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Serve season's oranges dressed for dinner -- or breakfast

Blood oranges and navels with a lavender-lemon syrup

Sacramento Digs Gardening
BY Kathy Morrison PUBLISHED JAN 19, 2025

Blood oranges deliver the eye-catching color in this plate of seasonal citrus. The lavender-lemon syrup, at upper right, is pretty, too. Kathy Morrison

You can't go wrong with citrus this time of year. This simple dish can serve as a salad, a dessert after a heavy meal, or a starter at brunch.

Use any combination of oranges you like, but do include at least 1 blood orange for that marvelous color.

Lavender and lemon lightly enhance the orange plate in a simple syrup, which isn't thick, more like a dressing. Letting it soak into the oranges for a few hours or overnight in the refrigerator boosts the flavors, but that's not mandatory.

I was lucky enough to have a few fresh lavender blossoms off a plant, but if you don't, a bit of dried culinary lavender will work for this, too.

Oranges with lavender-lemon syrup

Ingredients:

1 generous teaspoon fresh lavender flowers, or 1/2 teaspoon dried

1/2 cup water

Juice from 1 tart lemon

Juice from 1 Meyer lemon or ripe lime

1 teaspoon granulated sugar

1 to 2 teaspoons agave syrup or light-flavored honey

3 small navel oranges, peeled and sliced into 1/4-inch slices

3 blood oranges, peeled and sliced into 1/4-inch slices

Instructions:

Using Cara Cara oranges if you have them
would add a bit of pink with the
oranges and blood oranges.

You can peel the oranges with your hands, but I like the clear un-pithy edge from using a serrated knife to cut off outer peel. Spread the slices out on a serving plate in a pleasing design.

To make the syrup, stir together in a small pot the juices, water, lavender flowers, sugar and 1 teaspoon agave or honey.

Bring the mixture to a boil, then lower the heat to simmer and cook until lightly syrupy, 3 to 4 minutes. Remove from heat, allow to cool enough to taste it, and add another 1 teaspoon agave or honey if desired.

Strain the syrup through a strainer into a small pitcher or measuring cup. Drizzle the syrup over the oranges and serve immediately, or cover and refrigerate until ready to serve. Save the extra syrup for another day's salad, or use as a mixer with beverages.

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RECIPE

A recipe for preparing delicious meals from the bounty of the garden.

Keywords:

recipes recipes fruit oranges citrus salad dessert produce management farmers markets orchard fruit Sacramento gardening

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Garden checklist for week of May 10

Take it easy during that high heat – then get to work! Your garden is calling.

* Remember to irrigate your tender transplants. Seedlings need consistent moisture. Deep watering will help build strong roots and healthy plants. Water early in the morning for best results.

* Plant, plant, plant! It’s prime planting season in the Sacramento area. Time to set out those tomato transplants along with peppers and eggplants. Pinch off any flowers on new transplants to make them concentrate on establishing roots instead of setting premature fruit.

* Direct-seed melons, cucumbers, summer squash, corn, radishes, pumpkins and annual herbs such as basil.

* Harvest cabbage, lettuce, peas and green onions.

* In the flower garden, direct-seed sunflowers, cosmos, salvia, zinnias, marigolds, celosia and asters. (You also can transplant seedlings for many of the same flowers.)

* Plant dahlia tubers. Other perennials to set out include verbena, coreopsis, coneflower and astilbe.

* Transplant petunias, marigolds and perennial flowers such as astilbe, columbine, coneflowers, coreopsis, dahlias, rudbeckia and verbena.

* Keep an eye out for slugs, snails, earwigs and aphids that want to dine on tender new growth.

* Feed summer bloomers with a balanced fertilizer.

* For continued bloom, cut off spent flowers on roses as well as other flowering plants.

* Put your veggie garden on a regular diet. Set up a monthly feeding program, and keep track on your calendar. Make sure to water your garden before applying any fertilizer to prevent “burning” your plants.

* As spring-flowering shrubs finish blooming, give them a little pruning to shape them, removing old and dead wood. Lightly trim azaleas, fuchsias and marguerites for bushier plants.

* Don’t forget to weed! Those invaders are growing fast.

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