Still not
got round to finishing (or even starting) your Christmas shopping? We have some
quick and easy gift ideas for you, using citrus fruits. This month's Secret
Garden Club meeting looked at growing and making use of citrus, including some
great ideas for some home-made gifts.
Usually we
like to look at how best to cook and eat our produce, but on Sunday, the Secret
Garden Club looked at more ornamental and decorative ways of using lemons and
oranges. Guests concocted a jar of refreshing lemon bath salts and made a
spiced orange pomander, as well as learning how to make Moroccan style
preserved lemons.
Lemon bath
salts
2 tbsps
Epsom salts – available from the chemist
½ tbsp fine
sea salt
Zest of two
lemons
A clean,
airtight jar.
These
amounts can be scaled up or down to suit the size of jar and the number of
lemons you have. You can also add more lemon zest to make the lemon fragrance
even more intense.
Mix all
ingredients well. A whisk is a good way to get all the zest incorporated
without clumping. Store in an airtight jar and sprinkle as much as liked in
your bath for an aromatic, revitalising soak.
As long ago
as mediaeval times people would hang perfumed pomanders up in rooms, or carry
them around with them to disguise bad smells – of which there were many in the
olden days.
We may not
have foul-smelling rooms or bodies these days, but a spiced pomander will still
fill a room, or cupboard, with fragrance and will last for years. This
combination of orange and spices gives these pomanders a distinctly Christmassy
aroma, ideal as gifts at this time of year.
1 orange
A toothpick
(optional)
1 cup cloves
Masking tape
Ribbon
Spice mix:
1tbs ground
cinnamon
1tbs gound
nutmeg
1tbs ground
ginger (dry ginger)
1tbs ground
coriander
1 tsp
sandalwood powder
Orris root
powder is more traditionally used as a preservative and fixative, but quite a
few people turn out to be allergic to it, so we used sandalwood powder at the
Secret Garden Clubas it’s less likely to cause upset.
Mix the
spices together and pile into a paper bag.
Mark out the
orange into quarters with the masking tape. (This makes it easier to fix the
ribbon later. For less artistic types, like me, it also helps to keep the
patterning neat.) If the orange peel is at all hard, make a hole in the orange
first with the toothpick, then push a clove into the hole just made. You should
cover the whole orange apart from the masking tape – you can choose patterns or
arrange the cloves in rows. Don’t pack the cloves together too tightly as the
orange will shrink slightly as it dries out. Put the orange in the paper bag
with the spices and toss it so that the gaps between the cloves are well
covered with spice mix.
Keep the
oranges in their paper bag and put somewhere warm and dry – the airing cupboard
is ideal. Turn the orange every day or so. When the orange is hard to the
touch, it’s ready - in a week or so. Carefully remove the masking tape and tie
a ribbon around the orange so you can hang it up.
Preserved
lemons
This is an
essential condiment in middle eastern recipes, livening up casseroles, tagines
or rice. Although the only two ingredients are salt and lemons, the flavour is
surprisingly soft and mellow. It's so simple to make that I feel it hardly
counts as a recipe - here's what to do.
6 unwaxed
lemons, washed and dried (to fill a 500ml jar)
Sea salt
These keep
really well and shouldn’t even need refrigerating – to be sure they’re not in
danger of spoiling, use a sterilised jar. I’m told that sometimes a white lacy
curd develops on the surface of the liquor, which is harmless. I’ve never seen
this – perhaps I eat my preserved lemons before any such layer can develop.
Making spiced orange pomanders at the Secret Garden Club. |
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