The futility of frugal orange marmalade

Recently I was wondering about the possibility of using the peels of nice oranges to make orange marmalade. You know how it goes... "waste not, want not." Well I love orange marmalade and sometime in the far, distant past I heard that you could save the peels (after you've used the inside fruit of the orange for other purposes) and make orange marmalde with basically peels, sugar, and water. So I Googled orange marmalade in search of the magic recipe. Well, I really couldn't find one, so I thought perhaps I could simply put it together on my own.

O.k. guys - here is the low-down on how NOT to make orange marmalade.

I used the peels of 4 large navel oranges, plus 1 whole orange

I put them all in my small food processor and chopped it all up.

I then added 2 cups orange juice (out of a carton) and 4 cups water.

I cooked this for about 1 hour. Cooled. Refrigerated overnight.

Next afternoon: I measured the mess and put an equal amount of sugar in the pot with it. Cooked it for about 1 hour. Cooled. Refrigerated overnight. (First I tasted it before refrigerating it and thought, "My this has a 'bite' to it!")

Today, I took it out of the fridge and tasted it. I intended to perhaps add a cup of water and another cup of sugar and cook until it thickened. However, after this taste "treat" I decided that my tongue and my stomach would not be able to tolerate the "bitters" this much. So now I have a syrupy mess to dispose of.

Now I want all of you good jamming cooks to get your chuckles out of this for I have learned my lesson - there just isn't anyway to use those orange peels and make decent orange marmalade. Folks, I'll stick to the good store-bought stuff any day over the mess I conjured up.