Homemade Crystallized Ginger

I love adding little pieces of cyrstallized ginger to my gingerbread man cookies and gingerbread scones, but it's so expensive! At least it is in my town. I can't remember how much it is at Whole Foods, but it really doesn't matter since the nearest one is about 3 hours away. On the rare occasion I'm there, I buy a big bag. I searched the internet and found a recipe that sounded good. It was! I tweaked it just a tad and here it is.

Ingredients:
10 oz fresh ginger, peeled and thinly sliced
2 1/4 cups sugar, divided
1/4 cup water

Directions:
Combine ginger, 2 cups sugar, and water in a large, heavy pan. Bring to a very slow simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, for 1 1/2 hours. The ginger will become translucent and the sugar will crystallize on the edge of the pan. Sprinkle 1/4 cup sugar on baking sheet. Lay drained ginger on sugar. Toss the ginger in the sugar when the ginger has cooled enough to handle, about 10 minutes. Store in airtight container. The syrup that's left in the pan can be used on pancakes.

A word of caution: if you're used to the store-bought kind, try a SMALL piece of this. It'll light you up. I don't think I'll dump a cup of this in my gingerbread man cookies. Maybe half a cup. Or maybe a fourth.

And now for some pictures. Because I like pictures :)

Scrape the skin off the ginger with a spoon.







Unpeeled ginger and peeled ginger.







I sliced it as thin as I could.








Simmering.








Just out of the pan and HOT.








All done!