Today in the United States we celebrate National Orange Juice Day, and if there’s a more delicious and versatile fruit than the orange, I don’t know what it would be!
As we observe this well-deserved day of recognition, hats off to all the citrus growers and related industries in Florida and beyond for their hard work year in and year out to bring this healthy and delicious food to homes around the world. We appreciate you!
I’ve read that in the 1940s, World War II soldiers didn’t like the vitamin C lemon crystals they were given, so the Florida Department of Citrus was asked to produce an alternative – and the result was frozen concentrated orange juice. While Florida’s not the only place that produces orange juice, we do a lot of it here in our state.
Oranges and their juice are used in my kitchen for a wide range of things – everything from meats to desserts.
And, just eating an orange straight off the tree is a wonderful experience, as is drinking a tall glass of orange juice chock full of vitamin C.
My cooking and baking with oranges and orange juice include pork roasts and turkey breasts in the slow cooker; on freshly caught fish baked in the oven; in a favorite orange, olive oil, and honey bread; in salads and as an accompaniment on platters of all kinds of food; and in orange and dark-chocolate-chunk mini-cakes drizzled with chocolate ganache, to name a few.
Celebrating National Orange Juice Day got me thinking today about all the many ways I use oranges, and I pulled together a few of my photographs for today’s blog post by The Daily Artisan. (I celebrated by drinking the above glass of orange juice immediately after photographing it!)
Happy National Orange Juice Day to all!
Be sure to follow The Daily Artisan on Facebook and Instagram @thedailyartisan, and check out The Daily Artisan online store for note cards of my photographs!
