Randomness

I haven’t been doing much of anything.

I’ve been sleeping. A lot of sleeping. I’ve been indulging my SAD and letting myself not run into exhaustion like I normally do all winter.

The Mystery Mythic Missing Oranges

I was gifted a box of tangelos this winter for Christmas. They came straight from the grove, with a note saying that they were coming into season and would be shipped by such and such a date. I waited, then contacted the person that sent me the oranges that they hadn’t appeared.

That’s funny, the grove said, they’re marked as delivered to you about four days -before- you contacted us.

I had already asked the Post Office to hold my packages (way to drop the ball there, guys, it’s like you actually want to keep losing all my packages) but apparently they took that as a suggestion and not a customer request. Eventually I decided the package had just poofed. Again. And went on with life.

A box of oranges appeared the other day. The box is too clean and the oranges are too fresh to have been the original box. But I have the fruit now, so that’s all that matters.

Shamrockin’

I’m really terrible with photographing my nails. I don’t normally like St. Patrick’s Day and it’s not for two months anyway but I saw the Shamrockin’ polish on the Sinful Colors display this week and really needed to have that polish. I ended up with a Walgreen’s coupon that covered the sale so I splurged.

It’s a dot style glitter (I don’t know what they actually call this style glitter) in greens and white. There are supposed to be white and green shamrock shaped glitter mixed in but I didn’t manage to find any-but close to six weeks off of St. Patrick’s Day? That’s fine.

I’m wearing it over one layer of Wet and Wild’s Yo Soy. I don’t like the new Wet and Wild’s formula at all. It’s both thin and goopy. I’ll definitely go for more than 1 layer of the nude next time and will most likely reserve this color for the base coat for glitters.

Baskets

Polishes are my current obsession, and my collection finally outgrew its basket. I had to go to the dollar store and get a bigger box.

And green polish. Because I don’t have a solid, spring green in my collection. Head desk.

Black Orchid

Mid and I have been having ‘discussions’ around the subject of the appropriate lip color. Don’t fret, you can tell that I’ve been wearing it. He just hates 99% of the colors I find unless they’re in the nude range.

I however have finally found a color that I absolutely adore. That’s an actually fairly bare skin (I’m wearing ELF mascara-which I admittedly don’t like but I haven’t had time to get to Sephora, and ELF face powder-which I do like) and one of the black tube Wet and Wild lipsticks in Black Orchid. Which one? I don’t remember. It’s off of the ‘new item’ display that Walgreen’s has out now.

It’s not purple, it’s not red, it’s not pink, it’s not even really mauve. I’m not sure what’s going on here, but I like it. It toes the line of my ‘no unnatural lip color’ rule and it’s. so. dark. But I love it.

Blood Orange Rosemary Soda Syrup

Tuesday is supposed to be Spring Through Your Stash day.  I know. If you had any progress, feel free to tell us about in the comments.

I had absolutely no fiber time this week and it makes me want to cry a little. However there’s a lot that makes me want to cry a little right now so take it with some skepticism.

However I have had some serious kitchen time as I’ve been really amping up my kitchencraft. I went and bought a mint plant, and spent multiple hours in there cleaning this weekend. Sadly, there’s probably still hours to go to get it to where I’ll be happy, but it’s a start.

Can It Up’s theme for April is oranges. At the very end of March I made Sunshine jam, and this is the syrup counterpart to that. I’m desperately trying to cut down on the salt in my diet for health reasons, but I can’t shake soda. I just really like soda. It may be my one true vice right now. What I’ve found helps me cut back, if not cutting soda out completely, is seltzer with homemade syrups.

It’s still sugar, but I know what’s in these syrups. I can drink gallons of seltzer this way-which is conveniently salt free.

We are at the extreme tail end of citrus season in the States and most citrus outside of lemons and maybe limes are about to sky rocket in price. I didn’t process this batch, but I’ll add processing instructions if you want to make some when citrus comes back down near the end of the year.

Blood Orange Rosemary Soda Syrup

For both versions-

4-6 good sized blood oranges, peeled and segmented*

1 cup white or raw sugar

1 pinch each dried mint and rosemary

In a non-reactive bowl add everything and let macerate at least four hours.

For fridge version

Place macerated fruit into a non-reactive pot and bring to a boil over medium high. Allow to boil for at least 10 minutes, smashing on the fruit every so often to help it release its juice. Keeping the seeds in the fruit will help it thicken up a little.

Place a wide mouthed funnel into a pint sized jar and place a small strainer into the funnel. Carefully pour the hot fruit into the strainer and allow to drain until it stops dripping. When th e fruit stops dripping, carefully push on the fruit with a spatula to release the rest of the juice.

When the syrup cools, cover and store in the fridge.

For the canned version

Prep at least 3 quarter pint jars and hold for canning.

Following fridge instructions, pull fruit at 5 minutes and and strain as directed. Put the hot syrup back into the pan, bring back to a boil, and boil at least for another five minutes. You may want to measure out your syrup before reboiling and add a little water to keep it from cooking down too much.

Fill jars to within 1/2 inch of top and process for 10 minutes.

*I like my drinks on the bitter side, especially if I want to use my syrups for cocktails. I did not supreme the fruit for this batch. If you want to make sure your syrup is only sweet, supreme your oranges making sure to collect the orange juice in the container you intend on macerating in.

Bloggers-I have started a new group board on Pinterest. Open to all DIY, craft, food, or other creative blogs, I would love to have you join. Joining instructions are posted on the board-join here.

Please, stop by this week’s Inspired Weekends!

Linked to-

weed em and reap

create with joy

the plaid and paisley

clairejustine

lil suburban homestead

this gal cooks

little house in the suburbs

the self sufficient homeacre

handy man crafty woman

family home and life

the tasty fork

mom’s test kitchen

backyard farming connection

mamaldiane

memories by the mile

carolyn’s homework

ginger snap crafts

vmg206

Empty Your Jars: Spiced Orange Cupcakes

The reaction I get most often about my canned oranges is they look great. What do you do with them?

I started canning oranges because I don’t like not knowing what’s in my canned products, and I dream of this orange cake I used to get while I was in college that was studded with manderin oranges. It was also a funny shade of orange not known to any food that ever came off of a plant.

Anyway. I did use a cake mix for this recipe because I’ve found that unless I’m making a yogurt cake, I get better cupcakes from a box. Feel free to use a scratch recipe in its place-just remember that you’re using the canning liquid as part of your water content.

*Since I’m using my spiked oranges there may be a trace alcohol content in each serving. You can either use a spiced canned non-acoholic batch or substitute a conventionally canned orange product and up the cinnamon a little more since Fireball is a cinnamon whiskey.

Spiced Orange Cupcakes

1 box white cake mix (I used Aldi’s)

1 half pint jar oranges canned in whiskey, drained and liquid reserved

3 eggs

1/4 cup oil

1 1/4 water-add the liquid from the oranges to a measuring cup, add water to 1 1/4 cups

1 to 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon (or to taste)

In a large bowl, add all ingredients and stir until wet. Beat for 2 to 3 minutes further. Fill cupcake trays with liners, and bake at 350 for 16 minutes, or until baked through. Frost with favored frosting.

**I used my Kitchenaide Pro-I mixed on the stir setting until just combined and wet, then mixed on level 4 for 2 minutes.

Canning Oranges in Whiskey

I adore Fireball whiskey-it tastes like cinnamon gummy bears. When this month’s Can It Up was announced as alcohol, I knew I wanted to work with that particular whiskey.

After some discussion with friends it came down to a choice of a boozy apple jam or oranges. The oranges are starting to hit the stores in Buffalo in mass quantity, so I decided to go with oranges for a whiskey cake later this winter.

Definitely supreme your oranges-it cleans off the nasty bits that will (may) cause your canned oranges to go bitter. Make sure to supreme them over the pot you make your syrup in to catch the juice, or supreme them over a bowl and add the juice later. I also juiced the membrane-y bit left over after supreming, because I’m still not that great at it and left a fair amount of meat behind.

Note 1: You may want to raw pack your slices. When I hot packed my supremed oranges and grapefruit, I ended up with shredded citrus bits. I’m fine with that, but if you want whole slices (or perhaps just larger chunks) for your intended usage or presentation purposes, raw pack instead.

Note 2: You can change what alcohol you use in this recipe, just stay with the 2 to 3 tablespoons range. If you want a spiced flavor without the alcohol, add a spice bag to the syrup mixture.

Assorted Citrus-4 navels and a grapefruit gave me a pint and a half pint jar

water and sugar to make a simple syrup-I used a cup of unpacked brown sugar and about 6 cups of water to make my syrup, plus the reserved citrus juice. You can can citrus segments in juice as well, just make sure to boil it.

2 to 3 tablespoons of whiskey per jar

Prep your canning jars. While the canner is coming to a boil, supreme your oranges.

Boil your simple syrup, and when the citrus is completely clean add to the syrup. Bring back to a boil and boil for 5 minutes. Gently strain fruit from syrup with a spoon and pack prepped jars. Add syrup, and then add whiskey. Pack to within 1/2 inch of top.

Remove air bubbles with a chop stick and close jars to fingertip tightness. Process for 15 minutes.

Canning Citrus (Raw Pack)

Note: you really do need to make sure you get as much of the membrane off of the segments as you can or you run the risk of the fruit being too bitter. I used tangerines because I had them, and this is fairly consistently the process I found for canning them-but several sites suggested using fruit with larger sections as they’re easier to clean the membrane off of. My ultimate goal is to can the oranges we don’t get all year round in New York, like blood oranges and tangelos, so I’m actually going to teach myself how to supreme an orange:

Another note: several of the sites that I was looking at did comment that the fruit will definitely taste different out of the can, and may not be entirely desirable to eat on its own-unless you can with a heavier syrup or juice. I’m planning on baking with mine so try a heavier syrup or the orange juice option if you just want to have citrus on hand for eating purposes.

Third note: I’m planning on putting up oranges right along, probably until the end of January or so. I’ll open a jar every so often to check on this bitterness business.

1/2 cup sugar for each 4 cups of water- I used less than 4 cups syrup for 1 quart fruit

assorted citrus-this batch was 3/4 of a bag of sunburst tangerines

Peel and clean your fruit. Make sure to remove as much as the white membrane as you can-it can make your fruit bitter. You may not be able to get all of it, but try to get the fruit as clean as you can.

I found that sectioning the fruit over the saucepan I boiled the syrup in let me save some of the juice and put it back into the project. You can process the sections with orange juice as well if you would like.

After the fruit is fully sectioned and cleaned, boil a light syrup (the ratio described above). I already had the canner running with my jars. When the syrup is boiling, remove jars from canner and gently fill with the citrus sections. Gently press down on the fruit to fit as much as you can into the jar-don’t crush them, but especially with small fruit like tangerines you can get a lot more in there than you may think.

Ladle syrup into the jars, and again gently remove air bubbles by poking the chopstick down the sides of the jar a few times. You’re probably going to  have to top off the jars with either fruit, syrup or both at this point.

Place lid and ring on jar and twist to fingertip tight. Process for 15 minutes for pints-I peeled 10 or so tangerines, which gave me 2 pint jars and about 3/4 of a tangerine left over.

*You can use water or fruit juice to can your fruit in as well,  but those still have to be boiled prior to processing.