Iron Chef NY - Kumquats

For those who have seen Iron Chef America on the Food Network, you know that it is a challenge between two chefs to make a five course meal, each course including the "secret ingredient".  Well my youngest brother is in town visiting for a couple of days and came with two plastic grocery bags relatively full of kumquats.  I'd never seen or eaten a kumquat before but hey, around here, we don't turn down fresh produce in the middle of winter!

For those unaware (like I was before noon today), a kumquat is a small, golf-ball sized citrus fruit with really thin skin that you can eat and it's not yucky like eating an orange peel straight up. These kumquats came to our door from St. Simon Island, GA and I'm told grow year round. 

My Brother's initial inkling was to make marmalade.  Since he arrived on the eve of icy-yucky weather, and I didn't have all the makings for the marmalade, we went to plan B and consulted with google on kumquat recipes.  Thanks to the Kumquat Growers we found some pretty good recipes.  Here's the bowl-o-kumquats we started with: 

From here we went on to make kumquat pound cake - so good but so bad for you!

Kumquat, Oatmeal and White Chocolate Chip Cookies - also very yummy...

Ginger Candied Kumquats (we added ginger)

Ginger Candied Kumquat Cream Cheese Dip with Almond Crisp Crackers

and for dinner we had a Polynesian type pork stir fry with a kumquat-pineapple-teriyaki marinade with rice and mixed veggies.  I forgot to take a "before" picture of the finished dish, but here is what the marinade looked like 

and this is all that was left: 

And with all that - there are still quite a few kumquats left - looks like I could end up making marmalade yet!

(and so far it doesn't seem that kumquats have any labor inducing properties) :D

~sjt