It’s no secret that citrus is one of the reasons I could never live on a 100% local diet — at least not without moving back to California first. As soon as the weather dips near freezing, I start stocking up on grapefruit, oranges, Meyer lemons or, my favorite, clementines. As much as possible I buy organic citrus from Florida, but for clementines it’s the real thing, all the way from Spain. (I actually spotted those newfangled California “Cuties” at Whole Foods the other day, but stuck with the Old World variety.) When I was a kid, we always got a clementine in our stocking, and devoured it while waiting for Christmas breakfast to be ready. I’ve planned to do the same for the boy, but considering how many clementines we eat in the weeks leading up to Christmas, I’m not sure it’s quite as special a treat.

Today I had a meeting near one of my favorite restaurants in the city, Jaleo, so I stopped in for lunch. Imagine my delight to see the “Clementina Festival!” sign in the window. I couldn’t resist and enjoyed a three-course clementine lunch. First up, seared clementines with olive oil, balsamic vinegar and microgreens. Simple yet bursting with flavor. For the main course, seared squid with artichokes and clementines, the citrus contrasting perfectly with the silky squid. And then dessert. Clementine ice cream atop clementine curd, with some almond/graham cracker crumbs and fresh clementine slices — drizzled with olive oil. Perfection. It was like being transported to sunny Spain for an hour, and left me inspired to do more than just eat our way through the box of clementines straight up. The clementine curd in particular has me pondering a clementine tart … stay tuned.

Do you cook with clementines? What’s your favorite way to use them?

If you’re in DC, the Clementina Festival continues at Jaleo through December 20.

This Sunday the toddler and I donned our rain coats and braved the winter monsoon to visit the Dupont Circle Market. I’m like a kid loose in the candy store whenever I get to Dupont, even at the end of November, and this week was no exception. In the market basket: Cibola Farms buffalo stew meat, Brussels sprouts (on the stalk), red Anjou and seckel pears, quince, Stayman apples, watermelon radish, baby carrots, sunchokes, leek, Maitake mushrooms, Keswick ricotta, Atwater’s peasant wheat bread and a drinkable pumpkin yogurt (which the toddler chugged 2/3 of on the drive home!).

Market Menus: Sunday evening we had buffalo chili and Farmer John’s cornbread, along with parmesan Brussels sprouts. (Toddler tasted but rejected the sprouts, while the chili was dubbed, “Touchdown! chili” and devoured two nights in a row.) I’m planning to make a soup with the sunchokes and leek. And this salad was just for me, as the toddler deemed the radish too spicy and I’m the only blue cheese lover in the family (so far). You can omit the radish for a sweeter variation, but more adventurous taste buds will appreciate the balance of tangy and sweet flavors that play off the Irish blue cheese.

Recipe: Watermelon Radish, Red Pear and Cashel Blue Salad

Watermelon radishes are white on the outside, slightly larger than your typical radish but otherwise unsurprising, until you slice into them and get a peak at their deep fuschia interior. Sliced, they look like watermelon slices, hence the name. They have a sharp bite, which plays nicely off the sweet pears and touch of honey in this vinaigrette.

Ingredients:

• 1 red Anjou pear
• 1 watermelon radish
• 2 ounces Cashel Irish blue cheese

Vinaigrette:

• 1 teaspoon red wine vinegar
• 1 teaspoon grapeseed oil
• 1/2 teaspoon honey

Instructions: Whisk the vinaigrette ingredients together and set aside. Peel the radish and thinly slice both the radish and the pear. (Optional, serve over arugula or mesclun greens.) Serves 2. Enjoy!

P.S. Have I mentioned my cheese project? Read my review of Cashel Irish Blue, and if you’re on twitter, be sure to follow @100cheeses for updates and the latest in curd news and cheese recipes.

After conquering my fear of canning, the next item on my kitchen project list was making jam. I had recently stumbled across this lovely Green Gage Plum & Vanilla Jam recipe at Chez Pim which sounded simple enough. I had some green Shiro plums and Italian prune plums to work with. I really wanted to use honey, but I’ve read that you can only substitute honey for half of the sugar in a recipe, and didn’t want to stray too far from the original recipe since this was my first jam-making experience. I also had fewer plums than originally purchased, thanks to a toddler who was downing up to 6 a day…

So, my recipe quantities were: 1 lb plums, scant 1 c sugar, 1 T lemon juice, 1 T honey, 1 vanilla bean. I followed the original instructions and got a nice, thick jam, but I wasn’t sure what to do about the peels. I suspect that Pim’s green gage plum skins were thinner and perhaps dissolved? The prune plum skins had not, and were tough when I tried one. I strained the cooked jam then to remove the peels, which thinned my jam a bit so I was pleased to see when I opened a jar that it was a nice, jelly-like consistency. It is quite tasty, sweet and the vanilla adds such a lovely fragrance.

Now, Pim’s recipe is for a small batch to begin with, so guess what happens when you halve that? A meager two mini jam pots…

It probably wasn’t worth processing them since one went straight into the fridge to be eaten soon, but oh well. It was part of the learning experience. I will definitely keep practicing – and reading up on jam techniques over the winter. In the meantime, head over to Lelo in Nopo and check out the yummy jams she’s been making!

Oh, and the little bit left over? Excellent topping for peach ice cream!

Despite the intense heat, the Alexandria markets were mobbed this weekend. I’m actually starting to prefer the West End Market over Del Ray, because DR is just too crowded this summer. And West End has more and cheaper fruit and berries. (Blueberries at Del Ray were $3.50/pt, while Papa’s at WE had them for $3/pt, $5.75/qt. or 2 qts./$11 – a savings of 75cents per pint!) You also get a wider variety by market hopping, as each farm has a slightly different growing schedule. Last week, I picked up Papa’s last two pints of blueberries and asked if that was the last of the season, but he said he’d have them for another week or two. His cherries then were labeled “last week,” so I was surprised that Toigo had them this week. One of the benefits of having farms from all around DC is that we get a longer range for most items — Virginia farms usually have things first, while Pennsylvania farmers keep bringing them for a few weeks longer.

In other Alexandria market news, Tom the Cheese Guy is headed to the Annapolis Great Grapes festival next weekend; his wife will be at the markets with only pre-cut portions of his aged cheeses. The honey stand is only coming once a month now due to winter losses this year, so if you missed them at Del Ray you’re out of luck until the 3rd weekend in August. But, Buzz Bakery keeps Virginia honey in stock in the meantime.

At Del Ray, I picked up white nectarines, peaches, tomatoes and jalapenos (D&S), sweet cherries (Toigo), blueberries, honey mushrooms, mozzarella.

At West End: apricots (last week) and blueberries (Papa’s Orchard, 2 qts./$11), cantaloupe, peppers, orange romas, sweet plums and ramp mustard (Bigg Riggs), waterlemon jelly (Crackpot Gourmet, watermelon & lemongrass).

On the menu – One Local Summer Supper: Saturday night, my in-laws were in town so I cooked a fairly simple, all-local dinner of chimichurri flank steak, buttermilk & herb marinated chicken breast, tomato mozzarella salad and potato salad. I used my patriotic potatoes from Bigg Riggs Farm (WV, 117mi.) in a German-style salad. I picked up Bigg Rigg’s ramp mustard, at Tiffany’s recommendation (check out her story of visiting Bigg Rigg’s last week!), and will definitely try this again using that mustard. Since I made this Saturday, I had to make do with non-local Guldens. Incidentally, red and blue potatoes are more pink and purple when cooked, so this would make a great summer bridal or baby shower dish as well…

Recipe: Patriotic Potato Salad

Ingredients:

• 6 cups new potatoes, washed and cut into large chunks
• 1 sm sweet onion, thinly sliced
• 1 T olive oil
• 1/4 c brown mustard
• 1/2 c cider vinegar
• 1 t corn starch*
• 1 t plus 1/4 c water
• 2 T chopped fresh chives or parsley
• salt & pepper

Instructions:

Bring large pot of water to a boil. Add potatoes and reduce heat, simmer for 15-20 minutes until potatoes are just tender when pricked with fork. Drain and rinse with cold water. Pour olive oil in pan and saute onion over medium heat until translucent. Add mustard and vinegar. Stir cornstarch into 1 teaspoon water, then add to pot, along with additional 1/4 c water. Simmer for a minute until sauce thickens. Return potatoes to pan, stir to coat and add herbs, salt and pepper. Best served warm or at room temperature. Makes 6-8 servings.

*I recently discovered tapioca starch at my local natural foods store, which I used in place of the cornstarch.

For brunch on Sunday, we had the juiciest fruit salad of market-fresh cantaloupe, peaches and blueberries — plus bread with Waterlemon jelly, (deli) chicken salad, and leftover salads from the night before. Followed by … homemade cherry pie. Yum!

I’ve never been a huge cherry fan, but after getting reacquainted with fresh Rainier cherries I thought maybe I’d give some other varieties another try. This past weekend at the market, I picked up a quart of yellow-tinged Queen Anne cherries, slightly tart like the Rainiers. Another stand had signs saying last week for gooseberries. I’d never had gooseberries, so I snatched them up. Fortunately I read a well-timed post from The District Domestic warning about the tartness of green gooseberries before biting into one too eagerly. I decided to combine them with the cherries for yet another new-to-me experience, a cherry clafoutis. This French baked custard recipe has numerous intrepretations to choose from. I decided to start with The Garden Apartment’s fusion of Julia Child’s and Foodbeam’s recipes… I used buttermilk and more eggs, so it turned out something like this:

Recipe: Cherry-Gooseberry Clafoutis
Adapted from The Garden Apartment and others.

Ingredients:

• 2 T butter, melted
• 1 1/4 cups buttermilk
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 t vanilla
• 1 t almond extract
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup flour
• 3 cups berries (1/2 ea. gooseberries and Queen Anne cherries, halved and pitted)
• 1/4 and 1/3 cup sugar
• powdered sugar

Instructions: Toss berries with 1/4 sugar and let stand (adjust to taste; I’d use less with sweeter cherries). Preheat oven to 350*. In mixing bowl, thoroughly whisk butter, buttermilk, eggs, vanilla, almond extract, sugar, salt and flour. Pour a 1/4 inch layer of the batter into buttered baking dish and bake 4 minutes or until batter begins to set. Remove from oven and spread berries over batter, then pour on rest of batter. Bake for another 50 minutes, until puffed and golden brown. Sprinkle with powdered sugar, and enjoy! (Makes 6-8 servings.)

Notes: Next time I will probably use less or omit the butter, as it turned out a little oily. Also, I would use a tart pan next time as the pan I used was much too deep. (Didn’t affect taste, but not as photogenic as it could have been!) This not-too-sweet clafoutis would be a great base for other fruits or berries too – I might try it with blackberries later this summer.

Farms/Producers: Ingredients from Dupont Circle Farmers Market, including cherries from Toigo (PA) and eggs from Smith Meadow (VA).