Growing up, my mother would get boxes of mandarin oranges at Christmas time. How well I remember eating orange after orange while watching Christmas movies and reading books (my favorite hobby). It was a very special treat and probably gave me a lot of vitamin C during cold and flu season!
Oranges are one of those foods that speak Christmas to me. As does desserts like orange curd…more on that in a second.
One of Real Food Media’s sponsors, Chaffin Family Orchards offered to send me a box of their mandarins and I said “Yes, please!” All those memories rushed back as I sampled these delicious sweet and tart oranges. And these are way better than my childhood ones because they are cultivated to organic standards (though not certified), the peels haven’t been treated in the least, and they came from old trees which means flavorful and sweet oranges.
After enjoying these for a day or two and loving how good they were, I asked Chris of Chaffin Family Orchards if he would like to do a giveaway of these beautiful oranges. I was thrilled that he agreed. One lucky reader will get a beautiful large box of mandarin oranges, worth 40 dollars retail. For the rest of you, I would definitely consider buying a box this Christmas season (shipping is free). They ship until December the 14th.
To Enter the contest, keep reading. But first let me give you a lovely recipe for mandarins, orange curd. It’s sweet and creamy and really quite simple to make. The mandarins were a great choice for the curd since they are really flavorful with just a slight tartness to it. I filled little tart shells with the curd and topped with fresh mandarin oranges (delicious!). You can also use it as a cake filling, top fresh fruit with it, serve it on top of chocolate pudding (doesn’t that sound divine?), or just eat it off the spoon (seriously good).
Sweet Orange Curd
This is a more frugal version of curd, because, like the Joy of Cooking’s version, I use whole eggs instead of just the egg yolks. However, you could substitute 6 egg yolks for the whole eggs for a super rich curd.3 large eggs
1/4 cup of honey
Grated zest of one orange (1 1/2 tablespoons)
1/2 cup of fresh orange juice juice
6 tablespoons virgin coconut oil, ghee, or butter.1-In a medium stainless steel or enamel saucepan, whisk together the first three ingredients until light colored.
2-Add the the coconut oil, ghee or butter, breaking it into small clumps as you drop it into the pot for even melting. Then add the orange juice.
3-Cook, whisking, over medium heat until the coconut oil is melted. Continue to cook until the mixture thickens and you start to see a few bubbles popping at the surface, and remove immediately from the heat, still whisking to prevent the eggs from getting overcooked.
4-Scrape into a fine sieve set over a bowl. Strain the curd by gently stirring through the sieve.
5-Refrigerate for several hours to thicken. Will keep about one week in the refrigerator.
Contest Rules
This contest will end on December the first at 11:59 PM PST. The winner will be chosen via random.org, and will be announced on December the 2nd. You must live within the United States to enter this contest.
Like all of the giveaways done with my sponsors I will be receiving a small compensation for hosting this giveaway.
Thanks so much Chaffin Family Orchards for a great Holiday Giveaway!
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[…] you haven’t already check out the Mandarin Orange Giveaway!. And no, we aren’t having Pennywise Platter Thursday tomorrow. It will resume again next […]
Marlene
I am agreeing with you. Oranges = Christmas for me. I have fond childhood memories of a bowl full of oranges (1 is just not enough) and The Sound of Music on TV!
Nat
Figs & persimmons would be wonderful to order from CA. My children adore figs. I enjoy & visit your website several times a week. Thanks for sharing your ideas & recipes.
Sharon
I so enjoy your blog and all the great recipes. But I would love to be able to order online some of Chaffin’s figs & persimmons….Yummy.
Sarahjess
Figs! (Though I imagine they might not ship all that great when ripe.)
Love your blog. We make lemon & lime curd — but I don’t strain it. We enjoy the little bits of zest (and it’s easier, too). Will have to try the orange next….
Ashley
The Lisbon lemons sound really interesting, so it’d be fun to try those, but cherries are my absolute FAVORITE fruit, and having really healthy and tasty ones would be great!
Denise Schwalm
I would love to try their jam on some homemade biscuits, yum! I would also like to try their olive oil. Oranges would be great too, thanks for the chance to win some.
kari
mmm…I’d love to see the lisbon lemons available online. They sound great!
Lark
The stone fruit for me! We have a fair amount at the farmer’s market where I live, but it’s rarely organic. Chaffin’s sound wonderful.
Michele
My vote is a tie–any of the pasture raised meats or the unfiltered olive oil.
Krissy
I enjoyed reading about their farm and the guardian dogs. I would pick the mandarin orangesto sell online.
Sharon
Cherries and Figs. And everything else. I’d love to live close to a place like that. Nothing like that around here.
Stephanie
I would like to see the jams for sale online. We have to watch our sugar intake and always buy the fruit spreads at the store. Those taste fine, but I bet the jams from Chaffin Farms are much better. Their lemons, fruit, and olive oil all sound great. Thanks for letting us know about Chaffin Farms!
Kim
Chaffin’s looks fabulous. Wish we lived close enough to try all their offerings. But I’d settle for some cherries online.
Renee
While I LOVE oranges just like you – can’t get enough of them. I would love to have the wonderful cherries available online.
Please enter me in the contest.
Thanks!
Renee
Amy
Figs! I’ve always wanted to try a fresh fig but I live in the midwest and have never even seen one 🙁
Mimi Lista
I would love to be able to order persimmons and mandarins. We grew up eating persimmons and organic persimmons are not easy to find. Mandarins are delicious, especially when they are cold.
Stephanie
I would love to see Fuji Persimmons, it says shipping available. I could be thinking of these because it is fall 🙂
karen
I too would love to see their stone fruit for sale online. And, I have never had fresh mandarin oranges that I know of, but I would definitely make your creamy orange curd tarts if I had some. I will probably make it anyway.
Sharon
Are you kidding me 🙂 EVERYTHING 🙂 Or they could just open up shop here in Idaho too 🙂
Jamie
I would love to see the olives available! My whole family loves olives, and to have organic ones would be wonderful!
Jana
If the Lisbon lemons were available online, I would order them. I live in a place where there is not much fresh citrus available, let alone organic citrus.
meg
hello-
checked the Chaffin Family Orchard website and wished we lived close to them. appreciated how they took pride and effort in their work to produce real food. however- it seems that the only produce available to click and order was the oranges. the olive oil was offered but perhaps they ran out. it mentioned that other fruites were available as well but it was not easily accessible by 1 click….guess we had to call/email them direct?
the website speaks well about how wonderful the all products are….i would want all of them to be available for shipping as we live in an urban east coast
city that has limited access to these wonderful products.
thank you for sharing a wonderful resource for real food.
Katie
Fresh olives! I would *love* to be able to cure my own.
Candy
I would love to see Ruby Red Grapefruit for sale online.
Lisa
Olives and olive oil 🙂
Amber
The citrus (lemons, oranges, grapefruit)… I recently moved from a state that had an abundance of these up to a northern state, and boy do I ever miss my fresh backyard citrus! The figs would be nice too…
I can’t wait to try the orange curd. I’ve made and absolutely love lemon curd. Now to just find good oranges…
Naomi
My uncle was diagnosed celiac 45ish years ago, long before gluten free flours were available. His birthday was around Christmas, and manderines were considered expensive where my mom grew up, so his birthday cake was a pyramid of mangerines on a plate.
Tiffany
Any fresh fruit makes me happy. I have always wanted to try goat meat.
Holly
Figs! I have a new recipe that I am dying to make. Love your recipes, thanks for sharing.
Vicki Medvick
My kids love canned mandarin oranges…I know they would really like a case of these fresh ones! That would really brighten up our cool December, here in the desert! Thanks so much for doing this!
Deb
I’d like to see the grass fed beef available online – and also the chickens- Yum! Thanks for hosting a giveaway – hope your Thanksgiving is wonderful 🙂
Amy
I would love to try the persimons! But i loved reading about the guardian dogs! Hoping to try out your recipe, it is making my mouth water 🙂
Cher
WOW. There is so very much. I would be interested in several items. Figs, lemons, mandarines. YES! 😀
emily- www.mplsrealfoodlover.com
these tarts look wonderful. do you have a recipefor the shell?
the giveaway is awesome, too! the products i would most want to see available online is already available- the olive oil!
Judy Veloski
I love your blog! We have a “local” service suppling organic and local produce and meats, but this is Pennsylvania, so winters we don’t get much produce. Don’t know how it would ship, but all the fruits look good to me. But I think the best thing to offer would be olive oil, the unfiltered sounds yummy!
Elizabeth Rotering
Cherries!!!!
Yum Yum
My kids would be so delighted with them
Elizabeth
Jen
Love those oranges………..
I would say olive oil, just because the other items I would rather get fresh locally too…….. wish I lived closer to them though!
Laurie
I would like to see the figs available for shipping. My daughter loves mandarin oranges and I’ll have to try your recipe.
Lydia
Those tarts look so delicious! I can’t wait to make them! Do you think you could post the crust recipe? It looks like almond meal?
Love the Chaffin Orchard website. I would love to try their cherries, olive oil, or jams. It’s really too hard to choose!
Johanna
I’d love to be able to order fresh nectarines. The ones I can get here always taste off since they don’t grow well here.
I also love mandarins at Christmas. I eat A LOT of them every year!
Gia
Never made curd before but I think I need to try now. That looks yumm! The cherries and peaches!! I would like to order some olives. Really anything they have to offer. Would love the oranges to go with the curd!
tami lewis
i love it all but i will say the meats cuz i have such a hard time in my area with that.
Cornelia
So right now Chaffin only has their satsumas orderable online? I’d say a good addition to that offering might be other items that are regional specialties but easily shippable. Fresh figs and olives for example (and I’d sure like to be able to buy fresh figs!). Persimmons and Pomegranates may be good choices, too, but as a consumer I have other options for those. Goat meat is another item that my local stores don’t carry although frozen products pose shipping challenges. I’ll probably check back on their site later and see what they do start selling more broadly. Please enter me in the drawing, Kimi. 😎
Maria
Sweet giveaway! I enjoyed looking through the website, the olives and figs looked most appealing to me, but it seems to me that olives would ship really easily as opposed to figs that i would think would bruise too easily and ripen too quickly.
Susanna
Meats are great, though probably a better deal to purchase locally than pay for shipping…
RG
I, too, would like to see the olives and figs sold online. A lot of what they sell is very appealing, but the shipping costs do seem like they would cancel much of the benefit. Please enter me into the drawing!
Pampered Mom
Oh…the figs!!
Molly Chester
Hi There!
Great site! I would most like to see the Bing Cherries online b/c I have a hard time finding those, so I would be most likely to order them.
Thanks for the opportunity!
Warmly,
Molly Chester
Lindsey @ The Herbangardener
Mmm, the olive oil!