Again With the Citrus

Not to overdo it or anything but, did I mention I like citrus?

Ha.  Today, in the hour and a half after the kids left for school, I made 2 citrus curds.  I started with grapefruit and made a double batch of curd.  One big ruby red grapefruit yields 1 cup of juice which is perfect since that is what a double batch requires.  How convenient!  Using the same recipe as the Meyer lemon curd but without the zest (it seemed like grapefruit zest might not give the desired effect) I ended up with 3 half-pint jars and one half-cup jar of curd.  I tinted it a little pink with 4 drops of red food coloring, just for the grapefruitiness of it.

Then I set to work on the Meyer lemons.  4 lemons makes 1 cup of juice and, since I didn't have any more half-cup jars, I made 3 half-pint jars and topped off an open jar in the fridge.

I generally store these in the fridge, even though they are sealed.  I didn't before, but then I decided that if it's going to take a while to get to them, it might be better if I did.

There are enough lemons left for another batch, but I need to get more unsalted butter and that won't be happening today.  I have other errands to do!

Citrus and Cheese

Most of my family knows I have a weird thing with citrus.  I love citrus flavors - all of them.  Oranges, blood oranges, limes, even grapefruits (especially the grapefruit jelly fruit slices), really, anything citrus.  I even ate a Bergamot orange last night.  It was amazingly fragrant and tart!  But, as much as I love citrus, they have to be in the correct form.  Huh?

Let me explain.  I can't stand foods that are citrus flavored when they aren't supposed to be.  Lemon chicken?  Out.  Orange beef?  Nope.  I don't even like lemon juice on fish.  To me it's just wrong.  I'm not sure why I feel this way, why I taste things this way, but there it is.

Today I dared the Whole Foods and came away with blood oranges, Meyer lemons, and some grapefruit.  I have it in my head that I'm going to make a bunch of jellies and curds with them.  Pure citrus.  First I made Blood Orange Jelly.

2 cups blood orange juice

2 cups sugar

1 pouch liquid pectin

This yielded 3 cups and a little bit, and I'm hoping it will gel up soon.  The little bit in the fridge is still runny but it might take weeks to set up.  We shall see.  I plan to make Meyer lemon curd and try to make grapefruit curd over the next few days.

Last night my husband, a friend and I went to a cheese tasting class at a very dangerous store, even more dangerous than the Whole Foods!  Formaggio Kitchen is in Cambridge, MA, and they import some amazing cheeses, charcuterie, and specialty goods (this is where I purchased the Bergamot orange).  We tried 8 different cheeses, paired with wines and beers and honey and fruit and even cacao nibs.  (The cacao nibs go amazingly with blue cheeses!!!)  Anyway, afterward, my husband asked, why doesn't your cheese come out like the fresh goat cheese?

Good question.  It must have to do with using chymosin as opposed to lemon juice or vinegar to separate the curds and whey.  So today I made some goat cheese.  I bought a quart of goat milk from Whole Foods and followed the instructions here.  Obviously since I only had a quart of milk I used only a tablespoon of lemon juice.  The cheese is currently hanging over a bucket, draining the whey.  Hopefully tomorrow I can put it in a container with a little salt and let it sit for a few days.  It's still pretty runny.  What will really test this theory is if I use cow's milk with the lemon juice and see if it comes out more like chevre than queijo fresco.  We'll see.

Unusual Flavor Day

We've already canned mulberries with rhubarb and vanilla today, what other weirdness can we come up with? Well...

My in-laws had left 3 grapefruits in my fridge. Now, I like grapefruit, in theory. I like those little Sunkist fruit gels and, of those, my favorite flavor is grapefruit. I like the smell. I don't like eating them; the membranes are too tough, and they splash in my face when I try to eat them by halves. Not to mention, eating them in halves makes me feel as though I'm on a diet. (Maybe it's a learned aversion?)

So here are these grapefruits, metaphorically burning a hole in my fridge. And I hate wasting food. And if I'm not going to eat them, I highly doubt anyone else in the family is going to. I set about looking for something to do. I came across this recipe but, as I have probably previously mentioned, I'm not a big fan of marmalade. Then I found this recipe for grapefruit jelly. Those wheels in my brain started up again. I have another vanilla bean and I have rosewater. I even have a rose in the backyard from which I can grab a few petals to put in the jars. Voila!

Rose-Vanilla Grapefruit Jelly
3 cups grapefruit juice*
4 cups sugar
1 package powdered pectin
1 vanilla bean
2 drops red food coloring
2 T. rosewater

*I simmered the grapefruit with 1 and a half cups of water and then strained them through a cheesecloth to get the juice. The food coloring and the rosewater were added after the boiling step. This yielded 4 half-pint jars; I put 1/4 of the vanilla bean and 1 rose petal into each one.