As you can prob­a­bly guess, I'm still in a cit­rus frame of mind. I hap­pened to see some love­ly red grape­fruit be­ing sold at the cor­ner, and I couldn't help but think of how much this fruit has changed from be­ing a (re­duc­ing) di­et sta­ple to an every­day recipe in­gre­di­ent.

What I love about grape­fruit in par­tic­u­lar is that they are not on­ly beau­ti­ful to look at (with their pink and red hued selves), but they are so good for our bod­ies over­all. The av­er­age grape­fruit con­tains vi­t­a­min C and the fi­bre pectin, and the pink and red hued ones con­tain the ben­e­fi­cial an­tiox­i­dant ly­copene. Stud­ies have al­so shown grape­fruit helps low­er cho­les­terol and there is ev­i­dence that the seeds have an­tiox­i­dant prop­er­ties – the mois­ture is ac­tu­al­ly ex­tract­ed from the seeds and sold sep­a­rate­ly. (But enough about that...) Just trust me when I say that grape­fruit can go be­yond be­ing eat­en as is or made in­to juice. The mixed peel you put in­to your cakes has some grape­fruit in it. Jams, jel­lies and mar­malade can al­so be made with grape­fruit. Did you know that you can al­so make a Grape­fruit Sal­ad? I've got the recipe right here for you, along with an easy Cit­rus and Pineap­ple mar­malade, def­i­nite Eye Food!

En­joy!

Grape­fruit and Man­go sal­ad

In­gre­di­ents

1 ripe pink or reg­u­lar grape­fruit, peeled and

seg­ment­ed

1 firm ripe man­go, peeled, de seed­ed and cut in­to strips

1 small bunch of pars­ley, minced

2 medi­um leaves of chan­don beni, sliced very thin

½ a red sweet pep­per, sliced thin­ly

Pinch of salt

1 cap­fuls ap­ple cider vine­gar

A squeeze of lime juice

Method

• In a large bowl, toss in the grape­fruit seg­ments, man­go strips, pars­ley, chadon beni, and sweet pep­per to­geth­er.

• Add in the salt, ap­ple cider vine­gar and lime juice; taste for tangi­ness.

• Set in the re­frig­er­a­tor to chill for about

20 min­utes be­fore serv­ing.

Cit­rus & Pineap­ple mar­malade

In­gre­di­ents

2 medi­um grape­fruits

2 medi­um limes

2 medi­um or­anges

4 cups wa­ter

1 small pineap­ple, peeled and chopped fine­ly

Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 6 cups of sug­ar

2 ta­ble­spoons fresh lime juice

Method

• Peel the rind thin­ly from the grape­fruit, limes and

or­anges, avoid­ing the white pith.

• Cut the rind in­to thin strips.

• Re­move and dis­card the pith from the cit­rus fruit;

re­serve the seeds and tie them in a piece of muslin.

• Chop the cit­rus fruit fine­ly.

• Com­bine the rind, muslin bag, cit­rus flesh and the wa­ter

in a large bowl; cov­er and let stand overnight.

• Trans­fer the mix­ture in­to a large saucepan, add

pineap­ple; bring to a boil. Re­duce heat; sim­mer cov­ered

for about 45 min­utes or un­til the rind is very ten­der.

Dis­card the muslin bag.

• Mea­sure the fruit mix­ture, al­low 1 cup of sug­ar to each

cup of fruit mix­ture.

• Re­turn fruit mix­ture with sug­ar to pan. Stir over heat,

with­out boil­ing, un­til sug­ar dis­solves.

• Add juice; boil un­cov­ered, stir­ring oc­ca­sion­al­ly, about 35

min­utes or un­til mar­malade gels when test­ed.

• Let it stand for 5 min­utes, then pour the hot mar­malade

in­to hot ster­ilised jars.

• Seal them while they're hot.