CANDIED ORANGE PEEL

Steps:

• Using a very sharp potato peeler, peel the rind from 3 navel oranges. Do your best to get only the orange color as the white part is the pith and can be bitter. A little pith is ok as the next few steps will insure that the bitterness is gone.
• If you have an electric tea pot fill it with water and bring it to a boil. This will make the following process go much faster. If you do not have an electric tea pot you can bring a large pot of water to boil and use this water for the following steps. You do not have to do this step, but having boiling water ready for use will make the preparation go much faster.
• Place the orange peels in a very small saucepan and cover them with boiling water. Place the saucepan onto your burner, bring it back to a rolling boil and allow it to boil for 1 minute. Drain your peels into a sieve and repeat this process two more times. This 3 time boiling process is used to insure that no bitterness from any pith will dominate your candied orange peels.
• Place 1 1/2 cups sugar into the small saucepan and add 1 1/2 cups boiling water. Bring this to a boil and stir until all of the sugar is dissolved thoroughly.
• Now add your orange peels to the sugar water and reduce to a simmer. Simmer for 45 minutes to an hour or until the orange peels become translucent.
• Carefully remove a few peels at a time from the boiling sugar water and place them into a shallow bowl that is filled with 1 cup of granulated sugar. Move the peels around to cover them as much or as little as you like. When covered to your liking, remove them to a cooling rack and separate them to dry. Repeat this until all of the peels are sugar coated and on the drying rack.
• Dry the candied orange peels for 12 to 24 hours and then store them in a container with the remaining rolling sugar. If you do not wish to store the peels in the sugar, take the exra rolling sugar and combine it with the sugar already in the saucepan. Bring this back to a slow boil, stirring to combine and melt the sugar. Strain the sugar mixture through a fine sieve. This sugar mixture can be used to sweeten tea or coffee but it is sweet, so use sparingly.
• To use in place of citron rub excess sugar off and mince the orange peels very finely. Use teaspoon for teaspoon in recipes that call for candied citron.