Winter is a tough season for most fruits and vegetables, but not for citrus fruits! They grow in warmer places than Utah, like Southern California and Florida, but we still get to take advantage of all they have to offer us!
The citrus family of fruit includes a lot of the usual fruit we expect, including lemons, limes, oranges, and grapefruit, but it also has quite a few other fruit we may not see as often. Different citrus fruit has been grown and harvested since ancient times, and they were an important part of trade throughout history. These plants can hybridize easily, which means its easy to mix the pollen of one with the flower of another and create an entirely new type of fruit!
Now, there are a few thousand different plants in the same family as the citrus fruits we know and love, and a few unique and interesting types are available for a short time during the winter in the US depending on where you live. Its fun to to try new things! Which of these lemons and limes would you like to try?
A really pretty, and very flavorful type of orange is the bright red blood orange. The peel is still orange, but the inside can be any shade from pink to almost black-red! It is still sweet like an orange, and the darker color means that there are different vitamins in there than in an orange-centered orange. Many grocery stores have blood oranges in February, since red and pink foods are in high demand this month.
Try out this pretty red lemonade with your friends or family, and if you’re all planning a Valentine’s Day dinner, this could be the perfect addition to the menu.
