Sunny Citrus Salad

Last weekend I visited the nephew and nieces.  My favorite thing to do!  They’re my favorite recipe testers because they are super honest.  And they’re the cutest.

Forgive me if we cross paths and all I want to do is hold my phone up to your face to show you my video and picture collection of them.  Life is short, I only have one chance to be the annoying aunt who can prove her nephew and nieces are the cutest.

When I visit the kiddos, we usually do a cooking project.  This time we conducted a citrus tasting.  Citrus fruits are best eaten in the winter because that’s their season to grow. Seasonal eating is a smart thing to do.

We started with the largest orange citrus down to the smallest green citrus.

1. grapefruit
2. navel orange
3. blood orange
4. tangelo
5. tangerine
6. lemon
7. standard lime
8. key lime

The nephew wanted to include his friends, Lenny, Tuck-Tuck, and Ming.  Sweet boy he is, to include his friends. 

First, I cut each one open to show the beautiful colors of each.  Bright, vibrant and lovely colors.

Then they tasted the orange fruits.

Thumbs up…they liked the orange colored citrus!

Next, they tasted the yellow lemon and green limes.

No thumbs needed.  Pucker up!

After the pucker up, we built a sunny citrus salad.  The nephew informed me that he did not like lettuce but he liked to help with the salad.  Sweet boy, always wants to help.

Out of my three nieces, this niece is the all inclusive package.  She wants to help make it, eat it, be first, be the best, be the cutest.  She is the sweetest spice in my life.

Remind me to show you the video of her singing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.

The next American Idol.  You heard about it here, first.  

Then they practiced their knife skills

chop, chop, chop

Cutest lemon squeezer, ever!

Sweetest and smartest lemon squeezer, ever!

Shaking the vinaigrette…check out his intense facial expression.  He takes his shaking serious.

They added a few pecans and blueberries and then tossed the salad.

Then the real test came…taste time.  We have a couple of rules about eating.

1. No yuk, gross, or ewwww talk
2. You have to be willing to taste everything.  If you don’t like it, you can spit it out.

After he tasted everything including the fruit, he said, “I don’t like it because the lettuce touched it and that means the lettuce is inside it.”

Miss Sweet-Spice loved it.  That’s my girl 🙂

The lesson learned:

• You win some, you lose some but learning happened here and we made a memory together with beautiful food.

This little angel was having her afternoon nap during all of the citrus learning.

Soon, she too will be cookin’ with Lala.

Happy Cooking!

 

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