My brother and his wife shared some oranges from their tree with us! Yay for "fresh off the tree" oranges! Yay for knowing that they haven't been treated with any chemicals! We had fresh squeezed juice for our New Year's Day breakfast. As I was cleaning up, I saw that pile of beautiful orange peel left over and knew I had to save them and make some candied orange peels. I love those orange slice jellied candies you get at the store, but I think we all know they aren't the healthiest so I'm using the excuse that these are made from REAL oranges to justify eating them at an alarming rate. Sure there's sugar in them, but they were made from fruit, therefore they must be healthy. (Just nod your head in agreement-I would do the same for you.)
I'm super proud of how well I used the oranges. We drank the juice, I used the peels for candy, and any leftover scraps went into the compost pile. Don't you love it when it you feel like you did a good job of not being wasteful?
For the candied orange peels, I used Closet Cooking's recipe and they came out perfectly and were less work than the recipe I used last year. Even if you don't have a brother with an orange tree, you can still make these. Oranges are in season now, so they are especially yummy. Just make sure you get organic if you are planning to make candy with the peels.
[...] I find myself facing down a never-ending pile of orange peels. To deal with the pile, I made Candied Orange Peels and a few weeks ago I mixed up some all natural, orange cleaner. It's really easy to [...]