Monday, March 7, 2011

Blood Orange Marmalade


















Blood Orange Marmalade

Community supported agriculture (CSA) aims to soften the abrupt ups and downs that characterize a farmer's income by offering sustained out-of-season support. For a set fee, subscribers receive a box of varied fresh produce at regular intervals.

I love the idea, but have never been in a position to commit, so I jumped at the chance to get a single trial box from Full Circle Farm. Suddenly my kitchen is full of strangers! It's great to get out of my broccoli-potatoes-spinach rut, but using up new ingredients has required some experimentation and ingenuity.

While most of the produce in a typical CSA box comes from local or regional farms, Full Circle supplements its winter offerings with imports from organic farms nearer the equator. Among the exotic treats in my box were five Californian blood oranges. Organic citrus is among the things I'm usually too stingy to buy, reasoning that the pristine peels would go to waste. But when life hands me organic lemons, I can't just make lemonade and call it good! I decided marmalade would be the best use of my citrus windfall.

Almost as easily done as said; I just followed the same simple steps that I used to make yuzu marmalade last fall. This batch turned out much looser than the yuzu--perhaps blood oranges contain less pectin?--which is absolutely fine since I want to spread it on toast, not stand spoons up in it. It tastes something like normal orange marmalade blended with mulled red wine.

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