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Orange

Breakfast Muffins

Muffins used to be a healthy breakfast option, but in recent years they have become jumbo sources of fats and sugar. There’s no reason why a medium muffin shouldn’t be a reliable breakfast staple. Here’s a basic recipe that’s relatively low in butter and sugar but still completely satisfying. Once you master (and memorize) the basic formula, you can create anything you desire. Six variations follow. Rather than reduce the oven temperature here, I prefer to keep it the same as in the conventional oven, but reduce the baking time so you can bake them even on a workday morning.

Swedish Rye Bread

This is a favorite bread, especially in the Midwest, where many people have Scandinavian roots.

Sweet Potato, Red Garnet, and Yam Salad

Sweet potatoes are pale yellow, yams are deeper orange, and red garnets have a reddish hue. If you have trouble finding all three, just buy three pounds’ worth of what you can find. This colorful salad is perfect with roast pork, or on the Thanksgiving menu as a refreshing change from the traditional sweet potato dishes.

Sweet Potatoes or Yams Roasted with Orange

Try this for your Thanksgiving menu, roasted on the bottom rack of the oven, along with scalloped potatoes or Creamy Garlic Potatoes (page 144), while the turkey roasts on the rack above. If you slice the potatoes ahead, rinse them well in cold water and drain to prevent discoloring.

Orange-Marinated Pork Roast

You need a V-shaped roasting rack for this. The pork is cooked to “tender rags”—long and slow with air circulating around it—producing the effect of rotisserie cooking. For a Caribbean flair, serve with black beans and rice. Serve leftovers in sandwiches.

Semolina Pudding with Blueberry Sauce

Semolina cooked in cream becomes a thick, delicious porridge, with an almost puddinglike consistency, that can be enjoyed many ways. In Sardinia I have had it as an appetizer with honey drizzled on top, and as a dessert with a sauce of mirto, or myrtle. I loved both! And I’ve made it as a warm breakfast treat, too. Here I give you mazzafrissa as a dessert, with a lovely blueberry sauce (strawberries or cherries or other seasonal berries would be good, too). Scoop the warm cereal into serving bowls and top with the blueberry sauce, or serve the sauce on the side and let your guests help themselves.

Scrippelle Ribbons with Apricot Orange Sauce

This special dessert is so good—and so much fun to prepare and serve—I hope you’ll be persuaded to make and keep scrippelle (crêpes) on hand all the time, as they do in the kitchens of Abruzzo. Here, you slice the scrippelle into strips (they look like fresh fettuccine!) and toss them in a hot caramel, apricot, and citrus sauce that you’ve got bubbling in a skillet. Serve the beautifully glazed ribbons still warm, with whipped cream melting on top. This recipe calls for a full batch of the thin pancakes (the same ones used for the savory Crespelle with Spinach, page 234), but it is easy to adjust the amounts to make a larger or smaller dessert. Even if you have only a couple of extra scrippelle in your freezer, you can still transform them, with this basic technique, into a treat for two. Let your creativity loose: Just like pasta, scrippelle ribbons can be dressed for dessert in countless ways. Add rum or liqueur to this caramel sauce, or vary it with other fruit preserves or juices. Shape the ribbons into a little nest for a scoop of ice cream. Or drizzle melted chocolate over the warm ribbons, sprinkle with chopped toasted hazelnuts, and top with a dollop of whipped cream.

Honey-Orange Crumb Cookies

Panmelati are a delightful and surprising confection. Sweet, chewy, orange-infused, and crusted in nuts, they could be mistaken for fancy candy balls, but they are actually a kind of no-bake cookie, fashioned from a simple dough of bread crumbs cooked in honey. A great way to recycle old bread, these are quickly made, fun to roll, and a delicious treat with tea, coffee, or a dessert wine.

Tropical Storm

The key to this drink is fresh pineapple juice.

Orange and Soy-Glazed Baby Back Ribs

Summer isn't the only time to enjoy sticky ribs— these baby backs, showered with citrus zest, also work well in winter. You can customize the size of the zest by using a Microplane for smaller pieces or a 5-hole zester for longer strips.

Blood Orange, Beet, and Fennel Salad

Our fresh take on the classic Moroccan salad pairs shaved fennel and red onion with assorted beets and oranges for color contrast.

Cane Vinegar Chicken with Pearl Onions, Orange & Spinach

One-pot dishes are all about planning well and laying out your prep in a smart sequential order. The beauty of this dish is the vinegar, which is malty, nutty, and nuanced. I love a Philippine cane vinegar called Datu Puti. Great stuff, super-inexpensive, and readily available at most Asian grocery stores.

Berry-Citrus Trifle

Berries and orange juice are top sources for vitamin C, which may help you blast up to 30 percent more fat during exercise. Suh-weet!

Double Rack of Pork with Burnt Orange-Caramel Pan Sauce

Forgo the old-school crown roast by arranging two pork rib roasts with the bones crisscrossed like a military honor-guard salute. Ask your butcher to french the bones by removing excess fat and muscle for a more elegant presentation.

Painful Punch

This punch was originally inspired by a sangria recipe I learned from my friend David Hanna. More flavorful and higher in alcohol than your average sangria, this punch uses inexpensive wine from Spain. My two favorite brands are Protocolo and Borsao, both of which provide a juicy, full-flavored foundation for spiced juice and liquors. The punch has a tendency to be rather tannic tasting, so I add simple syrup cup by cup until the sweetness is just right. One of the most tragic downfalls of a party punch is overdilution, which happens when the punch is chilled with fast-melting ice cubes. I serve this punch either prechilled with ice on the side, or with one large piece of block ice in the bowl and ice on the side.

"Candy Corn" Frozen Citrus Cream Pops

Candy corn may be synonymous with Halloween, but come on, how many of us really love the chewy little tooth-shaped candies with a flavor that is indistinguishable beyond sweet? However, if you borrow their iconic shape and colors and transform those into creamy lemon-and-orange frozen pops, we predict everyone will be clamoring for their fair share.

Citrus Salad with Mint Sugar

Citrus-Cranberry Compote

Serve this sweet and tangy condiment with the Cranberry Spice Cake , or spoon it over vanilla ice cream.

Candied Mandarin Oranges with Cranberries

Lo's take on cranberry sauce makes citrus the star by soaking mandarins in fragrant elderflower syrup before caramelizing them. You can use any of your favorites: tangerines, clementines, satsumas, honeys, or Minneolas. Begin this recipe 1 day ahead.
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