Not From Your Local Chinese Restaurant

This time of year involves a lot of citrus.  And that's a good thing.  But, toward late winder/early spring, after marmalade and cakes and lots of tangerines in lunch boxes, I start looking for other ideas.  Hmmm... what do I like to eat that has orange flavor...

I love orange chicken from our local Chinese restaurant.  It's spicy and sweet, which is one of my favorite combinations, it's crispy, and oh-so-bad-for-you.  Not to mention I haven't found a good recipe for it that I can make at home.  (If you have one, please-oh-please post it in the comments!)  What I have found is a couple of other chicken recipes with some good orange (or tangerine) flavors.

Photo via Epicurious

• Sticking with a bit of an asian theme, these chicken thighs are broiled instead of fried and have wonderful flavor.
• Spain combines citrus into lots of their dishes, and with a beautiful paprika it's awesome.  Nigella Lawson hits it out of the park with this recipe.  It's really easy, too.
• Need a recipe for Sunday dinner?  Orange and rosemary is a great flavor combination.
• I've flagged my first recipe for next year's Superbowl.  Spicy orange chicken wings!  Instead of frozen orange juice, I took the juice of about half a dozen tangerines and oranges and reduced it by half.  The flavor was really fresh and amazing.

Photo via Epicurious

Suddenly, I'm hoping we keep seeing oranges in our boxes for a few more weeks.

Pearly Sunny Smoothie

Have you missed my smoothie kick that I was on early in the year?  I didn't fall off the wagon due to eating a bunch of donuts for breakfast, nope...I broke my blender.  One of the pitfalls of being short and having high cabinets is that I drop stuff, A LOT.  Shouldn't I just put my blender that can easily separate into all of it's pieces if it's not level into a bottom cabinet?  No, because that would make sense.  Putting it on a high shelf in my laundry room was clearly the best option.  And when one smoothie mongering morning I went to take it down, the top wobbled off and some how I managed to drop the whole blessed assembly.  Now it won't even make a buzzing sound, I cracked the container, and some how managed to bend the entire rotary unit.  *sigh*  Sadly, it took me entirely too long to figure out that I can make smoothies about just as easy in my food processor.  I say about since it doesn't have as much liquid capacity, but apparently my counter tops are willing to hold a bevy of it when it spills out behind my back.

So this morning I finally used up the Bartlett pears from a few weeks back, and put the navel oranges to good use  in my morning version of an Orange Julius.  Those things were my jam as a kid since the entire food court of my local mall consisted of Orange Julius and the Pretzel Hut.  No soft pretzels in my kitchen this morning, but this smoothie definitely checked the box for delicious and healthy!

Pearly Sunny Smoothie

Ingredients:
3 pears, cored and cubed
3 navel oranges, juiced
1 cup almond milk (or milk of your choice, I use Almond Breeze)
1 Tbsp local honey
8 ice cubes

Blend up your pears and orange juice until smooth, then add in your milk, honey and ice and blend until no ice chunks remain.

Yields two full pints/32 ounces.

Go Green Smoothie

If it's green and in liquid form, I want to drink it.  Go figure.  Doesn't matter that it looks like gnarly baby food, I want to consume it all.  One big problem with most commercially available smoothies though...they put wheat grass in them.  And for me and my gluten-hating system, that's a big no-no.  So if I want a green smoothie, I've got to make it myself.  Who wants grass in their smoothie anyway?!  Leave that for the cows!  So when I saw the massive bundles of spinach this week, I knew exactly what needed to happen first thing Saturday morning.  GREEN SMOOTHIE TIME!  Woot!  Trust me, even with 2-3 cups of spinach you cannot detect the spinach flavor.  I even forced a mason jar full of green goodness on the Mister.  He looked at me suspiciously, gave it a swig and declared it was delicious.  He then proceeded to drink two mason jars full and asked if there was more.  So if you're on a post-holiday smoothie kick, this is the perfect drink to give your body a jolt of wonderfulness and get fueled up for the day ahead.  I still have more spinach left even after this recipe and throwing two handfuls into some Homemade Take-Away Beef with Broccoli, so look for yet another green smoothie recipe to follow in the days to come.

Go Green Smoothie

Ingredients:
16 ice cubes, divided
1 pint strawberries, tops trimmed and quartered
1 1/2 cups unsweetened vanilla almond milk (I use Almond Breeze, you can use any milk of your choice, but the almond milk gives you a nice added protein boost)
2 Bartlett pears, cored and cubed
Juice of 1 navel orange
1 tsp local honey (you can also use agave or maple syrup)
2-3 cups spinach, well rinsed and stems trimmed

Into your blender, add 8 of the ice cubes, the strawberries and almond milk.  Blend on high until ice is fully crushed and strawberries are blended.  Add in pears, navel orange juice and honey, and blend those down as well.  Next add your spinach, and you'll likely have to blend these down in batches to make sure you have enough room in the blender.  Blend until completely smooth.  You'll likely have some noticeable green bits no matter how long you try to blend it, and that's okay, you won't be able to taste them.  Then add in your remaining 8 ice cubes and blend until ice is fully crushed.

Serve immediately.  Made 4 mason jars full.

Orange Kiss-Me Cake

 





 

Orange Kiss-Me Cake
1 medium orange
1 cup raisins
1/3 cup walnuts
2 cups all purpose flour
2 large eggs
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 cup milk (low fat is fine)

Topping
1/3 cup (fresh) orange juice
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 cup finely chopped walnuts (optional)

Visit the great blog Baking Bites for the easy instructions!

The oranges you receive this week are known for their juice. Lots and lots of juice. Perfect for a recipe that calls for fresh orange juice!