Candies Desserts

candied grapefruit peel recipe

happy valentine’s day — bittersweet! ::::

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Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, that gussied up romantic holiday celebrating the loves in our lives. Love is like a grapefruit, bitterness tempered with sweet. There are sticky days when our proverbial hands never seem clean and dry. There are times when we savor the desire, a sweetness intertwined with a papery disappointment on our tongues. Sometimes we need a little sugary crunch to get us through. The tunnel vision of reds and pinks for this holiday make us forget that reality. The satisfying long-term, that cozy padding fortifying our souls, that is real. And it’s here.

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These candied grapefruit peels are one embodiment of love, a picture of bitter and sweet, sticky and crusty, a beautiful vision in light, a bit of tart in your teacup.

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Celebrate your loved ones. Be real, the real you seeing the real them.

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Meditation on a Grapefruit – By Craig Arnold

To wake when all is possible
before the agitations of the day
have gripped you
                    To come to the kitchen
and peel a little basketball
for breakfast
              To tear the husk
like cotton padding        a cloud of oil
misting out of its pinprick pores
clean and sharp as pepper
                             To ease
each pale pink section out of its case
so carefully       without breaking
a single pearly cell
                    To slide each piece
into a cold blue china bowl
the juice pooling       until the whole
fruit is divided from its skin
and only then to eat
                  so sweet
                            a discipline
precisely pointless       a devout
involvement of the hands and senses
a pause     a little emptiness
each year harder to live within
each year harder to live without

Source: Poetry (October 2009) – found online

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One year ago: date-apricot balls with coconut and cacao nibs and taiwanese stewed sesame ginger chicken

Two years ago: happy valentine’s day 2013

Three years ago: madeleines

Four years ago: golden beet latkes with smoked paprika sour cream

 

From the prolific Bon Appetit

candied grapefruit peel recipe
Author: 
Recipe type: dessert
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 
 
Ingredients
  • 2 large organic grapefruits
  • 1 cup of sugar, plus more for dredging and storing
  • water
Instructions
  1. Cut peel from grapefruits into about 1 cm strips leaving a bit of the white pith attached (scrape some of it off, but don't worry about being really clean about it).
  2. Place in a small saucepan; add cold water to cover. Bring to a boil, then drain. Do this two more times. (It helps decrease the bitterness of the final candy.)
  3. Bring peel, 1 cup sugar, and ½ cup water to a boil in same saucepan.
  4. Reduce heat and simmer until peel is translucent, 15 to 20 minutes.
  5. Drain and transfer peel to a wire rack and allow to dry, 2 to 4 hours. Toss in more sugar and store in airtight container for weeks in a blanket of sugar. The sugar may moisten over time; no worries, just use it for sweetening tea or coffee after the candied peels are gone.
  6. I like eating these as an adjunct with something sweet or tannic. A peel is nice in a cup of tea, or a nice gift if dipped in tempered chocolate.

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