Preserving Floyd: Candied Peel

I have loved glaceed fruits since childhood.  Glowing like jewels, they attracted me.  The plump and sticky feel of them made me handle them with care.  They were to be consumed slowly and reverently because they were so lush and moist, so intensely rich and fruity that to bolt them down was to miss all the complexity contained within this rare treat.  The only time these beautifully preserved fruits showed up in our house was around Christmas and only in small amounts.  One a day was all that was allowed in order to make the treat last as long as possible.  I remember wheedling Mom to buy them when they would show up at the farmers market between Thanksgiving and Christmas, rows of them sparkling in the light.  Ruby red cherries, bright orange apricots, golden pineapple, rows of plump citrus: yellow, green and orange, sparkling with sugar.  Over the years these treats disappeared only to be replaced with commercial imitations in plastic tubs.  A very faint and disappointing shadow of the jewel box of fruits in my memory.

Last year around this time I came across an old recipe for glaceed apricots and having found a source for very good dried ones decided to try my hand at recreating this treat.  They were close.  Very close.  Partially dipping some of them in dark chocolate didn't hurt either.  I decided to definitely add them to my repertoire of holiday treats.  This year I wanted to add candied peel as well.

There are tons of candied peel recipes out there on the web and in cookbooks, especially the older ones.  When citrus was a seasonal treat and not an everyday grocery store purchase, moms and grandmas urged careful peeling of the fruits so they could dry, candy and store the rinds for other uses.  Waste not, want not.  I gleaned tips, times and ratios from these recipes to come up with my method for candied peel.

I started out with a bag of 12 naval oranges.  I chose navels because I wanted an orange with a good thick rind.  I gave each orange a good scrubbing and thorough drying and then proceeded to carefully remove the peels.  I cut the stem and blossom ends off each fruit so I could see where the pith ended and the meat began, scored the rinds in quarters without cutting into the meat, and carefully peeled it off.

Preserving Floyd: Of Cranberries & Clementines

This post, unfortunately, is an example of not buying local.  It is an example of in season and putting up in bulk.  Citrus doesn't grow around here.  We've not weaned ourselves enough to give up citrus totally and the greenhouse we will attempt to grow citrus in is still a daydream.  However, citrus is in season.  And citrus is at it's cheapest and most available now between Thanksgiving and Christmas along with cranberries.
Just before T-Day, armed with coupons and having compared store prices I headed out to the store offering the best prices on Clementines and cranberries.  I purchased twelve bags of fresh cranberries and two crates of Clementines.  Clementines are a member of the Mandarin Orange family and my mission was to put up half-pint jars of segments and make Clementine Orange Dust which I use as a spice in baking and cooking.  The cranberries I generally freeze as is to use throughout the year in various ways but I also wanted to attempt to dehydrate them into "craisins".  We recently identified a spot on our land that we think would be conducive to growing cranberries and if I can make acceptable dried cranberries we'll invest in planting some bushes.

First up: Cranberries.
Having done research on the web it appeared the best way to prepare the cranberries for the dehydrator was to poach them in a syrup made from a ratio of a 3/4 cup of sugar to 1 cup of water.  I wanted enough of this syrup to cover the cranberries (two 12 oz bags) so I multiplied that by 6 which was 4 1/2 cups of sugar to 6 cups of water.  I put the sugar and water in a large, heavy, non-reactive pot and brought it just to a boil.  Then I dumped in the cranberries and allowed them to boil for 1 minute, then immediately removed them from the heat.  This allowed the skins to burst but didn't allow the berries to overcook.  The cranberries then steeped in the syrup for 30 minutes.  (Whether you choose to sweeten the cranberries or not it's important to either slice them in half or blanch them in water to burst the skins.  If you just stick them in the dehydrator whole you'll end up with hard red marbles.)  Steeping allows the syrup to penetrate the berries and sweeten them.

After 30 minutes I removed the cranberries with a slotted spoon to a colander and allowed them to drain while reserving the now rich red cranberry syrup in the pot for another use.

Simple syrup after steeping cranberries