Hopeful Homesteading: Tangelo Edition

In another life, I would be a homesteader. Think, modern day Ma Ingalls--home all day growing my own food, making my own clothes, prepping, canning, baking, knitting. Guys, that is #goals. If I could, I would live somewhere secluded with my own plot for growing herbs and vegetables; I would harvest my food and then use up every last bit of the harvest. Instead, I live in a one bedroom apartment with no access to gardening land.

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I'm going to start a segment called Hopeful Homesteading, how I use up huge batches of certain produce before it goes bad. In Phoenix there is a great program for buying large amounts of produce that didn’t sell to grocery stores and would otherwise go to waste. It’s all seasonal, rotating produce and oftentimes I end up with large amounts of one item nearing their expiration date. These are often not items that can sit out on my counter or in my fridge for more than a couple of days, so I have learned to get very creative.

I was completely overwhelmed the first time I had 20 lbs of tomatoes. But now, armed with an arsenal of various canning jars and a stack of recipes and ideas, I can take care of those tomatoes easily.

Pinterest is a great tool for finding creative solutions when I masses of something that I’ve never eaten before.. Like this week, when I got 6 pounds of tangelos! Tangelos? Besides resembling an orange, I had no idea what they were like.

Tangelos are a hybrid fruit and the name is a portmanteau for the two fruits, tangerine and pomelo. They peel easily and are incredibly juicy. I have to REALLY be in the mood for eating a plain orange, so I started scouring Pinterest for what to do with 6 lbs. of tangelos.

In the end, I used 4 pounds to make marmalade. It’s slightly sweeter than marmalade, which I’m actually not a fan of, but I wanted to use it on a cake in the future.

With the remaining 2.5 pounds, I used half to make garland and half to make tangelo simple syrup. For the simple syrup,  I juiced the tangelos and measured it out with an equal amount of sugar in a small saucepan. I brought it to a gentle boil, then let it cool before transferring it to a jar and refrigerating it.

I used the remaining tangelos to use as Christmas decorations! My dream Christmas decor is basically the March home from the 1994 Little Women--all candles and greenery and homemade decor. The diy tangelo garland is just bringing me one step closer to my goals, ya’ll. I sliced four of them on my mandoline slicer, then arranged them on two sheet trays. These can be touching, because they shrink as they cook and they won’t stick together. These cooked in a 200°F oven for three hours. I flipped them over every hour and rotated the pans. 

Do you have a mandoline in your kitchen? Because you honestly need one. You can certainly slice these up, but to avoid mess and frustration and achieve QUICK and consistently thin slices using a mandoline. There are definitely some simple, cheaper options out there, but I have this mandoline and I highly recommend it. Mandolines are extremely sharp and make quick work of slicing through fruits and vegetables. The model I have can slice in two different thicknesses, as well and chopping and slicing as well. I sliced all four of my tangelos in about 60 seconds.

Also, may I suggest leaving your oven light on while you make this? The 200°F oven barely registers heat, so without timers and the light on, it would be easy to forget your oranges and burn them, she says from personal experience...Yep, last year I forgot about my oranges and left the house for a Christmas parade only to return to COMPLETELY BLACK oranges that evening.

These dried oranges make such a lovely addition to Christmas decor no matter how you use them. You can hang them on your tree, string them up and run them along your fireplace, even drop them in your apple cider and Grand Marnier! Go crazy and then definitely tag me on Instagram, @meganbmccarthy!