What To Do With The Oranges

It started when I purchased some oranges. I was craving that sweet juicy flavour that seems to be absent in Nova Scotia at this time of year. Sure we can buy oranges, clementines, tangerines and more in the grocery store, but they just don’t cut it. I really thought these ones would because they looked pretty good. Yes they were juicy, but they didn’t have any flavour. What they did have was a slightly bitter after flavour. Talk about disappointing. 

So, trying to make the best of a bad situation and not wanting the oranges to go to waste, I decided that I would cook them somehow. I searched for a recipe that included oranges, was looking for something like a crisp or cobbler and found, after much online scrolling, a recipe in my very old Purity Cook Book called Ambrosia Crisp. It had oranges, bananas, coconut all covered with a lovely crispy topping. You know the topping, the kind that goes so well with apples and blueberries.

I was excited. I peeled and sectioned the oranges, peeled and sliced the bananas, added the coconut and other ingredients and topped it with the crumbs, which were made with butter, brown sugar, oats and flour. It smelled quite good before I put it in the oven. It smelled delicious while it was baking. I was so excited that I could hardly wait to try this wonderful dessert. I had visions of surprising future dinner guests with this variation of a traditional crisp. Conversations stemming from the unique combination of ingredients would circle the table. Surely I would be praised for bringing the recipe back to present day glory. HA!

After a lovely salmon dinner, cooked by my better half, I dished out the dessert, which not only smelled good but presented quite nicely as well. 

My better half can eat anything, and I should have remembered this as he dug into his dessert and swallowed a few spoons before I took a bite from my bowl thinking that it was just fine. Oh my god! It had to be the worst tasting dessert I had ever eaten short of rhubarb. I absolutely hate rhubarb, so on a scale of 1 to 10 any dessert with rhubarb lands at minus 50. This dessert was a close second, a very close second. Say minus 48. All the ingredients that should have improved the oranges were ruined by the oranges. The oranges were worse cooked than they had been raw.  I took two bites then tossed mine into the green bin. Not only did I waste the oranges, but also bananas, coconut and all the other ingredients in the recipe. 

After disposing of my serving, I said that I was going to throw the rest out. Then my husband pipes up, even though he agreed that it wasn’t very good, and said, “I’ll eat it.”

…What was he thinking? Or should I say how was he thinking. Obviously with his stomach not his taste buds.

I have to give him some credit, he did eat another serving the next day, but that was it. A couple of days later, I tossed the rest out while thinking about the wonderful cream pie the coconut could have made. So much for making lemonade from lemons. 

This one is for Sue because she said I should put this story into a blog. 

Thank you for reading.

Photos: Jenn Stone

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