Jenn’s Cook Book

From Everyday Food: Great Food Fast, a tasty dish perfect for a weeknight dinner. This recipe calls for trimmed boneless steak and you can either cut it yourself or look for pre-cut beef strips meant for stir-fry to save some time. Serve with rice of your choose, such as plain white, brown, or flavored such as Vigo’s Yellow Saffron Rice. This one is being added as one of James’ favorite.

3 oranges
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 1/2 lbs trimmed, boneless sirloin or rib-eye steak, cut into 1/2 inch strips
1 tbsp cornstarch
1 to 2 tbsp oil
6 green onions, green parts only, cut into 1 inch pieces
rice, for serving

In a small bowl, finely grate the zest of one orange and squeeze the juice. Add minced garlic and soy sauce and mix.

With a sharp paring knife, peel the remaining 2 oranges. Slice the oranges crosswise 1/2 inch thick and halve the slices. Remove any seeds.

In a medium bowl, toss the meat with the cornstarch until coated. Heat 1 tbsp oil in a large skillet over high heat. Working in batches (adding more oil as needed), brown the beef on all sides, about 3 to 5 minutes. Transfer to a plate.

Pour the orange juice mixture into the skillet and boil until syrupy, about 1 minute. Return beef to the skillet and add the orange slices and green onions. Toss until well coated and heated through. Serve hot, over rice.

Shown below, with yellow rice and Indian-Style Asparagus:

From Food & Wine magazine, this recipe combines combines tart pomegranate juice and orange pekoe tea steeped with orange zest. For an added flavor burst, I used POM Wonderful Pomegranate-Blueberry juice blend and frozen blueberries as garnish. POM also makes Pomegranate-Cherry, Pomegranate-Tangerine, and Pomegranate-Mango juice blends.

2 oranges, zest removed in strips
8 cups water
9 orange pekoe tea bags
2 cups pomegranate juice
3/4 cup simple syrup, or to taste
orange wedges, for garnish

Remove zest from oranges in strips using a sharp knife or vegetable peeler. Bring water to a boil and add zest strips and teabags. Remove from heat and steep 10 minutes.

Strain tea into a pitcher and chill 1-2 hours. Stir in pomegranate juice and simple syrup. Serve over ice with orange wedges.

Simple Syrup:
1 1/3 cups sugar
1 1/4 cups water

To make Simple Syrup:
In a small saucepan, bring sugar and water to a boil, stirring. Boil until sugar dissolves. Let syrup cool and chill, covered. Simple Syrup will keep for 2 weeks. Chill, covered, until ready to use. Makes 1 1/2 to 2 cups syrup.

Steeping with orange rind strips:

Shown below, with blueberries:

This 8-ingredient rub from Cooking Light magazine combines sweet (brown sugar, orange zest) with spicy (chili powder, coriander) and smokey (paprika, cumin). This rub works best on fatty fish such as salmon or on pork. Add an extra kick by using Hot Hungarian Paprika. This tasty rub in going in as a “Jenn’s Favorites.”

2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp orange zest
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1/4 tsp coriander
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper 

Combine all ingredients in a small bowl. Use rub generously on 1 1/2 lbs of meat.

This is a quick and easy dinner option using the Sweet Orange Rub with salmon fillets (from Cooking Light magazine). Instead of the usual lemon wedges, this dish is served with orange.

2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp orange zest
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1/4 tsp coriander
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper 
4 (6 oz) salmon fillets, skinned
cooking spray
1 large orange, cut into 4 wedges

Preheat broiler.

Combine first 8 ingredients in a small bowl. Rub spice mixture over both sides of salmon fillets. Place fillets on a broiler pan coated in cooking spray. Broil 8-10 minutes or until salmon flakes easily when tested with a fork. Serve each fillet with an orange wedge.

Here is another option for the Sweet Orange Rub using pork chops (from Cooking Light magazine).

2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp orange zest
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1/4 tsp coriander
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper 
4 (6 oz) boneless pork chops
cooking spray

Preheat oven to 425F

Combine first 8 ingredients in a small bowl. Rub spice mixture over both sides of pork chops. Place pork chops on a baking pan coated in cooking spray. Bake 15 minutes or until done.

Here is another great dessert from Everyday Food magazine, this one combining plums with a honey-orange sauce. Plums are generally in season May through October, and some varieties peak in the fall months, so there is plenty of time to enjoy this great recipe. If you leave off the ice cream or cream cheese topping, you can use this as a side to roast chicken or pork.

1 tbsp unsalted butter
1/3 cup honey
1/3 cup orange juice
4 large purple or red plums, halved and pitted

Optional:
3 tbsp cream cheese, room temperature
1 tsp milk
OR vanilla iced cream

Preheat oven to 400F

Place butter in 3-quart shallow baking dish and melt butter in preheating oven.

Add honey and orange juice to pan, stir until combined. Arrange plums, cut side down, in baking dish. Bake until tender and juicy, about 20-25 minutes, turning plums over during final 10 minutes of baking time and spooning juices over fruit. If needed, add additional orange juice or water to pan to prevent scorching.

To prepare cream cheese topping: stir cream cheese and milk together until blended. Spoon mixture over plums and drizzle with pan juices to serve OR serve plums with vanilla iced cream and drizzle with pan juices.

Here is another recipe from Simply in Season that uses fresh mint and orange flavors. While it sounded and looked tasty, I found the taste reminded me a bit too much of drinking orange juice after brushing your teeth. It could be because I made my mint brew stronger than the recipe recommended. It wasn’t sour, but didn’t quite taste like my cup of tea (pun intended).

3 cups water
5-6 sprigs fresh mint, well rinsed
1/3 cup sugar
2 cups orange juice
1/2 cup lemon
water and ice
mint sprigs or thin slices of orange or lemon, for garnish

Bring water to a boil and remove from heat. Add mint, cover, and steep for 15 minutes or longer. Remove mint.

Add sugar and stir until dissolved. Concentrate may be cooled and frozen for later use.

In a 2 liter (half gallon) pitcher, combine orange and lemon juice. Add mint concentrate plus water and ice to fill pitcher. Chill completely. Serve with garnishes as desired.

From BellyBytes.com, this iced tea recipe uses orange pekoe tea, fresh basil, and peach nectar.  The original recipes calls for 3 teabags, but I like my tea strong, so I used 4.

4 bags orange pekoe tea
1 cup loosely packed fresh basil leaves
4 cups water
3 1/3 cups chilled peach nectar (five, 5 1/2 oz cans)
1/4 cup chilled simple syrup, or to taste (see below)
fresh peach slices and basil sprigs, for garnish

Put tea bags and basil in a heat resistant pitcher. Bring 4 cups of water to a boil and pour over tea bags. Steep tea for 5-10 minutes and remove tea bags. Cool tea and chill, covered, for about 1 hour or until cold.

Stir in chilled nectar and simple syrup. Place peach slices and ice in each glass. Pour in tea and top with a basil sprig.   

Simple Syrup:
1 1/3 cups sugar
1 1/4 cups water

To make Simple Syrup:
In a small saucepan, bring sugar and water to a boil, stirring. Boil until sugar dissolves. Let syrup cool and chill, covered. Simple Syrup will keep for 2 weeks. Chill, covered, until ready to use.

Here is another summer thirst-quencher, combining the seasonal flavors of blueberry and cucumber with orange juice and honey. This fresh and fruity recipe comes from Cooking Light magazine.

3 cups fresh orange juice
1/4 cup honey
1 pint fresh blueberries (frozen can be substituted)
1 medium cucumber

Cut cucumber into chunks. Combine with blueberries, orange juice, and honey in a blender. Process until smooth. Cover and chill 8 hours or overnight.

Strain mixture through a cheesecloth-lined sieve into a medium bowl, pressing solids with a wooden spoon or a rubber spatula to squeeze out juice. Discard solids.

Serve in tall glasses over ice. Makes 4 servings.

This tea was inspired by the drink “Five Alive” by MinuteMaid, which combines orange, tangerine, lemon, lime, and grapefruit into one beverage. I added some iced tea and sugar (though feel free to use honey if you prefer), and came up with this 5 fruit concoction.

6 black tea bags
6 cups hot water
1/4 cup sugar (or honey)
1/4 cup orange juice
1/4 cup pink grapefruit juice
1 lemon, juiced
1 tangerine, juiced
1 lime, cut into wedges
additional fruit for garnish, if desired

Pour hot water over tea bags in a heat-resistant pitcher. Allow to steep for 10-15 minutes. Stir in sugar until dissolved.

Add orange, grapefruit, lemon and tangerine juice. Stir well. Chill for 1-2 hours.

Fill glasses with crushed ice and lime wedges. Pour tea over ice and lime. Serve with additional fruit garnish (optional). Suggestion: orange wedges or lemon slices.