Candied Orange Peel

I made candied orange peel this morning while I waited for the plumber to come and install new kitchen facets.  Homemade candied orange peel is just one of the best things ever. It has no relationship to that candied orange peel you buy in the grocery.  I made it just like I made the lemon peel - which I had to make over because I ate all of the first batch - not in one sitting, but over time. It's such a great little bit to eat at the end of a meal as a palate cleanser - and it tastes so good! It's so easy to make and you get to eat the oranges as well.  With the lemons I squeezed the juice and froze it in ice cube trays. I love oranges so I just wrapped their little naked selves in plastic wrap and enjoyed them over the course of a couple of days. Yum!

Hopefully, tomorrow I get started on candying the sour cherries and then its time to bake the fruit cake! I finished the pineapple last weekend before we neutered the cats.  You can't believe what a huge difference it makes to use home candied fruits to make fruit cake. The only purchased fruit I will use will be golden raisins. You also can't imagine what a huge difference it makes to have the cats neutered. 

I'm also busy digging up a space to plant some red raspberry starts my brother is giving me. I'm trading him several truck loads of good compost. I have some high gravely ground in the garden that has been nothing but weeds for several years, and should be great for the raspberries. My brother and his wife have the most wonderful crops of red raspberries you can imagine and my sister-in-law makes a fantastic red raspberry pie at least once in the season. She says she makes it just like strawberry pie. I think it tastes even better than strawberry pie.