Out for blood

January might not seem like the most promising month for fresh fruit, but that’s only if you forget about citrus. My current favorite of these juicy fruits is the blood orange, with its aromatic juice, sweet raspberry-like flavor and vivid color. If you can get your hands on a lot of them, try juicing them for breakfast or for a scarlet mimosa. Otherwise, slice ’em up for a compote with spiced syrup and little butter cookies, dice the flesh and use it in a fruit salad to go over slices of pound cake, segment them to use in a salad topped with seared scallops or grilled shrimp, or just eat them in sections for a different take on that old soccer-game snack. (While you’re at it, an orange-peel grin with the mottled-red skin of blood oranges is extra-goofy.) Their sunny flavor and crimson hue will put a quick stop to January blues.