Mint and Lemons

A woman that works for my husband brought us some chocolate mint sprigs from her garden recently. So a few days ago I decided to try to do something with them. I really wasn't sure what they would be best for. I didn't want to make mint sauce out of them since they were the "chocolate" variety. I found a few recipes online that looked wonderful! Mint chocolate torte, chocolate mint juleps, chocolate mint ice cream. Unfortunately, I didn't have the right ingredients on hand for any of those. I did have a bunch of lemons, though. So the kids and I decided to make some fresh chocolate mint lemonade. It sounded good at the time.

It turned out pretty good.
And we tried to make some mint ice cubes. Some blended, some whole leaves.


Those did not turn out good. Especially the blended ones! Bad idea! :)

The best thing that came out of the kitchen that day, however, was from the lemon peels. After we made the lemonade we had a bunch of leftover peels.

Rather than just throwing them away or composting them I decided to try to make candied lemon peels. They were a hit! First I had to carefully slice all the pith off.

Then I boiled the peels for about 5 minutes in water. Then I boiled them in a sugar solution for about 30 minutes. Finally, I dusted them with more granulated sugar. I saved the sugar solution which had become a lemon syrup. It turned out pretty yummy.
Another fun afternoon in the kitchen!