DHSPC #5-Creamy Cauliflower Soup

The result

In case you didn't know, I am a total Donna Hay's fan, willing to spend $10 a month to get my hands on her magazine.  I just realized I missed last month's magazine, I think my local store stopped carrying it, I better find it soon as it has lots of cookies in the front.  I love her magazine and books, and I have cooked from them quite a bit, with great success.  Her cooking is simple, most recipes only have few ingredients, and are easy to make.  But more than anything I love the photos on her magazine, they make you drool, they make you want to become a food stylist and photographer, they make you want to bake.

I love Simone's DH styling and photography challenge, it pushes me out of my comfort zone.  Every month Simone, the author of the gorgeous blog Jungle Frog Cooking, has chosen something very different, not only as a food choice but as a study on styling and photography.  I actually participated to last month's challenge but I struggled with the pictures, run out of time because of the holidays,  so I never put up a post.  The recipe was really tasty, mini corn cakes with prosciutto and sage, to see the photos that were submitted check Simone's post.

This month I am early, getting it out of the way right away.  This month's challenge is a wonderful creamy cauliflower soup,  published in Donna Hay Magazine issue #51, which I don't have.    The soup was really tasty, and not too heavy, you can find a printable version in Simone's post. I only made a half batch and it was plenty for four people, maybe Australians are big eaters....  Below you can see the photo, shot by Ben Dearnley, that we were challenged to replicate.  The colors are beautifully dark, mostly black, the light comes from a 1:30 direction and doesn't seem to be bounced, so the bottom left, the opposite corner from the light, is pretty dark.  The styling is rather simple, but it highlights the light color of the soup and the delicious topping. 

The Challenge

Now for the creative process...I noticed that the light was coming from 1:30/2 o'clock, and it wasn't from a huge source, notice the white reflection on the bottom surface, the top left part is darker, how they did that I am not sure.  The light, which doesn't seem diffused, is reflecting on the black fabric,  on the top left corner, creating a whitish hue, something that I noticed other times I photographed black backgrounds, sometimes it ruins the picture, in this case it lighted the overall composition.   That gave me another clue on where the light came from.  The light looks natural to me, but impossible to know.  I have no clue on how they got that whitish patina on the photo, maybe they used a high ISO setting?   I will never know.

I was able to find all the right props in my house, incidentally I bought the black table set in December because I love dark moody photos so I wanted something really dark to showcase the food.

Below is a series of photos I took, all in manual mode, the camera was set on sun light, low ISO that were increased with the last photo to 400, and I used a tripod, with a 2 second delay so the camera wouldn't shake.    Big aperture was f5 (I can't go lower than that with my camera), and different shatter speed depending on the time of the day.

This picture was taken early morning, the light was bright, but the color were all wrong, and the light reflected too much on the soup and the spoon.  I decided to wait.  The angle of the camera was also wrong, too high.

Early afternoon,  sun was too high in the sky, it created even more reflection on the soup, something the original photo didn't have.  I decided to wait again.

Once the sun went being a big redwood tree I knew I hit the jackpot, however the camera read the new light differently and imparted a bluish hue.  I didn't change the camera settings, I just adjusted the color on i-photo.  The light was coming from the right direction but wasn't harsh any more nor created too much reflection.

 This picture was taken early morning, the sun was still really low and the same bluish hue was seen, I love it but it was not real nor close to the original photo.

Simone would love if any of you joined this group so if you are inclined please follow this link for the how to.

Citrus Salad with Grapefruit Sorbet and Cornmeal Shortbread

I know that the citrus fruit season is coming to an end soon, but if you can find the time this is one light and flavorful dessert. I am not sure why I never made sorbet at home before, maybe because I love ice cream so much that I never took the time to try it. This sorbet is the easiest and oh so refreshing. Stay tuned for more sorbet recipes.


For the citrus salad I cut each fruit segments out, which is really time consuming but results in a pretty composition. If you don't want to go through the trouble you could remove the skin of the fruit with a sharp knife and slice the fruit instead. If you opt for the segments, make sure your knife is sharp otherwise you will end up with just juice and little pulp.


I used a combination of cara cara oranges, blood oranges, and star ruby grapefruit. For the sorbet I used another variety of grapefruit, but I forgot the name, it has an orange yellow skin and a nice pinkish red flesh so the color of the sorbet turned light pink. Any combination would work, but for the sake of the presentation I would include some blood oranges as well.

It took me a while to decide how to serve the two components as I wanted to add something crunchy to the plate. I consulted few books and I settled on Claudia Fleming's cornmeal shortbread because cornmeal and citrus really work together. I have tried two other recipes from her book The Last Course and they didn't work, so I was a little concerned when I put the cookies in the oven, fearing the worst. Luckily the shortbread worked, came out delicious and crunchy. On an interesting note, this book is out of print and sells new on Amazon for $245, can you believe it? I wish I had bought two back then...


You can make each component by itself, or serve them all together. Make ahead note: the short bread dough needs chilling so it could be made the day before. The sorbet base needs to be chilled too before being frozen, so plan ahead. The fruit salad can be made the day before as well, cutting the segments is time consuming so plan ahead too.



Citrus-Cornmeal Shortbread
adapted from The Last Course

8 oz unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup confectioner's sugar
2 tsp grated citrus zest (I used grapefruit)
1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
6 Tbs coarse cornmeal
1/2 tsp salt

Beat butter and sugar until creamy and smooth. Add the zest and mix well. With a spatula clean the side of the bowl and add the flour. Mix on slow until just incorporated, cleaning the sides few times to make sure the mixture is even. At this point you can bake the cookies in a traditional circular shape, or a square, or roll the dough to a 3/4" height and cut little long rectangles. Score the dough with a fork, and chill it well before baking it at 300F, until barely colored. The recipe can be easily doubled and the extra cookies can be cut and frozen raw for later use.

Grapefruit Sorbet
adapted from The Last Course

3 cups strained grapefruit juice
1 1/2 cups simple syrup*

Mix the juice and simple syrup, chill for three hours. Freeze according to your ice cream machine instructions. *Mix 1 part water and 1 part sugar (1 cup:1 cup), bring to a boil and let cool.

Citrus Salad

A mixture of citrus fruit, peeled and segments cut out (keep the juice that drips from the fruit). Chill well until ready to serve. Add mint simple syrup to taste.

Christmas Cookies-Just a Few...

I started making cookies for Christmas years before I changed my career from science to pastry. Maybe I was already moving in that direction, who knows. I grew up eating tea cookies in Italy, there are so many types, and many have either almonds or hazelnuts in them. I love to recreate the look and taste of those little morsels, and to lean new recipes from around the world.

Linzer Cookies

Every year I can't help but buy one of the cookie publications that come out just for Christmas, as a result I have a huge collection of recipes, some that I may never try, and they are all over the place. Recently though I started moving all the cookie recipes I make over and over into a little binder so I know where they all are. I am looking forward to adding to it years after years.

Checkerboard Cookies

This year I have made the cookies you see here, some are gluten free for my friends who don't eat gluten, and for me as well (being gluten free for a month, more on another post....).

Chocolate macaron/Coconut macaroons/Marasche

By far the recipe I have made the most is Dorie Greenspan's Korova cookies. I first saw them in her beautiful book Paris Sweets, then realized they are probably the best known cookies in cyberspace, even renamed World Peace Cookies because they induce such bliss and pleasure that the world would be a different place if we all ate them (I wish it were so simple...). I used to sell these cookies at a local farmers' market and they always sold out, I still get orders once in a while. The expression on people's faces when they first taste them is priceless, some sounds I heard cannot be repeated here, if you know what I mean....

Korova Cookies

If you google Korova cookies you get 13,600 links, if you google world peace cookies you get 848,000 (and if you google world peace only, the search engine puts them second). Incredible, isn't it? If you are still not convinced try them, they are amazing!

Use only the best quality of cocoa powder and chocolate, it makes a huge difference, and don't use regular salt, otherwise you lose the contrast of the two flavors.

Korova Cookies
a.k.a. World Peace Cookies
adapted from Dorie Greenspan

Ingredients

5 1/2 oz-150 gr butter, softened
2/3 cup-120 gr brown sugar, packed tight
1/4 cup-50 gr granulated sugar
1 1/4 cup-175 gr all purpose flour
1/3 cup-30 gr cocoa powder (the darker the better, I use Valhrona)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon fleur de sel or 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
5 oz-150 gr chocolate (use the best quality you can find, at least 64% cocoa)

Method

Pre-sift dry ingredients. Chop chocolate into small pieces. Beat butter and the two sugars until fluffy. Add the dry mixture and the salt. Mix just until the dry ingredients start getting incorporated. Add the chocolate and bring together, without over mixing the dough (the texture will be too tough if the dough is over mixed). Roll into three 12" logs, wrap, and freeze. Makes 1.5 pounds of dough. I normally double the recipe, roll it in six thin logs, and roll each on the short side of a sheet of parchment paper (which is 12"). They keep in the freezer for few weeks. Temper the logs for few minutes at room temperature before cutting thin slices. Bake at 325F until barely set (this is tricky as they are really dark, when you test them they should not be super soft, but still give a little, if they are completely set/hard when you take them out of the oven they are over cooked).

Happy Holiday and Peace to all!

Flourless Orange Almond Cake-Simple or Sublime

You are probably seeing citrus cakes or other citrus creations popping out every where in food blogs nowadays. The citrus crop is at its peak, so every one is having fun with these versatile fruits, especially after the dull months of winter where one can only find apples and pears. This cake is different than most as it is gluten free, and it has a wonderful bitterness imparted by the orange skin. I am not sure where I saw the recipe originally but it comes from the Times on line food section, and in turn it was inspired by a cake published by Claudia Roden in her boook A New Book of Middle Eastern Food.

I knew this cake would be perfect for my Scottish friend and neighbor C., who cannot eat gluten and was coming over for dinner so I made it for her. The cake is super easy, but needs planning as the oranges need to be cooked for more than an hour. I suppose you can cook the oranges the day before you actually make the cake, to spare some time. The original recipe makes a very high cake and I wasn't happy with the too wet/maybe raw center of the cake, so the second time I made it I baked it in two smaller pans and the results were perfect. I also added cardamom because I love it, as you probably have noticed here. Orange and cardamom are one of those matches made in food heaven. For the pictured cake I used blood oranges, so the cake was darker, more brown, the one made with navel oranges came out of a lighter color.

Not because I can't eat gluten, but because I have lots of friends and customers who can't I have been trying lots of gluten free recipes to add to my repertoire. I also plan to offer lots of gluten free options at the restaurant where I will start working in April. This cake is a winner, so moist and delicious. The orange skin gives the cake a bitter note that becomes tamer the next day, and the cardamom is subtle but you know it is there to give the cake an extra zing. I am not sure this is a cake that will please everybody, as it is slightly bitter and not too sweet, but for those who get the flavors, it is heavenly.

This cake is perfect the way it is, with a little powder sugar on the top, but if you want to go over the top, pour some warm chocolate glaze over it, and serve it with orange or tangerine cream (I used paige mandarins), and candied kumquats or orange peel. Delicious!

Orange and Almond Cake
Adapted from this recipe

Ingredients:

3 medium oranges
6 large eggs, separated
225 gr. granulated sugar (8oz.)
200 gr. ground whole almonds (7oz.)
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp ground cardamom

METHOD: Place the clean, whole and unpeeled fruit in water to cover, and bring to a boil. Simmer for 1½ hours or until soft, adding more water when necessary. Drain the oranges, cut into quarters, discard any major pips, and puree the fruit in a food-processor, then cool. Heat the oven to 180C/350F. Beat the egg yolks and sugar together in a large bowl until pale. Beat in the oranges, almonds, and baking powder. Beat the egg whites until soft peak and fold gently into the mixture.

Pour into a 23cm (9") spring form cake pan and bake for an hour, until firm to the touch (cover with foil if over-browning). Cool in the pan and dust with icing sugar to serve. Or dress it up with chocolate glaze and serve it with orange cream sauce.

Chocolate glaze
From Alice Medrich Cocolat

8 oz bittersweet chocolate. chopped finely (225 gr)
6 oz butter (170 gr)
1 TBS light corn syrup
2 TBS water

Place all the ingredients in a metal bowl set over a pot of simmering water. Allow the chocolate and butter to melt, stirring occasionally. Remove the bowl from the double boiler when it is almost, but not quite, melted. Set the glaze aside to finish melting, stirring once or twice until perfectly smooth. When the glaze is smooth and shiny, pour it over the cake to cover it completely or partially. Chill the cake in the fridge for 10 minutes to set the glaze before removing it from the rack. This glaze last for weeks in the fridge, just warm it up again at low heat in a double boiler.

Orange Cream Sauce

from Emily Luchetti A Passion for Dessert

2 TBS sugar
2 large egg yolks
1/2 cup freshly squeezed citrus juice (4 oz./12o ml)
1 1/4 cup heavy cream (10 oz./300 ml.)
Grated peel from one orange

Cook the citrus juice in a medium saucepan over medium heat until the juice reduces to about 1 1/2 TBS. Stir in the cream. Cook until the cream begins to boil around the edges. In a medium bowl combine the yolk with the sugar. Slowly pour the cream into the yolks. Pour back into the sauce pan and cook slowly until thickened, and the cream coats the back of a spoon. Strain the cream and stir in the orange peel. Chill over a ice bath, and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Blood Orange Caramels with Almonds and Cardamom

I had few blood oranges laying around, bought without a clear idea of what to make. Marmalade was on top of the list, but then I run into this recipe while reading mattbites blog and that sealed it, caramels, yum! Matt Armendariz lives in Los Angeles and is an amazing food stylist and photographer. Check out his website and his photos if you haven't already, just amazing.

Matt in turn got the recipe from Cindie, one of the authors of foodfanaticsunwashed, another amazing blog.

I substituted cardamom for the vanilla in their recipe and cut the salt amount by half. The taste of these caramels is amazing, the tartness of the orange juice cuts down the sweetness and the hint of cardamom is just perfect.

Warning, these are unbelievably addictive, so be prepared to consume a huge amount.

Blood Orange Caramels
adapted from Cindie

3 cups blood orange juice, strained
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/3 cup heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground cardamom
1 cup toasted almonds
1 teaspoons sea salt flakes

Line the bottom of an 8-inch square baking dish with parchment paper. Butter parchment paper and set aside.

Place blood orange juice in a 4-quart heavy saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat. Let boil until liquid is reduced to 1/3 cup.

Remove from heat and stir in sugars, butter, and cream. Return to high heat and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Turn heat to medium and let boil until a candy or deep fat thermometer reads 248 degrees F (or when a half teaspoon placed in a glass of icy cold water turns into a firm, chewy ball), about 17 minutes.

Remove from heat and stir in the cardamom.

Scatter almonds on bottom of parchment paper. Pour caramel over almonds. Let sit until cool and firm, about 2 hours. Remove from baking dish and sprinkle salt flakes over top. Cut into 1-inch pieces.

Daring Bakers-Cheese Cake Revisited

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

For this month’s challenge, Jenny picked a cheesecake, courtesy of her friend Abbey. If you would like to see the original recipe please visit Jenny at JennyBakes.com.

I normally use a cheesecake recipe from Spago dessert cookbook which I love, it is light, not too overpowering, and very delicate, but decided to try this recipe and twist it a little. Initially I wanted to try it with goat yogurt, but then realized I had some chevre in the fridge so I used that instead. Buttermilk was also used instead of the cream for an extra punch. I decided to forgo the crust since no matter what you use it ends up soggy, so I used a pistachio streusel as a substitute crust and as a dish garnish.

I love pairing citrus fruit with cheese cakes or anything that has lots of fat, it tames the heaviness, and since I had lots of blood oranges around, they were the pick of choice. I made the citrus tuiles with juice from the blood oranges, and the batter turned out a beautiful pink color that was unfortunately overcame by the sugar browning during baking. They still retained a beautiful color though.

To stay with the orange theme I candied whole slices of blood oranges in simple syrup to use on the plate. Some of the orange flavored syrup was also used for both garnish and flavor on the plate.

I liked the taste of the goat cheese, it wasn't too overpowering and it added zing to the recipe. What I didn't like was the texture of the cheese cake, and I am not sure it was due to the slow cooling in the oven, which might have overcooked it, or to the addition of the chevre and buttermilk. I will have to try my recipe and method with the addition of chevre to compare.

Chevre Cheesecake

16 oz of cream cheese, 2 8-oz packages, at room temperature
8 ounces chevre
1 cup / 210 g sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup / 8 oz buttermilk
1 tbsp. lemon juice
1 tbsp. vanilla extract (or the innards of a vanilla bean)

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (Gas Mark 4 = 180C = Moderate heat). Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath. Spray ten 6-oz ramekins with vegetable spray.

2. Combine cheeses and sugar in the bowl of a stand-mixer (or in a large bowl if using a hand-mixer) and cream together until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Make sure to scrape down the bowl in between each egg. Add buttermilk, vanilla, lemon juice, and blend until smooth and creamy.

3. Pour batter into prepared ramekins. Place ramekins into a larger pan and pour boiling water until halfway up the side of the ramekins.

4. Bake 25-30 minutes, until it is almost done - this can be hard to judge, but you're looking for the cake to hold together, but still have a lot of jiggle to it in the center. You don't want it to be completely firm at this stage. Close the oven door, turn the heat off, and let rest in the cooling oven for one hour. This lets the cake finish cooking and cool down gently enough so that it won't crack on the top. After one hour, remove cheesecake from oven and lift carefully out of water bath. Let it finish cooling on the counter, and then cover and put in the fridge to chill. Once fully chilled, it is ready to serve.

Citrus Lace Tuile
adapted from The Last Course

1 2/3 cup sugar
1 cup all purpose flour
3/4 cup blood orange juice
2 tablespoon lemon juice
7 ounces butter, melted and cooled
3/4 teaspoon grated blood orange zest
3/4 teaspoon grated lemon zest

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix the sugar and the flour. With the mixer on low speed, drizzle the juices and mix until smooth. Drizzle the cooled butter and the zest.. Increase the speed to medium and mix until smooth. Refrigerate for at least two hours.

Pre-heat the oven to 325F. Spoon the desired amount of batter on a baking sheet lined with a silpat and bake for 10 minutes (anywhere from a teaspoon to a tablespoon depending on the final desired size). The batter spreads quite a bit, so don't bake more than 6 tuiles at the time. When the bubbles have subsided, and the tuiles are nicely browned evenly remove from the oven, let cool until you are able to handle the tuiles, lift one at the time and wrap around the handle of a wooden spoon for cigarettes, or around a rolling pin for round tuiles.

Pistachio streusel
adapted from my former mentor, Pastry Chef DMcG.

equal parts in weight of:
pastry flour
granulated sugar
finely ground pistachios
cold butter, cut in small cubes

Mix the dry ingredients in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Add the cold butter and mix until it just starts coming together. Cool for at least an hour in the refrigerator (the unbaked streusel keeps for few days). When ready to bake, pre-heat the oven to 325F. Spread the desired amount on a baking sheet lined with a silpat and bake for 10 minutes. When the sides start coloring, remove the pan from the oven and break any lumps with a bench scraper, mixing the streusel for even baking. Cook for another 5 minute and repeat the mixing, so no lumps form. When the streusel in nicely colored but still soft looking, remove it from the oven, repeat the breaking of the lumps one more time and cool completely. Keep in an airtight container. This is such an amazing recipe and it can be made with other nuts, and sprinkled on anything. Warning, it is addictive!

Buon Appetito!

Candied Orange Peel

This year I decided to try to make Colomba Pasquale again. I made it once before without the proper mold, and despite looking awful it was pretty tasty. This time I am prepared, equipped with the colomba paper molds I bought a while ago in a local kitchen supply store. Now the time has come, just in time for Easter, to make this wonderful bread millions of people will be eating in Italy on Easter Sunday.

The dough is now rising, waiting for the fourth addition of ingredients, and more yeast to carry along the rise of this super rich dough. As I was mixing the dough, it dawned on me that I didn't have enough candied peel, a crucial ingredient in this bread. No time was lost when I remember the blood oranges I juiced yesterday which I promptly rescued from the compost bucket and proceeded to candy. No, they were not in the compost pile, just in the compost bucket I keep next to the stove, there were totally fine, plus they will be boiled, right?

Candying citrus peel is easier that most people think, water and sugar are the only ingredients required, together with some patience. Two years ago, almost to the exact day (it was Easter night), I went to visit one of my dearest friends, Paola, and her family in Roncan, a tiny village located at the foothill of the Alps, north of Venice. We started eating oranges, and as the peel started piling up I decided to candy it, all I needed was water and sugar, right? It was one of those unforgettable moments, spent with my oldest and dearest friends, in their beautiful although rustic kitchen. Needless to say the peel didn't last until the next day, we ate it on the spot.

Depending on how thin the peel is cut, there are many ways to candy it. I simply covered the juiced halves with cold water and boiled them until tender to the fork (for citrus that has a much thicker pith, a 2 or 3 step blanching is required). After the oranges had cooled down, I removed most of the pith with a spoon, and then cut the skin in crescents with a sharp knife. The candying took a while since the skin was thick, maybe 30 minutes or more. The purpose of boiling the skin in simple syrup is to exchange the water in the peel with sugar, a natural preservative. This way the candied peel lasts for a long time in the refrigerator.

Once the crescents are completely translucent and the syrup has thickened, the peel is drained and dried, sometimes overnight. This step is important because it decreases the amount of sugar that will stick to the peel, for a much better end result. I didn't wait that long though since I will need the peel in the next hour.

Tossed in sugar, the peel is hard to resist, I must admit.


Candied Citrus Peel

You will need peel of citrus fruit, such as lemons, oranges, mandarins, grapefruit, etc. (don't candy different fruit at the same time as they vary in thickness and will take different times).
Simple Syrup (1:1 ratio between water and sugar, in cups), enough to cover the peel.

For thick skins that have a lot of white pith, blanch the peel twice or three times in boiling water (add the peel to boiling water, blanch few seconds, drain and cool in ice water). On the last blanching, continue cooking, barely simmering, until the peel feels soft when cut with the tip of a knife. Once cooled remove most of the white bitter pith, with a knife or a spoon. Cut in desired shape and size.

To make the simple syrup, pour the water in a pan with a heavy bottom, dissolve the sugar, and bring to a boil. Add the drained peel, and cook just simmering, covered with a disk of parchment paper, until translucent.

Drain the peel from the syrup, dry for few hours to overnight, and toss in granular sugar. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator. The peel keeps for weeks.

If you have a zester, the peel can be removed in thin strips, with barely any pith. They only need to be blanched twice, and don't need to be boiled at all.

Before candying, the strips can be cut in very thin julienne strips. When the peel is very thin only take 10-15 minutes to cook in the syrup.

Golden Loot

As I was driving home I saw a box full of beautiful lemons in front of a house, but not just any lemons, Meyer lemons! I couldn't believe my eyes, slammed on the brakes, and got out. I controlled the urge to get the whole box in the car, left some for other lucky fellow passerbies, and drove home. Tomorrow I am going to leave a thank you note with my name at the house in case the generous soul has more in the future.


What a loot! What should I make?

Blood Orange Marmalade

I didn't realize how much my father influenced my taste until I started cooking for myself. He was and still is an amazing cook, able to create dish after dish close to perfection. Growing up with such a talented and passionate mentor taught me amazing lessons on taste and simplicity. His mother grew up in a poor Venetian household during WW I and II and her cooking was highly influenced by those scarce times when every part of the animal was used. Periodically my father brought home some unpopular items like bull testicles or cow's brain (I kid you not!), but most often he was drizzling balsamic vinegar on strawberries or making the most amazing risottos using local plants like hops or nettles. He introduced me to the richness of bittersweet chocolate or taught me that the best way to eat fish is by simply grilling it with no other ingredient than some good olive oil. When he made green tomato jam I thought he was insane, but now I realize he was ahead of his time. He also introduced me to the amazing taste of orange marmalade, sweet bitterness. So when I recently went to the farmers' market I brought home 4 pounds of Seville oranges and some blood oranges. I initially set out to make Seville orange marmalade but to my dismay I burned it by setting the flame on high by mistake. I hadn't planned to use the blood oranges other than for juice but I decided to turn them into marmalade instead.

When I fist moved to the States blood oranges were a rare find and very costly, and I remember the looks of surprise and the questions that followed when I would bring them to work for lunch. Now they are readily available and luckily they cost the same as other oranges. According to this book, blood oranges originated from a single mutation in 17th century Sicily. In Italy they are very common but in the States it took some years for the imported tree to finally start bearing full crops, now we can all enjoy them.

My mom used to make jams when I was little, but after moving to the States I hadn't made many. It wasn't until few years ago when I met a lovely German woman that I was hooked into making jams again. She brought some of her preserves to a restaurant where I used to work and I was blown away, they were so good. She put vanilla beans in them and I have used the beans in most of my preserves since then.

I am by no means an expert at making preserves, and I keep experimenting and learning about natural pectin in fruit and so forth. My orange marmalade was made following no recipe, adding sugar to taste (some oranges are sweeter than others so I always start with less sugar than I think I need), and cooking it to the right consistency. It came out so good I ate a ton yesterday, spread over left over walnut bread.


Blood Orange Marmalade

4 pounds organic oranges
2 pounds granulated sugar (or more depending on taste)
2 vanilla beans, split in half and seeds scraped.

Wash the oranges, cut them in slices and remove the seeds. Cut in smaller pieces, depending on how chunky you want it. Add some water and the sugar to make a soupy, not too watery, mixture. Cook on low until it thickens. To check to see whether the sugar has reached the right jellying consistency put a teaspoon of marmalade in the fridge for few minutes. Keep cooking if too "loose". Fill clean jar while the marmalade is still hot. Let cool at room temperature and then sterilize the jars by boiling for 10 minutes. This double boiling method was taught to me by my mom and it works to kill every bacteria, even botulinum's spores.

Buon Appetito!