Nice Sunday morning and since Grandma brought us some Clementines from her visit yesterday; it was perfect set up to Wheeze (squeeze) some fresh squeezed orange juice.
Easy way to not only involve your toddler but since mine lacks interest in his fruits and veggies , this is one sure fire way to get them the nutrients they need. Plus they help so they feel amazing about themselves and I would wager the juice tastes amazing to.
As far as helping I set up the old school juicer onto the bowl and sliced the Clementines , but let my toddler have at it. I did of course squeeze the end trails of juice from his "finished " ones .
Finished product and he was so happy that he made it . Heard "Yum , so good" , more than a few times.
Inspiration struck of course looking at all the leftover halves of the Clementines , leading us to the purpose of this post the Candied Peels.
Perfect for a picky eater to get some essential vitamins and minerals. No clue why I had never thought of this before. Peels contain Dietary Fibre, Vitamins, A, C, E, Iron, Calcium, Potassium , just to name a few of the many vitamins and minerals you benefit from .
To Candy Your Peel
I flipped the peel over and easily took the insides off, I washed all the peels as well once cleaned of orange guts. We used 4 Clementines.
I finely chopped mine, but you can julienne them as thin or as thick as you want.
Put on stove to boil in just enough cold water to cover them . Let this boil 30 min , just peels and water . Strain into a strainer as you will need to reuse your pot and the peels can drain of excess water while preparing syrup. Boil 1 Cup of sugar and 1/2 a Cup of water on the stove for 5 minutes. I should add though that dependant upon how much peel you intend to make you may need to use more sugar water ratio. If you use 2 cups of sugar you would use 1 cup of water and so forth. I needed only a small amount for the amount of peel and size of peel I used.
Once you have boiled your simple syrup of your sugar and water add the peels to the mix. You want to have medium heat at this point as we are going to simmer the peels into the syrup for another 5 minutes. I stirred once each minute. After the 5 minutes simmer you will want to drain your syrup from the peels. I chose to save my simple syrup for future baking use.
At this point I put some sugar on a plate so I could roll my peels in it. I used about 1/4 of a cup but measurement is not significant as you just want to roll and coat each piece.
So here you are , yummy candied orange peels. Once you have coated in the sugar you will want to place on a wire rack to dry. This is the only bummer part of the whole equation because now they have to sit and dry for 4 hours . So now we wait , but will be so worth it. After the 4 hours if you have any left you will want to store them in an airtight container .
