What to do with a case of oranges????

[Shiloh Acres]

I'd love to know how to make the candy dipped into chocolate.

I just recently bought 18 pounds of oranges -- I was about to buy 4 pounds I think it was but the BIG bag was only a couple dollars more. They are almost gone now -- I have maybe a couple pounds left. Ate two for breakfast! I LOVE fresh oranges. I need to find out when the Texas citrus season is.

In Cali, used to get oranges from an abandoned tree at a friend's business. Even better right off the tree. Wish I could grow them here. Might look at a potted mini ...

 

[Marianne]

You think I could find that recipe for candied orange peel??? I have all my recipes scattered on the dining room table as I'm sorting, typing and putting them in three binders AKA my new cookbooks.

You could use any candied orange peel recipe, mine might have been sugared more than some. How my mother taught me was:

Scrape as much 'white' from the peels as you reasonably can, then cut into 3/8" wide strips. Cover with water in a sauce pan, simmer for 20 minutes. Drain water, cover with fresh water, simmer another 20 minutes. Do that a third time but add 1/2 cup sugar (or more) for every cup of water used. Cook uncovered until peels are tender.
Remove with slotted spoon and drop into a plate of sugar. Carefully roll hot peel in the sugar until well coated, then place on wire rack to cool and dry.
Then melt chocolate chips slowly in microwave or in a double boiler. Dip each piece into the chocolate, leaving the end that you're hanging on to as it is. Lay on wax paper to dry.

Like I said, there are many variations that would work according to the level of sugar you like. I think the big thing is to keep draining that water and adding fresh water. That seems to get a lot of the bitterness out, but still leaves you with that punch of orange. There have been times that I simmered the peels for 10 minutes at a time, then changed the water, doing this several times. I always have to 'sample' as I go along, so I know how bitter the peel is.

Yum.

 

[savingdogs]

Thank you for sharing that! What an interesting thing to do with something most of us might throw away.

 

[patandchickens]

Candied orange peel is one of the easiest "sweet things" you can possibly make, and basically foolproof (as long as you taste as you go along, as Marianne says), and impresses the heck out of people. It is quite good with other citrus peels too (I am particularly fond of candied pommelo peel).

Note that citrus crops tend to recieve a lot of chemical sprays though, which are then waxed on and basically unremoveable in the kitchen (and not worried about a whole lot by regulatory bodies AFAIK b/c nobody expects you to eat much of the peel!), so if you are the type to be concerned about such things, you may wish to seek out organic or otherwise-unsprayed oranges etc for candying.

If you have leftover bits of candied citrus peel and they get kind of old and hard, chop them up and put into quickbread recipes (lemon poppyseed bread, banana bread, pumpkin bread, that sort of thing), very good.

You can make your own crystallized (candied) ginger by a very similar process btw.

Pat

 

[me&thegals]

I would Google the candied peel thing. Basically, you're cleaning the white zest off the peels, slicing into thin slices and then cooking in a very sugary syrup for a while, then letting dry. I used to do these with orange, lemon and grapefruit peels. Maybe I'l have to do it again!

They're awesome eaten plain, dipped into dark chocolate and chopped into a honey-lemon-ginger biscotti recipe I have

As for the oranges, how many people do you have in your family? I have to limit my kids to 2 oranges per day when we get our cases, as they actually use them up TOO fast.

 

[Shiloh Acres]

Thanks for sharing how to make the candied orange peel.

Poor goaties ... they LOVE orange peel and I usually feed the peels to them. They're going to have to share now.

 

[savingdogs]

goats eat orange peels?

 

[rhoda_bruce]

Make some wine with it. It taste better than you might think.

 

[JRmom]

You can also can the segments. It's a bit of work - peeling and removing all the white pithy part - but soooo worth it to eat oranges when they are not in season. I canned a ton of tangerines earlier in the winter. Delicious in cole slaw.

 

[Marianne]

Make some wine with it. It taste better than you might think.

With oranges or just the peels? Sounds pretty tasty to me...