the end of the 5 minutes, I poured the hot liquid over the greens – gave a stir. The arugula was part of the soup but not overcooked! So good… and just what I needed to get better.

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