This is a wonderful dessert to serve after a heavy holiday meal.

This simple, but elegant dessert is classically Italian. It is light, but colorful, and offers tantalizing tastes. Your guests will think you slaved for hours, but you will can just smile and sip your after dinner drink.

Ingredients

• 6 ripe, juicy oranges, peeled with all pith removed
• 1 cup of Marsala wine
• 3 Tbs honey
• 6 Amaretti cookies crushed
• mint sprigs

Directions

Open the oranges up from the top, but leave them joined at the bottom so that they look like big flowers.
1. Heat the Marsala wine in a heavy saucepan over medium-high heat.
2. Add the honey and bring to a boil, blending the honey and wine well.
3. Pour the sauce over the opened oranges and sprinkle the crushed Amaretti cookies over them.
4. Garnish the with fresh mint leaves.

Note: The colors of orange, brown, beige, and green make this a great fall dish.
Oranges have a long tradition in Italy. One of the oddest traditions is the Orange Throwing Competition of Ivrea. Ivrea located in the Piedmont, near Turn. While the history of this carnival season competition is debated among historians, that has not stopped this annual event from growing larger and larger each year. Nine teams and thousands of people gather in the various piazze (squares) to battle with oranges.

This isn't a nice little game of tossing oranges back and forth, but a heated battle. Due to low temperatures the oranges sometimes freeze, making the experience closer to throwing rocks. This "battle" is not for the faint of heart!