OK, I'm more than frugal, I'm stingy. I admit it. I don't like to throw away anything, especially food. I bought a bag of Florida navel oranges. They were very good. Well, I bought another bag. This time, it occurred to me I should save the zest from the peels.
So, I have the zest of a dozen oranges individually frozen in little packets. I'm looking for some ideas on what to do with all that zest. There will be more, too. Maybe I could make orange bitters with them, but I haven't looked into that, yet.
How can I use this zest? Do remember that I do very little baking.
Use orange or lemon zest in fresh vegetables such as green beans, spinach, cabbage or any type of vegetable to give it a robust flavor and cut back on salt. I also use a small amount of citrus zest when using a cake mix for a different flavor. There are various ways to cook with zest either savory or sweet dishes.
You can use orange peels to make essential orange oil for cleaning. You can also make an orange oil for use in baking. There are numerous recipes online for making different kinds.
The other day I ran across a recipe for your own diy enzymatic cleaner, you know, that stuff that gets rid of even the most pernicious odors www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com/
It requires mixing the zest up with brown sugar, yeast, water, and letting it ferment.
I have spent good money on enzymatic cleaners in the past so this seems like a great thing to me
Since I live in Florida...
Oranges are very plentiful - almost year round so I also have zest but over the years I have found many uses for all parts of the orange.
There are lots of uses for all parts of the orange but since you are asking about zest, I will give some of my personal ways to use this nice ingredient.
I love to add orange zest to many of my fresh and frozen vegetables; green peas, green beans, cauliflower, and it is very good in fresh cranberry sauce.
After trial and error I have found the flavor seems to be best if added at the very end of cooking or even just before serving (food still hot).
I use orange and lime zest with mangos and papayas. I also use the zest when cooking jelly. Lime and orange zest replaces sure jell and helps to jell your jams. Here in Tahiti we don't have sure jell so I use lime zest or orange zest when I make my mango and papaya jelly.
Cookies, breads, etc. We will be going into fall soon and with Halloween, and Christmas coming up you could use the zest in zucchini bread, sugar cookies, and bread.
