A jar of Sunshine

I bought a large bag of tangerines awhile ago, but they were really too sour to eat and were just sitting around getting old, so I tried out this idea from Dinah Corley's book Gourmet Gifts and was blown away. I had to force myself to stop eating them long enough to take a picture.

2/3 cup sugar
1 1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp fresh ground nutmeg
Combine in your measuring cup and get a quart jar.
Slice the tops and bottoms off 4 oranges (more or less depending on size, I used about 15 tiny) and run a sharp knife along the remaining peel from top to bottom to remove it and the white pith. Slice the peeled orange into rings and begin to layer them in the jar, sprinkling with sugar and spices as you go. Fill jar to top, add any remaining sugar and pour in the juice of one lemon and any juices on your cutting board from the oranges. Put a lid on and gently shake. Refrigerate 2 hours to dissolve sugar, then stand at the fridge and eat out of the jar with a fork! If you can bear to not eat them all at once, this will keep for 4 days refrigerated. The author suggests this as the perfect gift for a sick friend, and I have to agree that this would be pretty spectacular to receive, sick or not!
I found that this was plenty sweet and had used very sour oranges to begin with, so you may not want to use the whole amount of sugar if you have sweet oranges. I think this could be lovely with grapefruit too, though I'd want to try brown sugar and vanilla. How good would this be on pancakes? I'm thinking pretty gosh darn good.