Many people don’t like to compost citrus peel because it’s fairly resistant to being broken down. But did you know that there are lots of great uses for household citrus peel scraps.
I said the pills from oranges, grapefruit, etc. in bags in the freezer until I have a bunch. I had had a bunch saved up for quite a while and been meaning to finally use it.
Finally got around to taking my stash of frozen citrus peel scraps and starting the process of turning it into the usual wonderful things.
1) Citrus peel gets boiled two or three times and the water gets poured off. I use some of the poured-off water for a tea, and some of it as an ingredient in a natural household cleaner.
The other ingredient in this cleaner is cleaning vinegar which I obtained at a community event when jugs of it was being handed out. I filled up to the top of the curvy part of the wine-bottle with the citrus boil water, and then topped off the rest of the bottle with the lavender-scented cleaning vinegar.
2) Once the multiple boilings are completed (this is to leach the bitterness out of the peel), then I will be boiling the citrus pieces in sugar water, until they are almost transparent at which point they become a yummy sweet treat. Candied citrus peel.
The first couple of boils I did in the solar oven yesterday, as it was nice and sunny. I’m doing the third boil now on the stove-burner because it’s evening and I forgot to stick them in the solar oven today, and I want to finish the project.
The high-temperature boiling-down part with the sugar-water will also be done on the electric stove burner as opposed to in the solar oven. This is because the solar oven is more like a crockpot. Gentle even heat. Wonderful for many things but not for jelly making or candy making per se. (I have made syrups in the solar oven though, so it can be done.)
You can see some pics here on my deep green Facebook page.
#SolarOven #NaturalCleaner #CitrusPeel