Winter

From the New York Times

Good citrus can almost make you glad it’s winter. When it’s in season — that’s now — it’s equal or superior to anything else you can buy in the plant kingdom. Any way you can devise to eat it, you’re taking advantage of something at its peak.

This citrus salad requires only that you overcome the notion that salads must be green; it’s a novel and wonderful antidote to sorry-looking lettuce.

If you’re lucky and can find blood oranges, use them; same with the odd, supremely delicious and usually quite pricey pomelos.

The idea is a combination of grapefruit (I like pink), oranges (navels, though common, are still terrific) and tangerines or clementines: pretty much any citrus fruit that’s more sweet than sour.

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I love soups and stews. I truly do. This soup is a derivative of fresh, previously fresh, and local flavors that all meld together in a literal melting pot of culinary delight.

Sausage from M&T Meats in Hawkinsville mixed with Conecuh Sausage from Evergreen, Alabama add a layer of savory, smoky flavor as well as depth to this soup. Stewed tomatoes, put up from last summer, and black beans all swirl around in a big ol’ pot with cumin, cayenne, and a Vidalia roux.

Rouxs rule! A roux, or a cooked mixture of fat and flour, is the flavor foundation for this soup. A roux is the classical thickener for the French mother sauces, yet a Cajun roux is a bit different from its classical cousin. The roux for this soup is more so of a Cajun roux, though not totally authentic…a Cajun roux takes a long time to properly make – this one not so much. I also did not use flour since I used onion powder and cumin, thus making up the starch portion of the roux’s makeup. Typically a one to one ratio fat to starch is called for in a roux…this combo works just fine!

It always amazes me how a handful of ingredients can come together in such stunning ways. Take carrots and raw cashews. Who knew? Combining them with some chicken broth resulted in an extraordinarily different kind of soup. It is creamy and light as a cloud at the same time. Neither liquid nor broth, but more of a puree with texture. 

First I cooked the carrots in chicken broth until they were tender, then I dropped them into a blender with cups of raw cashews, salt, and a dash of ground cloves.

I loved the taste, but wanted to layer on another flavor. At first I thought about topping the soup with a swirl of port glaze. I've always loved carrots and port together. Yet, when I spied a bunch of cilantro sitting on the kitchen counter, I opted for the green. With a quick pulse or two in the food processor with some deep green oil, salt and bit of garlic, I had my drizzle.

This soup is sublime. Healthy. Simple. And totally satisfying.

It rained here for the last three weekends. As a result, the Sunday farmers' market was nearly empty. (Southern Californians don't go out in the rain.) So, it's been just a few farmers, some die-hard vegetarians, and a handful of New England transplants.

This all changed yesterday. It was the quintessential San Diego day - sunny, with a light breeze. You couldn't move at the farmers' market. People were clamoring for colorful rainbow carrots, luscious Meyer lemons, and tart pink grapefruit.

The biggest attraction was the exceptionally juicy, tangy blood oranges that beckoned market-goers with their ruby-colored flesh. One poor farmer handing out samples nearly got trampled on by a gaggle of Red Hats who were visiting. And there I was without my camera. Ugh.

So what's all the fuss about? Anthocyanin, the same chemical that makes blueberries blue and cranberries red, gives blood oranges their characteristic "bloody"color. It can range from bright ruby red to deep burgundy and has an exceptionally pleasing sweet-tart flavor unlike any other orange.