Sometimes you buy taste duds for the table and you're uncertain what to do with them. Fruit and vegetables that just aren't up to par. It was like that when we bought some navel oranges that looked appealing, while we were awaiting the arrival of the huge luscious navel orange crop that comes in from Florida at this time of year. These oranges, however, were absolutely without taste. Barely even an orangey taste; no sweetness, juicy but without any distinction.

Grin and bear it and eat them? Hmm. Not when we acquired those others, finally, to tempt our taste buds as morning wake-ups. I've made muffins in the past with ground-up oranges and they've been good. But that would use only one orange.  How about a recipe that would use three of those nice-looking and yech-tasting golden orbs?

So I grated the zest of several oranges, and Irving squeezed the juice and some pulp out of three of them, and the way forward to making a very nice dessert was opened. Orange squares, how about that? Tangy, light and full of taste and texture, with a little bit of help from other ingredients. A nice top-up to tonight's dinner.

First the crust, comprised of 2/3 cup of Becel margarine, 1/4 cup of brown sugar, 1/4 tsp.salt, 1/2 tsp.baking powder, 1 tsp.vanilla, and a brimming cup of unbleached white flour. Patting the resulting dough firmly into a prepared baking dish, it got baked for 20 minutes at 350 F. Then the filling, starting with a cup of granulated sugar, three very large eggs, the grated orange zest (2 tbsp.), 1/4 cup flour, and a cup of fresh orange juice (it took three of the oranges) whipped together and poured over the baked crust. Back into the oven for 40 minutes until the filling was nicely firmed up.

Not long after that came out of the oven and a chicken soup put on to cook, we took ourselves out to the ravine for our daily hike under a bright blue sky and beaming sun that was melting the snow off the canopy over the deck, even at -2C. The street had been plowed, but it was tougher making our way over the still-snow-filled street than on the trails in the forest.

At no time is the sun more startlingly appropriate in a landscape than of a winter afternoon following a snowstorm as it beams its fiercely bright rays through the forest trees. The camera of your eyes takes a memory-flash of the landscape for future reference as you remark you've never seen anything more bright and beautiful -- with its promise of spring not too far beyond.

Fittingly for such a beautiful day we met up with quite a number of hiking acquaintances and their dogs, from an old black Lab that was happy to embed himself into the deepest accumulation of snow sinking fully half way into it, moving his massive head fondly on the snow, opening his mouth to gulp one swallow after another of the cold, wet stuff. To the three border collies from the same litter, always together, attentive to where their humans are at all times and like working dogs tending to be aloof to all others.

Invariably on these days when we return home and  hoist Jackie and Jillie up on the washer and dryer in the laundry room, we use stiff bristle brushes to gently rake the snow off their legs, dry them, and send them off to race through the house in an excess of energy and happiness.