Extra Citrus? Make some candy!

All of the holiday-themed magazines out right now are chock full of special goodies to eat and gift. Fudge, rum balls, cookies, breads-- Zips has caught the fever!

So in one of them (one of Martha Stewart's?), there were instructions for candied citrus peel. We have some excess lemons, a couple of oranges, and a new bag of limes. I only wish we had some grapefruit to add to it!

Candied Citrus Peels

Citrus! (2 grapefruits or 3 oranges or 4 lemons, or some of everything and throw in a lime while you're at it!)

4 c. sugar

water

The instructions are fairly simple, cut six slices into the peel of the fruit (but not through the fruit part) and peel away. Then use a small knife to slice away as much of the spongy, bitter white pith as you can. Slice into thin strips and cover in a pot with cold water. Bring it to a boil, dump the water, and repeat until you've brought it to a boil 3 times. Remove the peels and reserve in a bowl.

Then mix 4c. sugar with 4c. cold water. Dissolve and bring it to a boil, stirring and making sure the sugar doesn't crystallize on the sides of the pot. When it's boiling, add the citrus peels and lower the heat. Simmer (don't boil) without stirring until the peels are translucent (this takes about an hour). Turn off the heat and let them cool down. Remove peels and pat dry with a paper towel (you can reserve the sugar water-- you've just made a quart of citrusy simple syrup!). Then toss the peel strips into some sugar and spread out in a single layer on a wire rack for 30 minutes to dry.

I understand now that those jelly citrus candies I used to eat are basically a synthetic version of these candied peels!

We like them so much, they may not make it into the gift bags!

Tiny Yukon Golds, Salsa Verde, and other Summer Magic

I know it's probably not the smartest thing in the world to plant a whole bed of baby yukon gold potatoes in the middle of summer in southern New Mexico, but I was so excited when I saw them for sale at our local garden/hardware store, I couldn't resist. Even more thrilling was when they emerged from little eyelets into full grown plants. Almost ALL of them!!

Now I'm just waiting around for them to grow grow grow those magical tubers. Hopefully their harvest will happen to coincide with when we have to move (about two weeks). The other day I noticed a couple of the plants was looking wilty-- okay more like on death's door, so I couldn't resist feeling around its roots and voila!

Potatoes!!!!! Now I realize they're not going to win any ribbons at the state fair, but it brings back that amazing feeling I had when we had a plot at the community gardens in Indiana, and I grew a whole row of potatoes, soybeans, more tomatoes than I knew what to do with, celery, brussels sprouts, and what not (see the earliest postings, it's part of why I started this blog). I GREW FOOD in the GROUND! And I'm going to EAT IT!

One of my summer readings is Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. She writes in the very first pages "We wanted to live in a place that could feed us: where rain falls, crops grow, and drinking water bubbles up out of the ground." I understand that sentiment, even after living only 2 years in the dry southwest. But it's nice to see that we can indulge green-thumbed desires here. Knowing that we'll have to pack up and move a little ways down the road, we're trying to emotionally part with the lovely backyard that we fell in love with, and planted all our tomatoes, lettuces, basils and catnips in pots.

In addition to my tiny potato excitement, Zips is thrilled to be growing several tiny tomatillo plants. When we had our garden plot in Indiana, we had more tomatillos early on than we knew what to do with. I wrote long ago about our "salsa verde crudo." But now Zips has perfected her Salsa Verde:

Zipper's Salsa Verde Perfecto

2 lb. tomatillos (husked, rinsed, chopped)

1 medium onion

1-2 whole serrano chiles

1/2 c. cilantro

1-2 cloves garlic

juice of 1 lime

salt & (secret ingredient) ground celery seed (or celery salt)!

Chuck everything into your food processor and chop until everything is well combined. It may help to start chopping the harder foods first (onion, garlic, chiles) then add the juicy parts that you wouldn't want to accidently liquify (tomatillo), before adding and adjusting the cilantro, lime, ground celery seed and salt. I've never posted a photo of our Salsa Verde before, because we usually eat it all before I've had a chance (I once posted a photo of an empty glass bowl). But we've discovered that this actually keeps in the fridge pretty well, and if the serranos start off too spicy, it actually mellows in the fridge.

The other magical summer staple that Zips has utterly perfected lately is her heavenly guacamole. The magic, in our case, is in the molcajete she bought me last christmas:
I had a revelation (way too late) that those little black plastic tripod bowls that you sometimes get salsa in at Mexican restaurants are, basically, fake molcajetes. So this is a rough, heavy mortar and pestle made of volcanic stone that you season by grinding rice and rock salt until the inside starts to smooth out. Then you grind raw garlic cloves, cumin, salt into a paste and let it sit 24 hours. If you aren't driven mad with how good it smells, it will give your guacamole the most amazing flavors. We use avocado, lime, and just a little onion, tomato, cilantro, serrano, and garlic and a dash of salt (no measurements you cry? tweak em till it's perfect!). If we have a bag of the local tortillaria's chips, and we make both of these, it will be a good night indeed!

Baked Tortilla Chips from Scratch!

(Okay, okay, it's more like Baked Tortilla Chips from Tortillas!) One of our greatest vices in the summer is chips n' salsa-- especially fresh, spicy homemade pico de gallo or a batch of salsa from a local restaurant (that I can buy by the quart in their shop!) with fresh tortilla chips from another local restaurant. We've discovered how shockingly easy it is to bake these at home, and they absolutely fulfill my crunchy chip jones.

Baked Tortilla Chips:

Lightly brush or spray veg oil onto 6" corn tortillas (I'm sure you can use flour, I'll take photos if I do that too)
Sprinkle a tiny amount of fine salt onto tortillas (optional--I used fine popcorn salt)
Stack tortillas and cut into quarters.
Lay these out on a baking sheet & bake @ 350 for 10 minutes, flip them over and give them about 5 more minutes. Watch them carefully, as they burn easily. Then indulge. *crunch*

Latest Snack Food of Choice

Newman's Own Ginger n Creme Ginger O's. You must check these out!! I'm going to have to find the Mint ones too!