Orange Liquor

Extended Shelf Life: Oranges (peels specifically)

Remember how we dived a bunch of oranges?

It's lead to exciting creations such as Orange Marmalade and Tangerine Salsa.

But this round of dumpster diving and experimenting has lead me to explore the art of using the entire fruit or vegetable. To find ways to use peels and scraps, pulp and cores. 

Vinegar has been a life saver for this.

So is making home-made stock.

But, obviously, in our house, we also enjoy a good Alcohol experiment or two what with the brewing and all.

So, with more peels than I could handle, I figured it was time to soak some in Vodka and see what I could create.

Based on this recipe, I went forth with a simple experiment which basically involved soaking a large handful of tangerine peels in the Vodka from one 750 ml bottle for a couple of weeks. I think made a simple syrup with water and sugar, added it to the tangerine Vodka and we ended up with a sickly sweet bottle of Orange Liquor which turns out makes a fabulous drink when poured over lime ice cubes.

So there you have it! Just another way to use up things you'd otherwise trash, candy or compost!

Bacon Fat Tortillas

Extended Shelf Life for: Bacon Fat

When the Bacon Delivery-Man had the misfortune of dumping his good near Laramie and the towns people enjoyed the gift of free bacon, I decided it was 100% necessary to look into saving bacon fat and what possibilities may be had.

There were many recommendations to use the delicious fat to fry up eggs, add flavor to beans and grease various pans depending on the dish.

Knowing that the best tortillas are in fact made with lard, I opted to throw some of my refrigerated bacon grease into a double batch of tortillas and quite satisfied with the results!

Ingredients/Directions:
From The Joy of Cooking

This recipe is for a single batch, although I doubled my batch with no problems.

Mix together 2 cups Flour, 1 tsp. Baking Powder, 1 tsp. Salt, 1/4 cup Bacon Fat and 3/4 cups Hot Water. Knead (or mix with dough hook) until  dough is smooth. Divide dough into 8 equal parts, let set for 20 minutes, covered.

Roll out each dough ball into a 6-8 inch tortilla.

Heat a large non-stick or cast-iron skillet over medium heat. Cook about 30 seconds on the first side, 15 seconds on second side until bubbly, browned and delicious looking! Enjoy as is or with your favorite filling.

Candied Orange Peels

Extended Shelf life for: Oranges (peels, specifically)

Holy Oranges Batman! Our house has been the location of many an experiment and lately, oranges are finding themselves all over the place.

Being who I am, there's no way I can let that many orange peels pass through my hands without trying to figure out a creative, delicious use for them.

Rather than zesting the buggers and saving them for future use, like I did with my lemons, I decided it was time to candy some citrus peels and the results have been quite tasty...I'm sure, dipped in chocolate, they'd be even better, however we're just enjoying them as is.

Thanks to a beautifully titled blog: Use Real Butter, I used this recipe and turned out a delectable little treat!

Ingredients/Directions:

Remove the lovely little orange part of the 8 oranges from the bitter white pithy part of the orange. Since I have a hard-core juicer, I simply use a paring knife to slice off thin layers of the peel, finish removing the white pithy part and proceed to throw the the pulp into the juicer...if you want other suggestions, check out the original blog post...because it's late, I'm behind on blogging and...she did a real nice job explaining things ^^

Once you have lovely orange peels, throw them in a pot with cold water, bring to a boil, strain and repeat - you should do this a total of three times to eek out some of the bitterness.

With your oranges in the strainer, it's time to get into the real deal of making candied orange peels. Bring 3 cups of Sugar and 1 cup of Water to a boil over high heat until you reach 230 F. Add the orange peels, reduce to a simmer and simmer until translucent (30-75 minutes depending primarily on elevation). Remove peels from syrup and set on a rack to dry 4-5 hours or over night. If you wish to roll them in additional sugar at this point, you are more than welcome to do so. Otherwise, enjoy as is after a few hours or temper some chocolate and dip away!

Banana Vinegar

Extended Shelf life for: Bananas (peels specifically)

Much like apple cider vinegar and fruit cocktail vinegar, Banana Vinegar is simply the mixing of banana peels with a 1 quart to 1/4 cup sugar water mix until full. One week of fermenting as is followed by straining and a few more weeks of fermentation and you should wind up with a nice vinegar.

However, at this point, I'm not too confident that this vinegar is going to turn out well. It smells stranger than previous vinegars and has had a really eerie white gunk floating on the top...so, I'll keep you posted!