candied citrus peel dipped in chocolate

Sounds yummy, right? I saw a picture of these somewhere about a week ago and I just kept thinking about them, so I made them last night. I will spare myself from retyping it - it was a L-O-N-G recipe. Here is the link... http://www.globalgourmet.com/food/ilc/1299/citrus.html Let me preface this by saying there is a reason I'm not the world's best baker, which is the same reason I will not be making my living as a candy maker either. The process is long and detailed and requires a precise, non-corner-cutting cook. That is not me. I'm the type that opens the cupboard and throws together whatever I can find and dinner magically appears. I can't stand following recipes - it's just too tedious. That said, I did enjoy sneaking away and having a solid block of time to myself, so I tried to revel in it. Instead of 4 oranges I used 1 grapefruit, 1 orange and 1 lemon. I also only half dipped the strips. The process from start to finish took a total of 2-2.5 hours.... Yes. It takes that long. I knew this going in, but by the end of it, when your careful hand really makes your product look nice, I was too tired. I was so excited to taste them and was SO disappointed when the were exceedingly bitter! I tried my best to really get all of the white pith out, but obviously it wasn't a good enough effort. I hoped the chocolate would counteract the bitter, but no. SIGH! Oh well. I have eaten some of them just because. They aren't so awful, but I just had this idea in my head of the yumminess of candied orange peel that I have had before from a store.... the next time I crave such yumminess, to a store I will go...