Sorry for my long absence here. I realized, last week, that since I started this blog while I was in grad school, this month marks the first time ever that I've held a regular, 9-to-5 job and had a blog. Hence, the silence. I definitely haven't worked out a balance yet with my job, with yoga, with housework, and with the blog - or any kind of creative making, really; I haven't made anything but food-things in a month. Part of that is because I've also got two freelance jobs on my plate right now - both historical fiction novels that I'm proofreading.
But there are at least a few food experiments going on around here, and this post marks the start of my efforts to try and get the blog back into the new balance of what feels, finally, like a fully adult life. (So happy about that.)
It's been such a mild winter around here this year that it'd be easy to forget that we had one at all. But winter is the season for citrus fruits, and I have a giant bowl of bitter Seville oranges sitting on my kitchen table as a reminder (I'm making marmalade this week - or maybe next weekend is more accurate). I also candied orange peels (below) a few weeks ago, and then used the leftover syrup to glacee kumquats (above) afterward. Recipes for the process can be found here (orange peel); I used the same process for the kumquats (and even the leftover syrup, as I said) as I did for the orange peels, and just let the sliced fruits cook in the already-reduced syrup for about 40-50 minutes, then placed them in a food dehydrator set to about 135 degrees F for an hour or two to help dry them. I loved these kumquats in my holiday baking this winter and everyone loved them so much that I wanted to have more on hand to use again this year.
But there are at least a few food experiments going on around here, and this post marks the start of my efforts to try and get the blog back into the new balance of what feels, finally, like a fully adult life. (So happy about that.)
It's been such a mild winter around here this year that it'd be easy to forget that we had one at all. But winter is the season for citrus fruits, and I have a giant bowl of bitter Seville oranges sitting on my kitchen table as a reminder (I'm making marmalade this week - or maybe next weekend is more accurate). I also candied orange peels (below) a few weeks ago, and then used the leftover syrup to glacee kumquats (above) afterward. Recipes for the process can be found here (orange peel); I used the same process for the kumquats (and even the leftover syrup, as I said) as I did for the orange peels, and just let the sliced fruits cook in the already-reduced syrup for about 40-50 minutes, then placed them in a food dehydrator set to about 135 degrees F for an hour or two to help dry them. I loved these kumquats in my holiday baking this winter and everyone loved them so much that I wanted to have more on hand to use again this year.
