Friday Food Fun: Citrus!

It's no secret that I love 101 Cookbooks--see my "Blogs I Read" in the sidebar. It's right on top. I first found it on the Yahoo reading page and have been following Heidi there ever since. I have so many of her recipes saved and have only braved a few.

Since we have so many limes, lemons and oranges right now, I decided it was time for me to try Heidi's Citrus Salts. It's pretty easy. You just zest some citrus fruits--one tablespoon each, which translates to one regular orange, lemon, or a couple of limes. Wash the fruit first and it's best to use organic, if possible.

Lemon, orange, lime zest ready for mixing.

Mix your tablesoon of zest with 1/2 cup salt. I used Kosher Salt. I didn't have any sea salt, as recommended, so this worked fine.

Set the oven to 225 degrees and place the salt piles on parchment paper. Bake for 70 minutes, which will dry the zest.

While I was waiting I got to work on something else to use my first batch of orange zest. I had tried to zest an orange that I had already juiced, so of course I wound up with too-juicy zest. I was afraid to put that with the salt, so it will be used in another way, which I'll tell you about next Friday.

After the salts had baked and cooled, I spun them in a little coffee grinder I keep for spices. This turns the zest into powder. Since this is what the chefs call "finishing salt," it needs to be used in a shaker. I plan to hunt up some of those little shakers and share this with others. You need to use it within a couple of months, and that's a lot of salt for just Fred and me! I am curious to see how this works adding it to dishes at the table. I'll let you know how it works out.

Because I have learned that zested fruit gets dry very fast, I decided I'd better juice these beauties and add them to one of my favorite beverages--cranberry-lime fizz. Today, it's cranberry-citrus fizz with a little raw stevia to balance all that tartness. Wow, was that a vitamin-C-packed drink! Delicious, too...

...with lots of pulp!

And because this is a yarny blog, we have our yarn pairing with today's kitchen adventure--this lovely green mystery yarn.

Yes, it's another secret. Thanks for your patience.