This year my boys and I made candied orange peels and we ate so many yesterday that we were happy to give some away to teachers and friends today.
Recipe adapted from Canal House Cooking (of "It's Always Five O'Clock Somwhere" fame)
3-4 organic navel oranges, skins scrubbed under warm water
3 cups muscavado or turbinado organic sugar
1 vanilla bean
1 sprig fresh rosemary
Working with one orange at a time, slice the ends off the fruit, just exposing the flesh. Cut fat pieces of peel and pith- scrape off any flesh that gets on the pith.
Place peels in medium heavy pot with cold water and bring to a boil. Dump water. Repeat. Remove peels from the pot
Put 2 cups of sugar and 3 cups of water into the same pot and bring to a boil. Once sugar is dissolved, add orange peels, vanilla bean and rosemary.
Reduce heat and simmer until peels are soft and liquid is a thick syrup- about 2 hours.
Once they look good, remove them and put them on a drying rack to cool.
At this point you can leave them as they are or dredge them in sugar for a more traditional look and taste.
We went one more step and melted some good semi sweet chocolate (we used Valrhona but Sharfen berger rocks too) in a double boiler and dipped the ends once the peels were cool and hardened.
