Happy thanksgiving! We decided at the last minute to get away for thanksgiving. Watered my trees good this morning and headed to the beach. Already looked at a few places here for citrus trees for sale. Haven't found any yet. We will eat the Calamondin pie when we return home.

Hope everyone has a wonderful thanksgiving!

John, Happy one to you too! Did you leave the 'sugar ' out. or does this recipe not call for sugar?

Happy Thanksgiving to all my citrus friends! John, I hope to see your pics! I intend to make a lemon meringue pie tomorrow with my meyers (I have about five that are perfectly ripe). I’ll post pics if I remember before it’s eaten. I thought of also making key lime pie, but that may be too ambitious ;-)

Mike, the sugar is in the sweetened condensed milk.

I should have pointed out that the kumquats should be the sweet, round meiwas, not the sour oblong nagamis. Possibly can use nagamis but probably would need to increase the sugar.

Don't forget the Marumi, Fukushu, and sunquat. You will need less sugar on these.

Steve

I have been wondering what to do with my ripening sunquats....pie??? John, you inspired me and I just created a citrus brine for my turkey. It will sit in it all night. It smelled GREAT! I used two calamondins, one persian lime, one store-bought tangelo, and two limequats. I also added an onion, some white wine, some fresh thyme, and some peppercorns. I will report tomorrow about the flavor.

And the brine had the salt, of course.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you too. Will be quiet here tomorrow as both daughter are working (both in medical area) But no reason to skip the lemon meringue pie. :)

Sunquats? How do they differ from mandarin or orangequats?

They taste a lot better than mandarin or orangequats.

I’m not sure Susanne, but I think they are a combination of meyer lemon and some type of kumquat. I have one and it has lots of them nearly ripe, I’m just not sure what to do with them. I suspect they will be too sour to eat out of hand.

I made 2 Meyer lemon meringue pies today for a Thanksgiving invite tomorrow. I am a chef; so to me they are a disaster; but they look good; and the flavor will be superb.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Cory

Happy easter everyone!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Have a beautiful day! :)

John, thank you for the recipe! Sounds delish! :)

Happy Thanksgiving! My wife just made Lime bars from a few of our key limes off the tree. They were delicious and I am looking forward to other fun recipes with our citrus.

John that recipe sounds incredible. I love all those things and to combine them into a bakeless pie is genius! Except the kumquats because I've never tried them before. I'm going to bookmark and keep this recipe for the future :) Thanks for sharing it with us!

My family's thanksgiving dinner will be delayed since half of us have come down with really bad colds. I had planned to bake a chocolate cake for both my sister's birthday and thanksgiving. I found a recipe that recreates the chocolate cake from the movie 'Matilda' but I was going to omit the blood and sweat of course :) so basically a plain chocolate cake hah

Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I'm really happy and thankful to have found such a great citrus growing community here. And it's really all of you (the people) that make it great, not just the platform!

I ended up making a Meyer lemon tart...OMG, the custard is so incredibly good! I’ll post pics once it’s out! Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

As promised, here are some photos of my Thanksgiving citrus-inspired dishes.

Here is the Dancy tangerine marmalade. It didn't set well but sure is good on scones! I used a quick cook recipe that includes pectin. Recipes I have used with longer cook times seem to concentrate the bitters from the peel and the section membranes and reduces the fresh citrus flavor.

Here is the kumquat pie from the recipe above...would like to find a substitute for the sweetened condensed milk but it's still my favorite citrus pie. It has a half-cup of lemon juice and I usually use a liberal 3/4 cup of kumquat pure' so it runs high on citrus flavor!

And here is the Cabernet Cranberry Kumquat Sauce in the makings. I wound up diluting the resulting dish by mixing it with a batch of regular recipe cranberries. It still was way too winey for my taste. Next time, I plan to use water instead of wine and let the kumquats come through without competing with the wine flavor. I think one could use 3/4 cup of water and 1/4 cup of wine just to add a subtle complexity to the sauce.

Looks all yummy. How did the kumquat sauce turned out? Are those Nagami kumquats?

YUM!!! John that looks amazing!!!

Impressive, John

Thanks....it was all pretty tasty but I wasn't crazy about the cabernet-cranberry-kumquat sauce. There was way too much wine for my taste...suggest cutting the wine way down with water. Susanne, I used meiwa kumquats.

Laura, how did the citrus brine work out?? Also, maybe you could share the lemon tart recipe you were raving about! Or just a few keywords and we can search for it. I have a few meyers I'm waiting on to ripen up and I want to take advantage of their unique flavor with a great recipe. Since the meyer peel isn't bitter, I was thinking of using it in a marmalade but there should be enough to make a couple of things.

Yummy! Everything you made looks so tantalizing, John. I love homemade marmalade and scones, so the Dancy marmalade looks so scrumptious to me. Very pretty in jars..

What kind of substitute are you looking for to replace the condensed milk in the pie.. a dairy free and or healthier version? More natural ingredients? I found a few substitute recipes for you to look at..

https://www.kitchenstewardship.com/recipes/healthy-homemade-sweetened-condensed-milk/

http://www.unconventionalbaker.com/recipes/sweetened-condensed-milk-substitute-instant-raw-dairy-free-refined-sugar-free/

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.godairyfree.org/dairy-substitutes/substitute-condensed-milk-buttermilk-sweetened-powder/amp

Jinnylea, thanks for the substitution research! I would like to be able to use zulka sugar or even substitute in a small amount of honey. I was told one can make homemade condensed milk but that it takes a long time to condense it down over low heat. I wonder if I could even use plain yogurt or Greek yogurt. Yogurt is acidic so it might help set up the whipped cream (like the lemon juice) but I'm not sure how much the condensed milk plays a part in that chemistry. Adding lemon juice to whipped cream and yogurt might just make a mess since the protein in yogurt is already denatured in the yogurt fermentation.

As far as pies go, that's already a fairly decent one in terms of sugar content but it would be nice to nudge it to a better sugar or a lower sugar so I can eat more of it!!

Thanks Jinnylea

Everything I need to know for my vegan potlucks.

Steve

I was wondering about substituting the kumquats. I have only a Meyer tree that will probably not fruit for another year. Could I use any type of store bought citrus to replace them in this recipe? The more I check this thread for updates, the stronger my craving to have this pie!

kvetch, I think the half cup of lemon juice is a requirement unless you substitute another very acidic ingredient that will curdle the dairy products. I think you could easily replace the 3/4 cup of kumquat pure' with another ingredient just so long as you don't add too much liquid and don't mess up the chemistry that causes the pie to set. Kumquat pure' is actually so sticky and non-runny that it will remain in the measuring cup when it's turned upside down...so keep that in mind as you look for another fruit (?) to replace kumquats. Please share if you find something good! I think you could use raspberries, blackberries, cranberries, or blueberries just so long as you drain off any free juice once you mash/pure' them. Some of those might actually have enough of their own acidity to allow you to leave their natural juice and reduce the lemon juice a bit to make up for it.

Ohh thank you so much John! I've never eaten kumquats so describing the purée texture will be really helpful for making the pie. Whichever fruits that call to me in the store is what I'll experiment with. I'll definitely let you know if I manage to find a decent alternative to kumquats

Calamondins are a decent alternative to kumquats; but they need more sugar and the flavor is a bit different.

Johnmerr, oh boy! That would be perfect! I'm going to try keeping the kumquat pure' but use calamondin juice in place of lemon. I think this is going to be outstanding!

I was so excited to try substituting calamondin juice instead of lemon juice that I dashed outside and picked some calamondins. I still had kumquat pure' in the fridge from cooking last week. Here are the calamondins sliced and ready to juice...I juiced eight big ones and had about 3/4 cup of juice so I drank about 1/4 cup...hooo wee, it's sour!

Here is how I juice calamondins. They give up their juice fairly readily if you mash them against the strainer and rub them around a bit.

Here is the whipped cream and sweetened condensed milk combined. Next comes the calamondin juice, whip in, and then whip in the kumquat pure' but don't over whip after adding the kumquat. The mixture should be trying to set up after whipping in the lemon or calamondin juice.

I didn't take a finished photo since it looked about the same as the original recipe. It may be my imagination but the filling didn't seem to be setting up as thick as the lemon juice version. I'll check in the morning and try to give an update.

Calamondin pie sounds fantastic also! I hope it sets up for you, John. It looks like the "juices" are really flowing in your kitchen. Lol.. Very inspiring! :)

I just ate my very first ripe Calamondin yesterday. I loved it! I let it get very ripe before I picked it. The peel was darker orange in color and the fruit a bit soft. I slowly bit into the peel and nibbled on it and boy was it thin, tender and sweet. The flesh was juicy, tangy with a shot of orange flavor that was really good mixed with the peel. It was only slightly sour and it did not leave any bitter after taste in my mouth. What a wonderful surprise! I thought Calamondin fruit would be more sour, but I did read that if you leave it on the tree a bit longer the fruit would sweeten up a bit! I saved a slice to simmer in my tea, that was sweetened with a bit of raw honey. It was so good. The Calamondin fruit tasted very similar to the Marumi Kumquat but I rank the Calamondin a bit higher for overall flavor. The little tree is loaded with little green fruits so I cannot wait until they are ripe to eat fresh, make marmalade and dry some peel for tea etc.

And yes, I saved the seeds for planting . :)

Update on the pie....it did set but not as well as the lemon juice version. The calamondins I used were dead ripe. The juice from them seemed really tart when I tried some but it must not have the acidity of lemon juice. The lemon juice version is clearly more tart and I much prefer the flavor of the lemon juice version. Clearly, the lemon juice stays but I have some raspberries left from another recipe....hmmmmm.

Jinny, great description of your first calamondin experience! They are REALLY great additions to lemonade. They add complexity to the flavor and it smells wonderful. I also like to squeeze a whole calamondin into a glass of orange juice and add just a spritz of 7-Up for carbonation.

Jinny, that is so exciting!! John, please update us on the flavor! I may need to try that pie!

Lol John. I’d not seen you update! Thanks!

Thanks Jinny for the detailed description on the calamondin. Interesting that you think its flavor is similar to a marumi kumquat. I've been wondering whether to order the marumi but if the calamondin tastes better I'll skip it. I'm not a fan of sour fruits and my calamondin is loaded with lots of green fruit, I hope some will ripen over the winter.

John, the Calamondin smelled wonderfully intoxicating when I sliced into it. It had a fresh, but strong orange citrusy essence. I wonder if I grate and dry some of the peel if it would retain some of that essence. .?

cf03, I loved the Calamondin and was pleasantly surprised by how similar it was in taste to the Marumi Kumquat. The Calamondin had a slightly thinner, sweet peel and the flesh was juicy with a bit more orange essence and less sour in flavor. They are both winners as far as I am concerned. For Kumquat's I have only tasted the Nagami, Meiwa (only picked one ripe one so far, maybe not a fair evaluation yet) and the Marumi..Marumi Kumquat is my favorite so far between the three. Keep in mind that everyone's taste buds/sensors are different and picking the fruit at the right time of ripeness is key, along with how the tree is grown.. temperature, soil, light, water, how you feed it, age of tree etc... All effect the fruit quality.

Here is a picture of the Marumi Kumquat tree with fruit..

So Jinny would you say the calamondin is less sour than the marumi? I've been using calamondin juice in water which is delicious but never thought to eat the peel. Oops :) I've got one meiwa slo-o-wly turning orange, I'll see how that tastes. My centennial kumquat's been dropping yellow-green fruits and the juice is tolerable in water but for me the peel is inedible - bland yet sour.

cf03, the peel on the Calamondin is sweet and thin. Very nice texture. Try it next time..The flesh is juicy, slightly tart (when left on tree a bit longer) and great blend of citrus flavor with strong orange nuance.. For me it was "slightly" less sour than the Marumi Kumquat. Neither had any bitter after taste. The one ripe Meiwa Kumquat I ate tasted a bit like soap. Hoping that it improves with age..

I have a young Centennial Variagated Kumquat also. It dropped all of its fruit so I have not had the pleasure to taste it.. yet. I really hope it is not inedible. It is budding out again so I hope it keeps a few fruit..

Thank you Jinny for the detailed description of the calamondin. i will definitely try the peel when the fruits ripen. I do like to leave them on the tree as long as possible to get more golden and improve the taste. I think I'll pass on the marumi and will wait to see how my meiwa tastes, hope it won't taste like soap.

As for the centennial, the fruits really weren't anywhere near ripe so not surprising they were sour. They were juicy and the peel has a crisp-crunchy texture which I liked. Maybe if I ever get a properly ripe one that's fully orange, it'll be good to eat fresh.