food and things

[tielan]

I have 2.6kg of kumquats sitting at home, waiting to be turned into jam and pickles and preserves. If I don't do it soon (liked today/tomorrow), they're gonna be all rotted and mouldy.

Oh, I should make a kumquat cake tonight for bible study, maybe?

Kumquat Bundt Cake with glaze

candied kumquats

kumquat meringue pie (curd recipe included)

Funny story about how I got them:

1. Make peach and bourbon jam - about four jars, way more than you can eat.
2. Swap one jar of jam for "seville oranges".
3. Discover that "seville oranges" actually means "2+kg seville oranges"
4. Make seville orange marmalade - about 6 jars, waaaaaaay more than you can eat.
5. Still have seville oranges left over.
6. Swap the seville oranges for "kumquats".
7. Discover that "kumquats" actually means "2.6kg kumquats"

And I still have half a dozen jars of preserves that I am not actually going to manage to eat.

(What I really want right now? Pickled/brined olives.)

--

Other recipes for future ref.

Asparagus stuffed chicken

cauliflower cheese pasta bake

Comments

[havocthecat]

WHYYYYYYY are kumquats and other citrus fruits not native to the American midwest? Kumquats are so hard to find and they sound so good right now.

[havocthecat]

I'm going to Mariano's tonight. They're usually a reliable source of kumquats.

[tielan]

Kumquats are pretty expensive in the shops here - becoming more common with a larger Asian populace, but still pricey. But in the home gardener "crop swaps" here in Sydney there's been quite a lot of citrus swapping going on - excesses of limes and lemons and oranges. The climate being so close to 'mediterranean' works very well for citruses. Kumquats are still on the rarer side, but a few people seem to have trees.

Something that I learned a few years ago: a single home-garden tree, well-managed, may fruit abundantly in a zone where a commercial monocrop wouldn't be financially viable. And yes, it would be a really long shot for a citrus in your area, but someone might have a well-sheltered north-facing wall where a citrus could grow?