Winter Jeweled Fruit Salad

When I was a kid, waking up on Christmas morning, we would always find a box of "sugar" cereal from Santa Claus. It was such a treat because the rest of the year, we never had that option. We lived on Shredded Wheat, mush, cornflakes or some other healthy item. Because we got sugar cereal as a gift, we always ate more than a few bowls of it for breakfast, meaning that we didn't usually have a special Christmas morning breakfast.

Well, once I got married, my husband nixed the "sugar" cereal gift, because he thought it was silly. No big deal- mostly because that left me the choice of what we would have on Christmas morning for breakfast. I asked everyone what they wanted this year and they chose biscuits and sausage.
I gave them what they wanted, but included this beautiful salad also.

This salad is a beautiful mix of some of the wonderful fruits that appear this time of year in the grocery store. We love pomegranates, clementimes, and mangoes and they were all superb in this mix. We also eat a lot of jicama, which added a nice little crunch to the salad. I was happy that I was able to find ripe kumquats too. My kids really liked those little guys.
The light lime juice-honey dressing that has a little bit of heat from the ground red pepper, really pulls it all together.

This was beautiful and delicious. I love it when something looks so pretty and colorful and also has great tastes and textures.

Recipe for Winter Jeweled Fruit Salad
* I used a red skinned pear to add color to the salad
* I couldn't find any blood oranges, anywhere, so I used a grapefruit and an orange instead

Tangelo-Tangerine Pudding

I know it is going to be very hard to believe, but we are on our 4th snow day here. My kids are getting so used to sleeping in and playing on the giant ice skating rink that is now our yard, that I don't think they will ever want to get up early and go back to school. The sun has come out though, so we might get some of this thick white stuff melted today.

I remember as a kid/teen, my Dad always buying a large box of grapefruit or other citrus sometime in December. He would put the huge box in the basement or garage and all the members of my family would go and get the delicious citrus whenever we wanted to. It seemed like the box lasted forever and the fruit from it was always so good. There is something about citrus fruits in the winter.

So, in honor of that memory and also because I was craving some delicious citrus, this December I bought a half-bushel of citrus from someone that I know, who was doing a school fundraiser. When the goods arrived, I couldn't believe how big a half-bushel is. I had more than my fair share of tangelos, tangerines, clementines, and a few grapefruit. The clementines and grapefruit were devoured first, while some of the tangerines and tangelos gave my kids a little trouble because of all those darn little seeds.

Anyway, some how I saw this picture and I knew that the remaining tangelo/tangerines must be juiced and turned into this beautiful pudding. I don't know why the color of my pudding isn't as orange and beautiful as that picture, but the taste I am sure was the same. Delightful.
There isn't much too this dessert, but it is so refreshing. My entire family loved it.



Of course, as soon as I made this pudding and put in in the fridge to chill, I went outside and checked the mail. The new Cooking Light had arrived and it contained a modified version of this pudding.

I used this recipe-
Recipe for Tangelo-Tangerine Pudding
* I added an extra Tablespoon of sugar at the beginning
* I used the optional butter
* I omitted the orange rose water

And a modified version from this month's Cooking Light- Citrus Pudding with Whipped Cream