Welcome to "Zest Your Food"!

Welcome to "Zest Your Food" -- a blog for food lovers. I have been using a lot of citrus zest in my cooking and thought I should share my recipes with other food lovers -- so I created this blog for all food lovers out there.

I love citrus fruits - orange, lemon, lime, tangerine, tangelo (or honeybell tangerine) and grapefruit -- you name it, I love it! I will discuss the health benefits of citrus fruits later. I don't throw away any citrus peel. I lay the peels on a cutting board and remove the pith from the citrus peel with a sharp knife and then chop up the zest finely. I put the zest in a plastic container which I store in the freezer. I find grapefruit to be a bit bitter so I have not yet used grapefruit zest yet but I will try it later and let you know if it is any good.

You can also use a "zester" or "grater" to remove the zest; however, I find that just using a thin sharp knife and laying the zest on a cutting board in small strips works just as well and you actually get a better yield. You can run the zest under cold water and then use the knife to gently scrape any remaining pith or albedo. I use a large kitchen chef knife to first finely julienne the zest; then I use the knife to finely chop the julienned zest. I find "zesting" to be a therapeutic exercise -- helps to clear the mind.

I use the zest to flavor food -- pancakes, cakes, pies, fish and chicken. I also love Trader Joe's so you will find that I use a lot of ingredients from Trader Joe's. You can obtain organic ingredients at very reasonable prices from Trader Joe's. I have a funny Trader Joe's story that I will share later.

I will share my recipes on this blog. Try  the recipes and let me know how they turn out for you. 

Happy, healthy and zesty cooking to all!