The Blood of Oranges

The mere act of buying blood oranges makes you feel ridiculously gourmand.  Even if they just sit in the colander and rot, the fact remains that you have them in the house.  “What, blood oranges, of course I have some, who doesn’t?”  I am a sucker for this kind of exotic staple.

I was making parmesan chicken tonight and found I was in the mood to have a salad on the side.  Stacey is always putting blood oranges into interesting salads so I thought I’d make up something without consulting anything.

Unconsulted Salad

1/2 bag of salad mix (mine was a blend of spinach, arugula and other greens)

3-4 blood oranges

1/4 cup chopped pecans

1/4 cup orange-flavored dried cranberries

olive oil, sugar, salt and pepper

I love the idea of oranges in any kind of dish but honestly, peeling and pithing and segmenting them is a pain.  I did these sort of grapefruit-style to get little half-segments.  At least the color was a novelty, they really are pretty.  You get a lot of juice doing this, I just let it all go into the bowl and after I was done I strained the juice into another small bowl.

Toast the pecans in a small skillet over medium-low heat.  And babysit them.  I once watched an episode of Iron Chef where the challengers scorched the pine nuts not once, not twice, but three times.  They lost.

Now, what to do with the juice.  I can’t give any precise measurements, I just sort of fiddled around whisking it with olive oil, sugar, salt, pepper and at the last minute, a sprinkle of dried basil.

Toss greens, orange segments, cranberries and pecans with the dressing and serve.  Jeeps was not in a salad mood, so I ate all of it with the parmesan chicken.  Yum.